Introduction
With Lebanon having one of the largest and most active civil societies in the region, many of them concentrated in Beirut, the E-Mediat program is training representatives from over 50 non-governmental and civil society organizations from Beirut and Tripoli and their outlying areas. The organizations work in a wide range of areas in both the urban and rural regions, including women’s rights and empowerment, youth, the disabled, poverty alleviation and civic participation.
The E-Mediat program is providing these organizations with the skills and tools to better reach and communicate with their target audiences, share information, develop partnerships and more effectively promote their missions. With each new training, participants are seeing exposure to their organizations increase, their community of members expand, interest in their causes grow and new opportunities develop both nationally and internationally. Their new technology knowledge and skills are also helping them find creative solutions for reaching rural and underserved communities.
Team Bios
Nada Hamzeh |Country Directory, Lebanon | @NADO23
Nada Hamzeh comes to the program with more than 13 years of experience as a public relations manager specializing in branding, image consultancy and media campaigns for advertising agencies, politicians and the non-profit field, where she focused on education, health, micro-credit, agriculture/environment, raising awareness and event management.
She managed the “Lebanon Award for Innovation” program for Lebanese citizens around the world who have contributed to innovative ideas in the creative and educational fields. In 2008, Nada received the “Women Empowerment through ICT Award” for directing the Women in Technology Program (WIT) in Lebanon. The WIT program, managed by the Institute of International Education, aimed to empower 10,000 women through IT, business skills and professional development training in nine countries across the MENA region. In addition, Nada has participated as a keynote speaker in a number of countries and has participated in many international conferences.
Nada holds a Bachelor degree in Public Relations from Saint Joseph University in Beirut and is an active member in many NGOs, press clubs and the online safety committee.
Mona Messlmany | Training Coordinator, Lebanon | @MonaSul
Mona has extensive administrative experience and has been involved in managing and coordinating many training seminars and workshops. She enjoyed her work in handling program logistics and reporting for Women in Technology and Makhzoumi Foundation.
Mona’s academic background in computer science and professional experience in media skills led to her interest in the E-Mediat program, which she joined in 2011. She has attended several training workshops including Training for Trainers on Training NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa on New Media, and ‘Unlimited Potential (Microsoft Curriculum) on Windows 7 & Office 2007,’ in addition to Children’s Online Safety.
Ayman F. Itani | Strategic Advisor, Lebanon | @aymanitani | linkedin/aymanitani | thinkmedialabs
Ayman Itani is the Founder and CEO of Think Media Labs (thinkmedialabs.com), a premier digital and social media boutique agency that helps enterprises and international brands targeting Lebanon, the Gulf, and the MENA region thrive by drawing on Internet platforms to digitally capture their customers and audiences, to create brand commitment.
Ayman lectures and conducts workshops at several universities and teaches a course on “Media, Culture, and Technology” at the Lebanese American University which helps Communication Arts students adapt and take full advantage of the industry shifts incubated by the Internet, specifically content generation, consumption, distribution, and commercialization. In addition, Ayman regularly presents keynote speeches, workshops, case-studies and expert review and consulting on the convergence of communication, media, user interaction design, history of technology, Internet architecture, and the social web, to a wide range of audiences, including entrepreneurs, technologists, mobile platform experts, NGOs, executives, government bodies, and artists.
He recently became the proud father to the now 1-year-old Lea who already has a twitter account and is a celebrity in his social network. He considers this his most important and hardest job so far.
Training Partners
Al Moultaka Women’s Forum
Al Moultaka hosts the E-Mediat trainings in Beirut. During 2003, a group of female physicians, university professors, lawyers, teachers and other community workers came together and established the Women’s Forum of the Southern Coast of Beirut which had as its objective to help alleviate the suffering of the area’s underprivileged population by establishing sustainable development processes in the educational and health fields.
The organization’s goals in the short to medium term are to advocate, lobby and create proper groups to build pressure on the Lebanese government to ensure existing schools received continuous maintenance, rehabilitation and renovation, as well as properly equip them, as well as to rent enough buildings to eliminate the two shift system with its curricular and extracurricular consequences. The organization also aims to actively participate in these processes at the grassroots level.
Women in IT
Women in Information Technology (WIT) hosts the E-Mediat trainings in Beirut. WIT is a non-profit association, which is dedicated to inspiring more women to be willing and able to use the new technologies as a tool for their own empowerment. Specifically, WIT aims to encourage more young women and girls to choose and prepare for ICT careers; and improve the lives of all women, their families and communities through the usage of ICT.
WIT is a non-political, non-sectarian organization established in July 2005 and launched in June 2006 and is governed by its constitution grounded in transparency, integrity, and social advancement.
IT Association, Tripoli
IT Association hosts the E-Mediat trainings in Tripoli. It currently is in the process of entering a new phase through its new internal constitution focused on expanding its activities and services by merging the skills and knowledge of both academic and individuals with IT companies to better perform for the benefit of the association, as well as the IT business field. The association has the following objectives:
- Encourage IT investment in North Lebanon
- Improve IT business and services
- Supervise the IT sector to guarantee better services for consumers
- Help the employment of IT graduates
- Organize seminars to familiarize communities with IT
- Interchange and improve skills and experiences among IT members
- Organize a yearly exhibition to demonstrate the latest technology
- Have the association act as IT referee for the private and public sector
- Help to apply Lebanese and International laws concerning royalties
During the past five years, the association has been active in numerous IT events and helped organize DotExpo 2003 and 2004. It has also established mutual agreements and contacts with a number of other organizations also interested in improving the IT sector, such as the technology committee of the Lebanese parliament, the chamber of commerce in Tripoli and north Lebanon, Microsoft, Al-Azzem Wa Saadeh organization, Safadi Foudation, DotExpo and Future Movement.
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