It is crucial to educate the next generations and start at an early stage to make a change!
In light of educating students, Berytech ran several workshops for more than 80 students from different universities including the American University of Beirut (AUB), Saint Joseph University (ESIA-M) and University of the Holy Spirit Kaslik (USEK).
During the month of November, Agrytech ran several workshops and lectures at different universities to initiate students and professors to the different opportunities in entrepreneurship present in the agri-food sector.
American University of Beirut
Led by their instructor of ‘New Trends in Agricultural and Food Systems’ course, AUB students were welcomed by the Agrytech team and were exposed to the different means by which Berytech has been supporting entrepreneurs and startups working in the agri-food sector especially through its accelerator program Agrytech.
Ramy Boujawdeh, deputy general manager at Berytech, explained the importance of the business model canvas when validating an idea in order to be able to tackle weak points in the business and pivot to meet the market requirements.
Saint Joseph University
USJ students enrolled in the course ‘Innovation and entrepreneurship’ taught at ESIA-M visited Berytech to learn more about entrepreneurship principles. Hadi Hodeib, Agrytech’s program officer, explained the principles of a business model and worked with the students on developing their own.
Three teams from the Agrytech Accelerator Batch 2 shared their journey with the students to show how a simple idea can become a business if the team works hard to develop and validate their idea.
Quadra team represented by Serge El Khoury and Kristina Farah motivated students to take advantage of their final year project to build a business around it especially that their own startup- optical fruit sorting machine, started as a university project.
Zeina Shalak representing Agronline– an e-commerce platform linking restaurants to farmers, stated the main crucial points for success revolve around validating the need for any suggested solution or product before introducing it to the market.
Similarly, Rayanne Beayno co-founder of Mushtic – a natural packaging replacing styrofoam, explained: “If you have a product, but there is no market for it, then it is useless. You need to study the market first before starting to develop your product and continue to validate it as you proceed. This is one of the biggest learnings we had in the accelerator.”
University of the Holy Spirit Kaslik
In addition, students from the faculty of Agriculture at USEK welcomed Joey Ghanem, Events and PR officer at Berytech, to learn about the different opportunities present in the field inciting students to search and work hard on finding new solutions in the agri-food sector at a time where many fresh graduates are leaving the country. They were also introduced to the different opportunities and support the ecosystem offers students.
“Agrytech is always thriving to support and help students discover the different opportunities in the agri-food sector,” concludes Boujawdeh.
