Industrial Technology Initiative (ITI)

The Industrial Technology Initiative (ITI) is an organization conceived to meet the demands of industry for research and development (R&D), training, and consulting. ITI brings together engineers, technologists, and other expertise to drive the development of products from inception and feasibility assessment, to prototyping, testing, and growth to full market potential. ITI provides the technical know-how and laboratory services to improve the competitiveness and growth of the local manufacturing and industry sector. Challenges facing the sector include the improvement of products in existing companies, and the establishment of new industries around new higher-value-added products. It is a fact that industrialists in Lebanon are now committed to modernization and continuous improvement of their processes and products but they need the technical expertise to help accomplish these objectives. This fact has been highlighted during the Lebanese Industrial Research Achievements (LIRA) exhibitions and conferences, organized during the past eight years with the collaboration of the Association of Industrialists (AoI), the National Council for Scientific Research (NCSR), local universities, and the Ministry of Industry (MoI). These exhibits have showcased many promising prototypes in very creative and challenging areas. The era of public awareness and confidence-building steps has matured, and the advanced initiatives that built on LIRA experience are definitely overdue. ITI would satisfy this need by bridging the gap between industries and academic/technical experts. Major activities carried out by ITI (1) R&D is an activity historically reserved for government, academia and large corporations. R&D has not been part of the Lebanese business culture because most companies are small or medium enterprises that cannot carry out such an activity. However, R&D is the lifeline for industries to maintain competitiveness through product improvement and the development of new products. ITI would become the R&D establishment for these enterprises in need and which cannot afford funding in house R&D. Otherwise, unaffordable expertise and equipment would be available to improve their products and satisfy the R&D need. (2) Technical Consulting: many services arise in conjunction with the improvement of existing products and the dissemination of new products. ITI would establish a mechanism to identify technological inventions towards commercialization, through the different stages such as proof of concept, development of prototypes, patent registration, safeguarding intellectual property, and others. ITI would provide technical consulting to innovators and developers of new products for nominal fees, services would include assessment, design for manufacturability, costing, and alternative material and solutions. ITI could also provide technical validation and reviews of prototyped ideas, and assist in prototyping and packaging of products. Finally, if needed ITI could provide legal and business related customized services. (3) Training: Training and short courses would be provided by the center to the benefit of local industries. In collaboration with technology suppliers, the center will offer focused training to local and regional audience interested in the deployment of such tools into their processes. It also would offer short courses in emerging fields, which would allow local industries to be aware of world wide technological advances. Furthermore, business plan development and other business related coaching would be offered in individual clinical like support due to the wide spectrum of possibilities and the need for specialized consultants in such services. ITI customers include but are not limited to: water treatment power and energy agro food machinery civil structures electric and electronic manufacturing cement processing construction material manufacturing packaging and printing security ITI welcomes the opportunity to discuss your needs. Lets work together to make Lebanon and the region a better place. Founding Members
Fouad Mrad worked for IBM – Magnetic Storage Division in Rochester, Minnesota (1990-1993). At present, he is a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon (1993-present). At the University, he is the coordinator for the control and instrumentation courses and laboratory. He established on-going University liaison with the Association of Lebanese Industrialists and represented the University in developing the National Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy with the National Council for Scientific Research in the areas of engineering, sciences, and industry. Furthermore, he was the technology advisor for 2 ministers of industry in the Lebanese government (2001-2003) and (2005). He received his PhD and MS in electrical engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. He earned his BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He published numerous papers in internationally refereed journals and conferences in the areas of manufacturing, industrial automation and instrumentation, adaptive and iIntelligent control, and robotics. He is the co-author of Applied Mechatronics published by Oxford University Press, 2007.
Ayman Kayssi was born in Lebanon in 1967. He received his BE with distinction in 1987 from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon and an MSE in 1989 and PhD in 1993 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, all in electrical engineering. He is currently professor of electrical and computer engineering at the American University of Beirut, where he has been working since 1993. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of information security and trust, and digital system testing.
Ali Chehab was born in Beirut, Lebanon. He received his bachelor's degree inn electrical engineering from the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 1987, the master’s degree in electrical engineering from Syracuse University, and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, in 2002. From 1989 to 1998, he was a lecturer in the electrical and computer engineering department at AUB. He rejoined the electrical and computer engineering department at the universityas an assistant professor in 2002. His research interests are VLSI design and test, and information security.
Hassan Artail was a system development supervisor at the Scientific Labs of DaimlerChrysler, Michigan before joining the American University of Beirut at the end of 2001. At DaimlerChrysler, he worked for 11 years in the field of software and system development for vehicle testing applications, covering the areas of instrument control, computer networking, distributed computing, data acquisition, and data processing. He obtained a BS and MS in electrical engineering with high distinction from the University of Detroit in 1985 and 1986 respectively, and a PhD from Wayne State University in 1999. He is currently an associate professor at AUB and is doing research in the areas of Internet and mobile computing, distributed systems, mobile ad hoc networks, data management, in addition to computer and network security. During the past six years, Artail has published over 65 papers in top conferences and reputable journals, including IEEE Transactions.
Imad H. Elhajj received his PhD in electrical engineering from Michigan State University in December 2002. He received his MS in electrical engineering from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan in August 1999. He received his bachelor's degree with distinction in computer and communication engineering from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon in July 1997. Currently, he is assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at the American University of Beirut. Imad received the Best Paper award at the IEEE Electro Information Technology Conference in June 2003. He received the Most Outstanding Graduate Student Award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University in April 2001. He also received the third place award for the outstanding paper in the IEEE Electro/Information Technology Conference in June 2000. He received several grants from different sources including National Science Foundation and IEEE. Currently, his research interests include sensor and computer networks, robotics, human machine interfacing, multimedia networking, and medical systems.
Mazen A. R. Saghir is assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the American University of Beirut. He received his BE in computer and communications engineering from AUB in 1989, and his M.A.Sc. and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Toronto in 1993 and 1998, respectively. Prior to joining AUB, he worked as Embedded Software Engineer at Nortel Networks (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) and Senior Software Engineer at Improv Systems (San Jose, California, USA). His research interests include computer architecture, reconfigurable computing, embedded systems, and optimizing compilers.
Daniel Asmar is assistant professor in mechanical engineering at the American University of Beirut. Daniel earned his PhD in systems design engineering at the University of Waterloo. He earned his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the American University of Beirut and his Bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Waterloo. Daniel’s research interests include robotics and computer vision. Specifically, he has interests in autonomous robot navigation and mapping, environment representation and recognition, and segmentation methods in computer vision. Other interests include iris detection and recognition for the sake of biometrics, and visual-based tracking of people and cars for security purposes.
Dr. Mariette Awad is an Assistant Professor in the EECE Department. She graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1997 with a bachelor in Electrical Engineering and pursued her MS at University of New York (SUNY- Binghamton) in the image processing and machine recognition areas. In 2001, she joined IBM - System and Technology group in Vermont as a wireless product engineer. Over the years, her technical leadership and innovation spirit has earned her management recognition, several business awards and multiple patents. In 2007, she received her PhD from University of Vermont for her research on dynamic machine learning. Her research interests include: Machine Learning, Data Mining, Data Fusion, Ubiquitous Computing, Wireless and Analog Design, Semiconductor technology and Manufacturing, Image Recognition and Quality Control.
Ghassan Dib was born in Beirut in 1972. He received his BE in Computer and Communication Engineering in 1994 from the American University of Beirut, and an ME in 1998 from the same University in Electronic Devices and Systems. He worked between 1995 and 2007 as a technical manager in the fields of Security(JVC CCTV, S2 Access Control), Fire Protection (Simplex and Ansul), Controls and Building Automation (Siemens). He is currently lab manager for the Instrumentation, Control, Robotics, Power Electronics and Systems, and Machines and Drives Labs in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the American University of Beirut.