See you all at Beirut Design Week where we will be hosting a panel on the Business of Design! Come and join us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of setting, sustaining and scaling a creative business.
Beirut Creative Roadshow is the biggest forum for digital creative companies in Lebanon, highlighting and connecting the best creators in the field.
A few weeks ago, the Beirut Creative Cluster and Mirada Madrid decided to team up and bring the Global Service Jam to Beirut for the first time.
On April 2, we celebrated the launching of the cluster by organizing the Creative Upload Party (CUP 1.0) at Playroom, Nahr El Mot, under the patronage of H.E Minister of Telecom Nicolas Sehanoui. Nearly 400 A-list industry professionals, university faculty members and market shakers were present to celebrate the Lebanese creative industry.
Many notable people talked about the Beirut Creative Cluster during the party. Mr. Mohammad Rabbah of ZRE, which initiated the Beirut Digital District talked about the BDD and how important is its partnership with the Beirut Creative Cluster (BCC). 
Then, Mr. Hani Asfour, our President, noted in his speech that the aim of the BCC is to improve and stimulate the creative industry in Lebanon. Also, Mr. Diego Escalona Paturel, Head of the cooperation section at the Delegation of the EU to Lebanon, specified that the EU is glad to support the cluster and wishes all the best in the future. Then, Mr. Maroun Chammas, CEO of Berytech, noted that the BCC is a very important entity to have in Lebanon because the creative industry in the country needs support and motivation. Finally, H.E Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui highlighted the importance of the digital economy in Lebanon, mentioning his excitement concerning the launching of the BCC.
Our guests enjoyed the relaxed and fun atmosphere, and they were entertained by the talented band, The FreeRolls, featuring Cheryl Khairallah, who took their breath away with her voice. Also, the Beirut Groove Collective DJs played a great set of music.
What is really behind the name of our party, “Creative Upload Party”? In fact, our country Lebanon has positioned itself as one of the leading markets in digital media consumption (the download to upload ratio is close to 10 to 1); while this might be looked at as a positive indicator for some industries it also highlights the lack of our production in the digital content arena. One of the missions of the BCC is to encourage digital content production; there should be more local work being uploaded from Lebanon and consumed across the world so that our country becomes again the regional epicenter of creativity.
In addition, the launch of the BCC was designed around three axes culminating in a party.
1. Designers & entrepreneurs co-creating new service solutions in response to a global theme in partnership with Mirada Madrid
2. A four-day workshop with three UK experts in partnership with the British Council
3. The creation of a trade mission to represent the industry at MIPTV 2013 in Cannes
Finally, we would like to thank our partners in the party Beirut Digital District, IDAL and Alfa, and thank you IXSIR, GreyGoose and Emblème for your support.
@wonderbrothers.comAndreAbiAwad:
“Beirut Creative Cluster launching with a mission – 3 Pillars: Talent, Infrastructure, Environment #BeirutCluster”
“We are so happy to see such an initiative coming to life. Good luck to @wonderbrothers.comBeirutCreativeC”
@wonderbrothers.comBeirutDigitalD:
@wonderbrothers.commiradamadrid:
@wonderbrothers.comjoumanamattar:
@wonderbrothers.comBlakeUcef:
Lebanon’s creatives are scaling up together to take on the international market with the newly launched Beirut Creative Cluster.
“We’re pioneering this. And there is absolutely no guarantee of success,” pronounces Salim Tannous. He’s managing director of the newborn Beirut Creative Cluster (BCC), a consortium of 25 design and media agencies working together to advance Lebanese media services within and without Lebanon.
Sitting beside Tannous is Hani Asfour, founder of the design firm Polypod and president of the seven-member board of the BCC, who nervously laughs: “I’ve just dived in to the deep end, and am going to see what happens.” He quickly adds: “and you’re the lifeguard Salim!”
“And I barely know how to swim!” Tannous retorts. The two men together could go back and forth, it seems, for hours: trading anecdotes about museum visits, architectural features or thoughts on the BCC. Both want to heap praise and credit upon the other; neither would accept it in return.
“But I have to say I can’t take any credit for the BCC yet,” Asfour remarks. “It’s all Salim’s legwork, his foresight, his vision. I look to him for guidance.”
“The cluster is not me, it’s them,” Tannous later returns.
Whoever is doing the work, the Beirut Creative Cluster represents a powerful new development in the national economy. For clusters are extraordinary means for a set of businesses to increase productivity and obtain the benefits from a greater economy of scale – without sacrificing competition.
Tannous describes the cluster as a “platform” to “allow collaboration between people in the same industry to drive innovation.” Though “cluster” is an inherently ambiguous term. The details on how a cluster of companies cooperates varies widely from country to country; and they can expand, Tannous notes, to as large as 700 companies. Even clusters of clusters will develop within major national industries. He cites cosmetics as the biggest in France, with such companies as L’Oréal involved.
When we were putting together our 2013 agenda we could not overlook the possibility of being associated to the most prestigious media event of the year; the MENA Cristal Festival.
The aim of the BCC for this year’s partnership was to introduce our brand and more importantly our 25 member companies to the 600 professionals gathered at the Intercontinental Mzaar.
The team from Pencell assisted us in positioning the BCC as an Associate Partner of the festival and it was a delight to see our young organization’s logo next to established and respected names.
We then had a long brainstorming session with Penguin Cube (BCC member) to try and figure out how to present the brand in this event in a fun, smart and engaging manner (yes that was the brief and that was all they needed).
The concept was simply to have usherettes walking around with a tray strapped around their shoulders carrying stamps and business cards. Each stamp represented a company with its logo; website and key contact details.
Our presence drew a lot of curiosity and created the awareness we were hoping to achieve; we also got engaged in many private conversations with top agency executives who wanted to know more about the BCC and were then quick to express their encouragements and offered their support for our organization.
With the conclusion of our first high profile visibility event we would like to express our gratitude to
the MENA Cristal Festival team for giving us a great platform ;
our friends at Pencell for their diligence in constantly putting us under the spotlight;
Penguin Cube for your creative solutions which all worked perfectly (you should have seen how engaged people were);
Wondereight for designing a logo that has landed on the page of every major publication;
the Berytech team for all the work that you are doing behind the scenes;
the EU for supporting us and keeping a watchful eye on our growth.
Fondation Liban Cinema-FLC and the Beirut Creative Cluster, in collaboration with the French Institute in Lebanon and the European Union Delegation in Lebanon, organized a five day workshop for script rewriting for fiction feature films.
The workshop was directed by two scriptwriting experts.
Olivier Gorce, French screenwriter, Vice President of the Guild of Writers in France, regular speaker at the Fémis School, nominated for the 2012 César for Best Adapted script Omar killed me by Roschdy Zem.
Georges Hachem, Lebanese writer-director, head of audio-visual department at Antonine University, his film Lost Bullet is the winner of Best Screenplay at the Cairo Festival and Best Arab Film at the Festival of Dubai.
A total of 18 fiction feature film projects were submitted to a selection committee made of professionals who selected the five projects that participated in the workshop.
During the workshop, the two scriptwriters carried out individual sessions with five Lebanese scriptwriters and offered them advice and guidance in the process of re writing their scripts in order for them to make their scripts more complete and more appealing to international producers. A follow-up session will be organised six months later.
The Creative Media Days investigate the role of ICT innovation in media, focusing on the creative possibilities and the emergence of new business models. The BCC took part in a series of conferences and workshops that looked into new business models, innovative technology and emerging platforms and applications.
Experimentation, creativity, Future Internet capabilities and Social Innovation are cornerstones of most of the active European Network of Living Labs (ENOLL) in this field.
