Major Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services on 6 June 2012 (visit http://www.worldipv6day.org).

All major Internet stakeholders in Lebanon are coming together on June 6, 2012 for an IPv6-Lebanon grand opening! Join us on this day for a test drive and help accelerate the momentum of IPv6 deployment. Don’t forget to bring your laptop, server, mobile phone, application to test IPv6 connectivity and compatibility! Come over, it’s free and for everyone. More details to be posted on http://blog.berytech.org/events/151/woldipv6-launch/

As a preparation to WorlIPv6 launch day in Lebanon, an IPv6 Roadshow workshop is organized at Berytech, sponsored by RIPE. More details at http://blog.berytech.org/events/150/ipv6-roadshow/

WorldIPv6Day Lebanon 2011 News: http://www.berytech.org/content/view/819/230/lang,en
WorldIPv6Day Lebanon 2011 Program: http://blog.berytech.org/events/33/world-ipv6-day/
General IPv6 resources, visit http://www.isoc.org/internet/issues/ipv6.shtml

1. The EBN annual congress is THE place to be in Europe, once a year, if you are involved on any aspects of incubation, entrepreneurship, start-ups, spin-offs, innovation, clustering, regional & local economic development, collaborative projects and international networking.
2. A series of 4 plenary sessions and 16 workshops will cover strategic matters such as: International Soft-landing, Business Acceleration, Early-stage Financing, New Trends in Clustering, EU-Collaborative projects, Open Innovation with large Corporations, Mentoring & Coaching, Higher Education, and International Research Cooperation, Smart Specialization Strategies. And a selection of inspiring professionals from Eindhoven, Sophia-Antipolis, Helsinki, Nantes, Nottingham, Porto, Flanders, Lahti, Trieste, Coventry, Brussels, Tampere, London, Stockholm, Kotka-Kouvola, Rhone-Alpes, etc
3. Several specialized workshops on specific sectors: Energy Markets, Green Energy, Green & smart Cities, Nanotechnologies, Transport & Logistics, Mobile applications, Digital Content, and Space & Satellite apps. And a selection of Innovation champions from Microsoft, Fortum, Cisco, Philips, Telefonica, Kamaz, …)
4. A zoom on best-in-class innovation players in Finland and Russia, with speakers from Top-players and Top-universities (Aalto Univ., Technopolis Ventures, Moscow State Univ., Lappeenranta Univ. of Techn., Academy of Finland, St-Petersburg State Polytechnic Univ., Russian Academy of Sciences, Rusnano, Spinverse, Skolkovo Foundation, Technopark Idea Kazan, Academpark Novosibirsk, …). Moreover, a delegation of best innovation performers and economic decision-makers from Tatarstan will demonstrate the emergence of Innovative regions in the Russia federation
5. Confirmed presence of prestigious personalities, such as Nobel Prize winner Zhorev Alferov (Physics, 2000), the Minister of Economy of Finland Jyri Hakamies, President of FASIE Ivan Bortnik, High-representatives of the European Commission and of OECD, the Executive VP of Angry Birds, the CEO of the Taiwan SME Agency Robert Lai, the Head of Tech Transfer of the European Space Agency (ESA) Frank Salzgeber, The Presidents of the European Living Labs network and of Business Angels Networks, etc
6. A zoom on what’s best going on outside Europe, and particularly in America (Silicon Valley, Baltimore, Toronto, …), in mainland China (Chengdu, Wuxi, …), in South Korea and in Taiwan. A Taiwanese delegation of best-in-class Incubators and innovative start-ups will be there coming from the famous ITRI Research Centre, and from Taipei, Hsinshu, Nankang, Tainan, Zhongzheng, Kaohsiung.
7.  On Day 2 (Thursday 14^th June), a B2B matchmaking event (“MoneyTalks”) will enable delegates to meet potential partners for making business! And on Day 3 (Friday 15^th June), it’s the Clusters day with a selection of most experienced clusters managers, but it’s also award time, for celebrating the best Young entrepreneur and the best International Soft-landing Incubator!
8. Lappeenranta is easier and cheaper to reach than you might think: direct flights to Helsinki (+ 2 hours direct train) or to Copenhagen (+ low cost flight) or to Riga (+ low cost flight). The selected hotels are very nice, comfortable and afordable !
9. Lappeenranta and Finland in the mid-summer is a unique experience and a way to discover beautiful natural Finland, its lakes, and its nature. Plus St-Petersburg for the Week-end if you wish!
10. Congress venue is on Campus of the Lappeenranta University of Technology (www.lut.fi) which is reserved for you, one of the expected 600 delegates. The organizing team from WIRMA (City of Lappeenranta), LUT (the University) and EBN (Your European Network)

So do not miss this opportunity to come over to a full program to discuss projects, business opportunity, accreditation, collaboration, soft-landing, events, anything…

What good will it be if you gained the source code of the world and yet lost your very self?

Loving your own work and being successful is a major source of high self esteem.
Geeks by definition, are so passionate about their work and tend to prioritize professional life over any other aspect of their lives.
You may have noticed that the majority of geeks suffer from weak communication skills. This can be noted through bad articulation or projection of speech, and when most often they tend to prefer the usage of text messages over phone conversations.

Thus, it is crucial that a balance should be made in order to maintain a high level of performance, live a longer happier life and achieve all your geeky goals and dreams.

Enough philosophizing, below are some of my experience based recommendations in order to healthily survive your geeky IT lifestyle, Organize your life, your time and maintain your connections:

• Time is your most valued commodity, fragment it wisely, manage it well and enjoy it.
• Find time to read, experiment and learn non-IT stuff.
• Separate “as much as you can” your social conversations from your Information Technology terms. Reserve a small amount of time for special IT news.
• Don’t work after work. Thinking about IT problems and solutions before sleeping is still considered working…and unhealthily ill.
• Exercise daily sports and go to gym.
• Sleep well. Don’t ubersleep (Sleep hacking) it is a horrible sleep routine (http://blogs.tech-recipes.com/davak/2005/10/17/ubersleep-hacking-sleep-stupid/).
• Don’t use your laptop in bed, this will disturb your sleeping routine by getting your body used to not to sleep while in bed, may lead to insomnia.
• Socialize by expanding to the maximum through society. Meet non IT people.
  Go out with stupid people from time to time, have fun of their stupidity privately and respect it publicly.
• Being rational is typical for geeks, sprinkle your life by spreading some irrationality.
• Being an active social network user is not considered socializing.
• It’s true that a running machine is 10000% trustworthy more than a human being, nevertheless try to invest trusting the human kind.
• Stop humanizing your computer.
• Picking your nose behind your desk is natural; considering no one seeing you is wrong (The space under your keyboard touches is a trusted witness).
• Don’t communicate with people as being Network appliances and Linux servers. TCP/IP connections are 93% less reliable than a face to face conversation.
• Show love and importance to your special and close friends, you computer might notice your love but your friends won’t.
• It’s fun to make your girlfriend jealous of your computer, but it’s unhealthy to privately show affection to it more than her.

That was the cook for today, hope you enjoyed it. Now Apply Or Die.

– Moophz Himself
Reference : http://moophz.com/article/how-survive-geeky-workaholic-professional-it-life

Forward), talking to aspiring and existing entrepreneurs about innovative ways in which we can support projects and startups.

This much anticipated event will gather for the first time peers from the entrepreneurship ecosystem, friendly, familiar faces such as the good people from Amideast/Cisco Entrepreneurship Institute, Endeavor, Altcity, MIT Enterprise Forum, etc. So there’s a lot to see! Don’t miss out on the chance to stop by Berytech’s booth and chat with our team members (Booth L8-M7).

Berytech will also be holding it’s second Seed up your Startup competition in a pitching festival that will take place live over two days on April 26 and 27. The contestants will not only pitch in a public forum, but the audience will have its own say by voting, using specially provided handheld devices, for the most meritorious projects. Winners will walk away with a comprehensive incubation program and up to $25K in seed money.

It’s happening at the Business Entrepreneurship Forum, and we’re not planning to miss any of it. Are you?!

For more info about the Pitch Fest http://tinyurl.com/chuk443

NFC allows a device, usually a mobile phone, to collect data from another device or NFC tag at close range. In many ways, it’s like a contactless payment card that is integrated into a phone. In other ways, it’s similar to Bluetooth, except that instead of programming two devices to work together, they can simply touch to establish a connection. NFC was invented by Sony and NXP Semiconductors in 2002. In 2004 a forum was formed to develop the NFC technology and certify devices compliance with NFC standards. The forum has now more than 140 members including Nokia, Huawei, HTC, Motorola, LG, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, AT&T, Sprint, Google, Microsoft, Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Intel, Qualcomm and others.

NFC can be used in a wide array of applications, like: Mobile ticketing (such as in public transport); Mobile payment, where the device functions like a credit/debit card; Smart poster, where a mobile phone reads RFID tags on advertisements, for example.

Existing NFC applications include:

• Google Wallet: it allows consumers to store credit card information in a virtual wallet and then use an NFC-enabled device at terminals that also accept MasterCard PayPass transactions.
• In 2011 Nokia launched NFC enabled games which are meant to demonstrate how NFC can enable new forms of mobile gaming. Nokia calls the games “tangible” mobile games because of the way they interact with physical objects in the real world using NFC tags.
• You can already use your NFC-enabled phone to buy train tickets in Tokyo or as a contactless payment system at various retailers.
• Bump is an application for mobile phones that lets you pair smartphones and transfer contact information or files between 2 devices.

Do you know any other applications of NFC technology? Do you see any opportunities for your businesses? Share with us your thoughts in the comments section below and join us to the next Technology Round Table session about the RFID technology.

Which topics do you recommend for upcoming TRTs? Share with us your ideas here!

Having fun and interacting with the community should be also important in entrepreneurs’ life! Since it helps develop productivity at work, reduce stress, recharge energy and improve well-being.

For our upcoming gathering, we suggest to organize a “Skiing Trip” on Saturday March 24. Who is interested to join?  Share your feedback and let us know if you have further suggestions!!

I combined my passion for swimming and my educational background as engineer by creating Butterfleye which develops, as a starting product, smart swimming goggles that can track the swimmer’s heart rate with instant visual feedback. Its patent is also a platform for the development of many other applications in the field of sports technology, biomedical devices and data storage, creating more added value and social impact.

Currently I am focusing on improving its current prototype, and getting worldwide exposure in the scope of licensing its patent.When starting up, many challenges came across but my passion and enthusiasm kept me going on.  I found so far is the limited resources available for hardware development in the region. It took me a very long time to be able to gather a small team to develop the second version of the prototype. And now, I aim to make  my company one of the pillars in sports technology: providing athletes with the right everyday tools for their training! Practically, this would mean having a line of products that would provide many other features and can be applied to other sports activities. I really appreciate Berytech and what I love the most is that the minute you enter the building, you can feel the entrepreneurship spirit. The atmosphere is well setup for people in this particular mindset.

Finally, I would like to share this advice for anyone who has a business idea: Go for it without thinking twice. I had a very difficult time transitioning from the corporate world into the entrepreneurship world. I was scared and did not think I was up to the task. I am still scared, but I have never been happier working and the experience I am gaining now is invaluable!

Cloud computing will definitely affect companies’ business models, involve new kind of partners and influence their strategies in a way or another.

Having a marketing background, I felt curious to attend the technology round table (TRT) session yesterday, held at Berytech, covering Cloud Computing, lead by Rabih Nassar, expert in the field and CEO of Element N. I was encouraged to learn more about the concept of this technology mostly to understand its related products, services as well as the startups in the field and how it is going to affect the business.

Simplifying the idea, cloud computing is considered as Utility Computing where consumers “Pay for consumption not for infrastructure”; they effectively pay for the capacity they use. We are moving from traditional IT delivery services to Remote IT delivery services and virtualization remains the building block of cloud.

Large organizations are moving their IT assets to the cloud and Amazon is one of the pioneers in this field, since 2007.

Session included several aspects of the cloud such as the evolution of computing, technical characteristics of the cloud, its benefits, challenges, models and major market players. You want to find out more? Click on this “CLOUD” link and check out the presentation.

Some “Signals” photos were posted by one of the entrepreneurs, who attended the session, Emile Khattar, Co-founder of Signal; you can view them on this link

Finally, I was wondering about the limitations of the cloud and asked who can ensure ultimate security and control of the systems, and I knew that it has some professional and very secure way to deliver the services and master the field but there is risk in everything referring to the quote of Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems founder, “there is no privacy on the net. Get over it”…

We can ask also “what’s next”?

Don’t miss our next TRT session, stay tuned on our blog and have a nice weekend!