Prof. Fouad Zmokhol, Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration and Management (FGM) at Saint Joseph University of Beirut (USJ), announced with great pleasure, pride, and honor that MSc student, Yara Khoury, won the first place in the “Business Planning” Category of the IBDAA2021 Competition for her project B.Smart. 

The International Biodiversity Day at AUB 2021 (IBDAA) is organized annually by the American University of Beirut (AUB) and it brings together at least 200 students from different universities. This year, the theme for the 15th edition was “Rebirthing Beirut”. Four categories were featured: business planning, arts, design and communication, research with intervention, and product development.

At first, Yara Khoury was hesitant to take part in this adventure. She says, “Since I love to experience new things, I decided to test my limits. I knew that it would require constant dedication and a willingness to learn, no matter what the outcome!”

She explains, “The first thoughts that came to my mind while thinking of different ideas for my business plan were, ‘How can we help and rebuild our country for a better future? And what topic would target the entire Lebanese population?’”

Two Concepts on the Fence

After some hesitation, Yara chose to work on the B.Smart project thanks to the support of Dr. Nada Mallah Boustany. “And so, the work began!” She continues, “As a Master student, I know that the real challenge was to be able to balance between my studies and academic projects, my work, and finishing my business plan on time. I had to be efficient and properly organize my day. Besides, I had all kinds of resources at hand, I just had to learn how to use them. In fact, my idea was inspired by one of the courses I am currently taking at FGM, called Digital Technologies for Business. One of the chapters was about understanding the ethics and basics of the Internet of Things (IoT), and how smart [future] cities use smart bin technology. As a result, I decided to work on smart garbage cans.”

B.Smart Is Born!

Yara adds, “After doing a lot of research, I decided to develop something built by the Lebanese for the Lebanese, and not simply imported, especially since importing smart garbage cans would not solve all the different problems I was tackling. Therefore, the main features of B.Smart are occupancy level detection, route planning optimization, different sorting bins and an application to make the whole process flow smoothly.”

This smart garbage can will encourage citizens to start sorting waste and forming new habits. As for sales offer, each municipality will have to choose whether to simply upgrade their existing bins, by adding various chips and sensors, or to purchase a brand-new smart garbage can. Moreover, both citizens and waste collectors benefit enormously from this advanced and unique selling proposition, as the designed application is accessible for both parties respectively and will surely be user-friendly.

Therefore, there will be two “user logins” for the application. One for waste collectors that would primarily focus on optimizing the route planning and filling of each bin. And another for citizens, that would focus mainly on sorting orientation (via image identification, a search bar or even a QR code), in addition to the location and occupancy level detection of each garbage can. This specific idea would help to have a smart waste management system, traffic management and reduction as well as raise awareness and categorically start recycling. All this work would be done through artificial intelligence and IoT.

A Project to Be Proud of!

“While working on my business plan,” reveals Yara, “my only concern was to present a project that I would be proud of and that would be worthy of a USJ Master student. I was really competing against myself! This experience was stressful, difficult, challenging, exciting, inspiring, successful, adventurous, and more! IBDAA helped me boost my self-confidence, organizational skills, and push myself out of my comfort zone. I also had the opportunity to meet almost 200+ students in addition to different juries, such as Mr. Ricardo Karam who personally provided feedback on my business plan.”

“I would personally encourage every student to participate in this competition because, believe me, you are a winner either way!”, assures Yara Khoury to all the students, full of good ideas and eager to act.