41 THE NEXT... EDUCATORS
VIRTUAL UNIVERSITIES

IT MIGHT look like nothing more than an extension of distance learning, which began with the creation of postal services in the 19th century and expanded with radio and TV a hundred years later, but the virtual university is here to stay; and it is allowing a swathe of society the opportunity to study for a degree for the first time.

The Sloan Consortium, developer of online learning programmes, claims that more than 96% of the largest colleges and universities in the US offer online courses, with almost 3.2 million US students taking at least one online course. Having just suffered their worst recruiting season in living memory, business school deans on both sides of the Atlantic are now considering how they can get their slice of this rapidly growing pie, suddenly aware that potential students are scouring the world for the best deals.

However, the majority of e-degrees are still being offered by for-profit institutions that are relatively unknown, and surveys of corporate recruiters regularly show that only a tiny handful said they’d consider recruiting someone with an e-MBA. But Vicky Philips, CEO of Geteducated.com, says: “A degree from Stanford, say, is recognised the same whether it’s earned online or on-campus, because of the name of the institution.”

42 THE NEXT... DUBAI
BEIRUT

At the end of 2008, The New York Times awarded Beirut the top slot on its list of ‘The 44 Places To Go in 2009’. This, coupled with the opening of two new luxury hotels in the Lebanese capital, is the latest sign of a trend that Levant insiders have been onto for a while. The city, once known as The Paris of the Middle East, is quietly shaping up to become the region’s boom town – after years of being associated with booms of a very different nature.

First of the new hotels to open will be Le Gray, a creation of London hospitality entrepreneur Gordon Campbell Gray, whose original London property, One Aldwych, set the benchmark for design-conscious urban boutique hotels when it made its debut in 1998. Located in the downtown Central District – also known as Solidere after the government-backed company which piloted the redevelopment of the city’s war-ravaged financial and administrative hub – Le Gray is pitching itself as a stylish 87-room hotel with a business slant. Complimentary Wi-fiand laptops, a gym, a cigar lounge and a 12-person boardroom are among the baits, plus a cluster of rooftop attractions that include a heated swimming pool, a Mediterranean restaurant and a cocktail bar.

Following hot on the heels of Le Gray, Four Seasons Hotel Beirut will open its doors at the end of the year. Classically elegant inside but with a soaringly modern exterior, the slender, vertical, 230-room hotel overlooks Beirut’s new marina – which is currently little more than a high-end harbour and refuelling stop. However, work is finally underway on a 2002 design by Steven Holl Architects for a yacht club with apartments, a quay with restaurants and shops, and other habourside facilities. Other developments in the Marina area include Venus Towers, with 162 apartments in three separate high-rise blocks designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo. At a launch event in a Beirut hotel at the end of September, sales agent Plus Properties notched up a remarkable €68m in pre-sales: proof that recessionary logic does not always apply in a city that has been waiting so long for a place in the sun.

Both Le Gray and Four Seasons Beirut have been dragging their feet for a number of years, and it’s a measure of the new spirit of confidence in Lebanon that they are pushing for completion now.

Predictions of a new Lebanese era of stability have been wrong before: things were looking rosy in the first part of 2006 until confl ict between Hezbollah guerillas and Israeli forces flared up in July of that year, killing hundreds and destroying infrastucture that had been painstakingly restored after the 1975–1990 civil war – including large parts of Beirut International Airport.

This time round, though, conditions look more promising. Syrian military personnel were forced out of Lebanon in 2005, and the victory of the pro-Western March 14 Alliance over their Hezbollah-dominated rivals in the June 2009 election occasioned a huge sigh of relief among those investing emotionally or financially in the capital’s return to prosperity – not only in western Europe and North America, but in the Gulf States as well. With its liberal alcohol code and buzz-

ing club and party scene, the city is a favourite destination for Gulf rich-kids looking to let their hair down, and in the months leading up to Ramadan the bar and club strip of Rue Monot positively hums with Hummers. And it’s not just private money that is flowing into Lebanon; the Qatari government has poured millions of dollars into reconstruction projects in the south of the country.

Emigré Lebanese who have made good in the US, Canada, Australia, the Gulf and elsewhere are another important source of tourism and investment. According to the Lebanese Tourist Ministry, the city clocked up a record one million arrivals in July 2009 – the highest since the end of the civil war. Most of these were Gulf nationals or returnees taking advantage of the peaceful climate to visit friends and relations.

According to the Lebanese Central Bank, the country attracted €9.5bn in capital investments in the first eight months of 2009 – a significant proportion of it from Lebanese expats pulling out of Dubai and other recession-squeezed Gulf states. And the failure of prime minister designate Saad Hariri to form a government four months after the elections does not seem to be deterring investors. In one way it’s a plus: in a country of warring factions, these delicate interim periods are often not so much power vacuums as part of the healing process.

43 THE NEXT... RIGHTS ISSUE
SHARING

THERE’S NOT a company around that’s not got a policy on corporate social responsibility. Everyone’s giving to the environment, giving to charity or giving to the community. We’ll all be giving to the competition next, and while it seems counterintuitive, it’s actually good for business.

Historically, patent pools have been used to help an industry progress that would be hamstrung without key patents being freed up for general use: the sewing machine trade did it in the 1850s so they could move machinery on; aircraft manufacturers collaborated a century ago when just two firms owned the patents vital to plane construction, and more aircraft were needed for war. DVDs and CDs, made to a common standard under a royalty-share agreement, are a more familiar example.

Patents will now be shared by competing companies and across industries, a little like the open-source software community, in which knowledge is shared for mutual and wider social benefit. IBM, the company holding the largest number of patents in the world, has recently helped found an eco-patent commons, where — free of charge — other companies that have also donated can use patents from the pool that have an environmental benefit. Nokia’s phone engineers are already studying Bosch patents for automotive parts for ideas; Sony, Pitney Bowes and DuPont are also on board.

This isn’t just an act of charity. It’s about like-minded companies and people bouncing ideas off each other, allowing inventive minds to build on the work of others.