Fadi Daw’s tech company is thriving against all odds; His employees are struggling to find gasoline for their cars to go to work, and he has to offer a unique product to get customers to trade with a company based in Lebanon, the high-risk country.
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“Everything was conceived, designed and built from Lebanon,” says Daw.
At a time when Lebanon is going through a financial crisis described by the World Bank as one of the worst recession crises in modern history; Daw had to overcome many challenges. For example, he built his own solar energy supply so that it was not dependent on the government’s electricity grid; To be able to successfully export its products.
Daw returned to Lebanon in 2006, after spending 25 years in the United States. In November 2019 – one month after the Lebanese economy began to collapse – he launched the Homal Technology Park (HTP), in his hometown of the village of Homal, 15 kilometers outside Beirut; in order to expand its production.
Daw says that global technology companies “choose to work with Lebanon, knowing that Lebanon is a very dangerous country, so we have to offer twice the offer in terms of value, innovation and marketing time. We have to work harder.”
“We build a high-value product that uniquely solves a problem in the industry, so they buy it from us.”
In the past two years (2019-2020), Lebanon has also witnessed a popular uprising against its political leaders, the global pandemic of Corona, and a huge chemical explosion in the port of Beirut that killed 200 people and destroyed swathes of the capital.
Lebanon also lost its local currency about 90% of its value against the dollar, and the crisis wiped out thousands of jobs and pushed more than half of the population into poverty.
Dow employs 130 young men and women in Lebanon, and plans to hire an additional 25 employees by the end of 2021, and its goal is to hire more in the next few years to combat the brain drain caused by the financial crisis.
“My reward is when a parent calls me or sends me a message saying thank you, because my children are working now, and they would have left the country, but they are now,” Daou said.
Hundreds of engineers, academics, doctors, artists and others have packed their bags looking for opportunities abroad as the country rushes faster toward complete collapse.
“It’s an empowering experience… the company really gives young people a chance to stay in the country,” says Sana Awar, an intern at Multilane. Her colleague Maria Tawil adds that they felt able to realize their dreams as young engineers who want to prove themselves.