In this issue: IQ — What is happening in the Middle East? Lebanon: an overview of Berytech visited within the BICBIC program by Al Urdonia Lil Ebda, Jordan. Palestine: the next year supporting the Palestinian ICT Incubator in Ramallah. QI — First feedback on the 2011 Quality process. QS — EC-BICs Experts on line: soon to come the “Ask the expert of the month” feature. QO — Showcase your BICs and your start-ups in the DIGIBIC Awards.

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The European BIC Network
Quality eMag
Q-light: “Spending Quality Time on Quality Issues”
In this issue: IQ — What is happening in the Middle East? Lebanon: an overview of Berytech visited within the BICBIC program
by Al Urdonia Lil Ebda, Jordan. Palestine: the next year supporting the Palestinian ICT Incubator in Ramallah. QI — First feed-
back on the 2011 Quality process. QS — EC-BICs Experts on line: soon to come the “Ask the expert of the month” feature. QO
— Showcase your BICs and your start-ups in the DIGIBIC Awards.
We hope you enjoy the reading and we welcome inputs and comments.
Giordano and Chiara
IQ| Innovation & Quality
A visit to Beirut BIC, Berytech!
This time, to continue our search of the most performing BICs we
have looked into the Middle East. Indeed more and more innovation-
based incubators are becoming aware of and interested to be accred-
ited as an EC-BIC in the region. In the last two years two new BICs
have been accredited in Jordan (the El Hassan Business Park of Am-
man, and the Jordan Innovation Center “Al Urdonia Lil Ebda” in Irbid)
plus new associate members can be counted in Syria (SEBC-BI) and
in UAE (Abu Dhabi University). Not to mention the technical assis-
tance contract awarded to EBN by the European Investment Bank to Sharaf Obeidat Nicolas Rouhana
BDO, Al Urdonia Lil Ebda, CEO, Berytech, Beirut
support in the next year the Palestinian ICT Incubator in Ramallah Jordan
(see what is happening in the Palestinian Territories in page 3).
Berytech is the first accredited EC-BIC in the Middle East, the accreditation dating back in 2006. A pioneering
case, that, in the past years demonstrated being a very dynamic element of our community. Therefore we have
asked the senior business development manager of the BIC of Irbid (Jordan), Mr. Sharaf Obeidat, to go visit
Berytech within the framework of the BICBIC program, to understand the elements of its success. We also would
like to add that if you wish to take part in a BICBIC mission, you just need to contact the Quality Team in Brus-
sels.
Founded in 2001 as University-Based innovation Centre at the Saint Josef
University, Beirut.
initial investment: US$ 5M.
Member of EBN in 2004.
Accredited EC-BIC in 2006.
First expansion in 2006: Berytech Technology and Health.
Second expansion in 2008: Berytech Fund (initial investment of US$
8M).Poles of excellence: ICT, Multimedia, Health.

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IQ| Innovation & Quality: Berytech Highlights
“In this era of knowledge-based economy in which innovation, technology and entrepreneurship are considered
to be essential elements to foster faster economic growth, the mission of Berytech is to provide incubation,
support and hosting opportunities to the largest number of project holders as well as growing enterprises oper-
ating in the fields of Technology, Multimedia and Health. “
Excerpt From the “mission statement” of Berytech
The MOWGLI Mentorship Program
Berytech has partnered with the Mowgli
Foundation, a not-for-profit organization
whose mission is to harness the power of
mentoring worldwide, in order to deliver
compelling mentorship experiences to
Lebanese entrepreneurs.
The objective of the program is to work
with entrepreneurs who are at some
stage between start up and SME to help
them grow their businesses to the point
that they start creating jobs and alleviat-
ing poverty.
The MOWGLI Mentorship program is one
of the many accompanying services,
together with Microsoft BizSpark, Net-
working and specialized training like MAP
(HP Microenterprise Acceleration Pro-
gram).
The incubation process of Berytech allows
project holders and young start-ups to benefit
from Business Counseling while being physi-
cally hosted on the premises. Moreover, incu-
batees are closely accompanied by a mentor
for the duration of their incubation period,
throughout which they will benefit from man-
agement and budget follow up. In parallel,
Berytech audits periodically the evolution of
the project and the incubatee's performance.
In 2008 the Berytech Fund was established with an initial investment of $8M. The Berytech Fund acts as a
venture capital and equity-related investments in start-up Information, Communication and Technology (ICT)
portfolio companies in Lebanon. The fund is uniquely positioned to make profitable investments in innovative,
technology-based start-up ventures in Lebanon. It aims at providing funding for incubated companies where
Berytech acquires a percentage of the shares (between 20% and 40%) of the funded company. The invested
amount from Berytech until now ranges between US$ 0.1M and US$ 1.2M .
info@berytech.org
Tel: +961 (4) 533040
Fax: +961 (4) 533040
11-7503 Riad el Solh Beirut 1107 2240 Lebanon

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IQ| Innovation & Quality: the Palestine ICT Incubator
In the beginning of this year EBN has been
awarded a technical assistance contract by the
European Investment Bank aimed at support-
ing the Palestine ICT incubator in Ramallah,
West Banks. Indeed the European Investment
Bank, is supporting the Middle East Venture
Capital Fund through the Facility for Euro-
Mediterranean Investment and Partnership
Trust Fund (FEMIP) with a € 5 MLN co-
investment, together with other large corpora-
tions. At present the total amount of the fund
is of US$ 28 MLN. The EIB has spotted PICTI as one of the main fund’s deal-flow generators and has entrusted
EBN with implementing training and technical assistance for enhancing PICTI’s role in the above context.
The overall purpose of this project is to provide additional training and process development support to the staff
members of the PICTI incubator in Ramallah, West Bank, in terms of Deal sourcing, Business assessment and
Incubatee support services. EBN will be active in Ramallah, with its group of experts, until march 2012, with the
aim of supporting PICTI in: Business Planning and Marketing strategies, Lead generation, technology evaluation
and commercialisation, Business Modelling, IP Rights and tech-transfer and Fund Raising. The first training
course has already taken place and now we are preparing the others to finalize the first phase within July 2011.
“It’s PICTI’s job to assist Palestinian entrepreneurs to convert their ideas into real busi-
nesses. This is what PICTI is all about…it is all about helping Palestinians to convert their
ideas into something tangible that they can sell in a competitive market. PICTI is not just
an infrastructure, but together with the office space it provides business development ser-
vices. We support our entrepreneurs in defining their business models, getting market trac-
tion, finding the right mentors and the good practices which will help them be successful in
the marketplace. Furthermore PICTI supports the entrepreneurs to fund-raise. PICTI invests in their entrepre-
neurs through its own seed capital fund.” - Laith Kassis, former CEO of PICTI
“We have started 7 years ago to support Palestinian ICT entrepreneurs. We believe our
economy should be built on SMEs and that ICT is a leading sector to support the regional
economy. We have a very high percentage of youth in Palestine who face difficult chal-
lenges. Our Clients are mainly from the engineering technical schools and lack business
skills. They are young techies with good talent and good ideas but not good enough busi-
ness skills. We try to support them providing a comprehensive set of services.” - Hasan
Omar, PICTI Incubator Manager
“PICTI needs to be able to accelerate its processes and needs to be able to be more effec-
tive as an investment vehicle. This is the one challenge that PICTI faces in the near future.
We are trying to provide the remedies to that. Access to finance for the start-ups and the
entrepreneurs in terms of seed capital is very much needed, even to be able to build the
prototype at the beginning. If we can provide investors with a working prototype we can
more easily access venture capital funding, building the deal-flow for the existing equity
funds and the newly established Middle East Venture Capital Fund.” - Ahmed F. ElFarra, Member of the Board
of Directors of PICTI

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QI| Quality information
First Feedback on the 2011 quality process
First of all... thank you! Of course we still are in the middle of the
2011 quality assessment, but overall things are looking good! We do
feel that in comparison with the last two years the process is quite
smoother and accurate. This indeed is thanks to the increased commit-
ment with which our full members are being involved in our quality
issues. Of course we do our best to simplify and to clarify everything and
we feel that the correct balance between viable, reliable and accurate
information and simplicity will be soon achieved.
And since we launched also this year the Quality Questionnaire Competition, we are ready now to give you the
names of the lucky winners who will receive a nice box of Belgian chocolate...
... And the winners are ...
 Staffordshire and Black Country BIC, UK  CEEI de Castilla y Leon, Spain
 CEEI Castellon, Spain  BIC Berrilan, Spain
 BIC Frankfurt, Germany  CEEI Talavera de la Reina, Spain
 Marseille Innovation, France  CEEI 47, France
 Business Development Friesland, Netherlands  North East of England BIC, UK
Thanks to the inputs of all our EC-BICs this year we will provide you with the Network Observatory (ready for
the Toulon Annual Congress), the country observatories (for those countries with a minimum of 5 BICs) and
with enhanced and improved benchmarking services. Indeed the more the data is accurate, the more the cus-
tomized benchmarking reports you frequently ask will be reliable. Of course we will not forget our core duty
which is quality assurance and we will keep up with your expectations, visiting, auditing and assisting on quality
issues at least 10% of the EC-BICs. And we will ensure this through our EC-BIC accredited experts... Which
leads us directly to the next topic...

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QS| Quality services: Organizing the pool of EC-BIC experts
You can already find the first 20 online (more to come in the next
months!) on the EBN website... the renowned EC-BIC quality mark ex-
perts! And check out soon the new feature of EBN’s website the “Ask the
expert of the month” service. In turn all of the listed experts will answer to
all your queries relative to the EC-BIC world. You have questions? You
will soon be able to go online fill the form and submit your questions. You
may expect an answer from the expert of the month within days.
QO| The DIGIBIC Award
In the framework of the 20th EBN Annual Congress & RETIS Annual Congress (Toulon/France 15th to17th
June 2011), EBN has launched a Call for Speakers for the DigiBIC Award, focused on creative industries &
digital applications.
12 digi-enablers (EBN & RETIS embers) and 12 digi-entrepreneurs (EBN
& RETIS client companies), from inside the EBN & RETIS networks, will all be
invited to showcase their best practices and remarkable achievements at the
Toulon Congress across the 6 workshops on Friday 17th June 2011.
Three (3) enablers (EBN & RETIS members) will be awarded in the 3 following categories:
C4) On-line tools, a virtual reality
C5) Social networks, the connecting journey
C6) High-impact awareness, for shaking the ecosystem
Three (3) entrepreneurs (EBN & RETIS client companies) will be awarded in the 3 following categories:
C7) Creative Marketing, breaking rules fast
C8) Usages & end-users, at the core
C9) Women & y-generation on the move
Participate and good luck!
For information on the DIGIBIC Award contact Silvia (sdp@ebn.eu) or Marinela (mma@ebn.eu)
Editors: Giordano Dichter and Chiara Davalli
Responsible for the publication: Philippe Vanrie, EBN CEO www.ebn.eu