The World Bank and Lebanon’s Ministry of Telecommunications hosted a week-long event aimed at sharing knowledge and experiences between Chile and Lebanon’s burgeoning innovation ecosystems. The series of activities, called “A Conversation with Chilean Changemakers”, was implemented locally by Berytech and brought to Beirut four Chileans who have championed their country’s rise to entrepreneurial prominence in recent years. The event was funded by the World Bank’s South-South Knowledge Exchange Facility and supports the Mobile Internet Ecosystem Project (MIEP, www.mie-p.org), a collaboration between the World Bank and Lebanon’s Ministry of Telecommunications to foster entrepreneurship and economic growth. With this in mind, the week’s events included:

1. A study tour of Lebanon’s diverse and growing innovation ecosystem stakeholders;
2. Targeted focus groups between Chile’s changemakers and representatives of Lebanon’s university, venture capital and financial sector, as well as government stakeholders; and

3. A public forum for the broader community to interact with the delegates.

IM Capital, represented by its Investment Manager Mrs. Corine Kiame Kari, took part in the VC roundtable (activity 2 above), alongside all the major funding stakeholders in the entrepreneurship eco-system.