Just a quick note about Carlos Slim's guest lecture at AUB today.

I wasn't able to access the auditorium (it was full one hour before Slim's arrival). But I watched the lecture on a screen outside. The sound was really poor but I managed to pickup a few points.

– The lecture is titled "The New Civilization of Knowledge and Technology".

– When asked about whether he plans on investing in Lebanon, Slim said that there were a lot of opportunities here in several sectors. He said he was mainly interested in: infrastructure, roads, broadband (!!!), telecommunications.

– He said he was a computer illiterate.

– "Education, education, education is the main support of any society".

– The biggest inspiration in his career is his Father (everyone clapped when he said this).

– His main reason of coming to Lebanon is to explore his heritage.
He had an interview with Marcel Ghanim on LBC yesterday.
He runs some kind of monopoly in Mexico as far as I know, but the things he was saying in the interview were very insightful.
The guy, being able to affect situations on the grand scale is interested in the history of cultures, civilization, trends, economies, and is in tune with what the people need to develop. He was misinformed I believe to the situation here since he thought the salary average was $1000 (unless some really high salaries are being given up the ladder that I am not aware of).
But all in all, it's worth every second I watched. And Marcel even got to corner him a little and drain a tear. But the guy didn't offer further comment.
samer wroteHe said he was mainly interested in: infrastructure, roads, broadband (!!!), telecommunications.
i wish ....
that's his field of BUSINESS not knowledge then so it is a good opportunity if it offers great profit to him so we need privatization.
That's some good news! Let's just hope he would invest a few billion dollars in Lebanon (nothing less than $2 bil on Broadband xD). But just like kareem_nasser said, we might need privatization in order for that to happen...
so what ! , with privatization comes competition , with competition comes low prices and more bandwidth !
It isn't that easy in Lebanon to do it and also we don't need that much investment because most ppl use FB so the bandwidth will be unused this is thinking on the business side if things so in Lebanon 50megabits/sec is tooooooo good for the coming 3 to 4 years.
jadberro wroteso what ! , with privatization comes competition , with competition comes low prices and more bandwidth !
That's exactly the point :)
Probably he is only one person who can turn Lebanon from lagging behind to leading - very fast.

He have enough money to solve major problems of Lebanon - privatization of telecom's here (and cellular operators), closing by that large part of Lebanese debt, investing and improving infrastructure once to push it to level at least same as neighboring countries.

I think if all those crazy lebanese politicians will shut up and will not shake lebanon again by their weapons - Lebanon can become much more advanced in very short term.
Just because Lebanon is much more civilized than depraved and perverted(by oil) Gulf countries. Their power is artificial and it is unfair that just by oil much smarter lebanese now forced to work as "Gastarbeiter" there.

Another important thing - Lebanese people, even they are completely different ethnically and religion groups - at same time keep their lebanese identity. Everybody tried to swallow Lebanon broke their teeth.

I hope he will take a look and change this country. Because country is enough small, he have power to change everything here and maybe whole middle east as result.
This hope is small. But i hope it will happen.
kareem_nasser wroteIt isn't that easy in Lebanon to do it and also we don't need that much investment because most ppl use FB so the bandwidth will be unused this is thinking on the business side if things so in Lebanon 50megabits/sec is tooooooo good for the coming 3 to 4 years.
Lebanese people using facebook and msn only just because this bandwidth is too CRAP to be used for something else.
Even if you buy expensive "supposed to be CIR", at peak time it is becoming crap as end-user account.
Means no real time applications, no remote management tools, no telemetry, no hosting in Lebanon... nothing at all. Just facebook that u can refresh, and MSN. And porno websites.
Well. even this is good... many people this days prefer to throw their anger in chats and facebook, than throwing rocks and making unrest on streets :-)
Kassem wrote
jadberro wroteso what ! , with privatization comes competition , with competition comes low prices and more bandwidth !
That's exactly the point :)
Not always. Remember, Carlos Slim keep monopoly in Mexico, for example, and rates there highest in the world.
Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim#Criticism

But i believe things will go better even this way, because even he will keep high prices, he can make appropriate level of service and he can invest to the companies and bring 3G/WiMax/etc. here.
Guys please allow me to shed some light on this based on my life experience.

I have been living in Canada for 4 years now, and let me tell you about the rich Lebanese here.

Most of them, and I say again, MOST OF THEM, have become apes. They care less about Lebanon. All what matters to them is money and how they can make their businesses make more money.

I used to be a little naive thinking these people appreciate Lebanon no matter what and they will try and help. La2 ya 2albi! Hawdi l 3enfouwen wl 3ezz wl karami ma fi mennon hon.

So, I wish with all my heart that Lebanon climbs and gets where it belongs, but please do not base all your hope on the diaspora. It is up to us the young to make a difference and not just follow like the past 30 years !!
I did not mean Carlos only other investors too and about Carlos personally well lets not talk about it here (you some bad stuff)
Lebanese people using facebook and msn only just because this bandwidth is too CRAP to be used for something else.
Even if you buy expensive "supposed to be CIR", at peak time it is becoming crap as end-user account.
Means no real time applications, no remote management tools, no telemetry, no hosting in Lebanon... nothing at all. Just facebook that u can refresh, and MSN. And porno websites.
Well. even this is good... many people this days prefer to throw their anger in chats and facebook, than throwing rocks and making unrest on streets :-)
lol you may be right ........a bit so ask some of your non gamer friends or downloaders about what they do with that bandwidth aka=lets say 4megabits/sec.
I for example would love to setup a server at home , being able to video chat with my friends living abroad , or even the ones living here , productivity will increase by a lot ! just subtract the waiting time for any service you want and you will get the efficiency ! + there are a lot of pro software that i would love to try but cant download , see the benefits ?!
One of brakes for free software - it is slow internet. To try Linux distros people need to be able to download them in few hours, not weeks.
Simple example.
Another thing teamwork... also need fast internet.
nuclearcat: I use svn to share files with my partner in Beirut. Connection is a huge bottleneck.
So many interesting things have been said here! Two small remarks I'd like to make:

* How predictable and despicable is it that when a rich guy comes to visit Lebanon all we want from him is to invest in our country? And we're not even being subtle about it either. We have one of the most corrupt telecom market in the world, we are still lagging on most modern technologies, and still figure that if we smile enough and act nice this guy will 'invest'? And personally I don't even want him to invest. He's a totalitarian businessman that only succeeds because of his monopoly. I don't really see the point of replacing Ogero's monopoly by some Mexican dude's monopoly. Anyway, my point is, when the richest man in the world comes to Lebanon to visit the country of his dad, it would be nice if we didn't show him a greedy face.

* High speed internet, with unlimited download, is a necessity fot every country if they want to take part of the world today. Forget about people on FB or msn. How can we attract web entrepreneurs? The web is a mainstream media in all developed country. All of the communication campaigns, marketing, ... it's not on tv or radio anymore, where do you think Google get their money from? Moreover, in 'The World is Flat', Thomas Friedman argues that individuals today need to be connected with the rest of the world in order to remain competitive. Today, Indian developers are taking the work of all the American for three reasons:
- They're cheaper
- They're better (people won't admit it, but it is true, the work done by Indian developers today is the best in the world)
- They have enough bandwith to be connected with American HQ back on US soil.

And it is not only India. China, Brazil, Ireland, ... so much countries that are goign ahead of every other (and we're still fighting over silly internal affairs ... but that's another subject). High speed internet can save the country, because, as nuclearcat said, smart Lebanese brains are escaping to uncivilized Gulf countries instead of working and transforming and pushing Lebanon forward.
He will not invest, least of all in Telecom.