News & highlights
Event recaps, member-built products, conference connections, and the announcements that help the community stay in sync.
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Alaa Khaddaj shared his experience with graduate school applications on 17 October. His slides and the session recording are available in Slack.
Alaa Khaddaj discussed graduate programs, research experience, recommendation letters, and statements of purpose. He also answered questions about funding and the choice between master’s and PhD programs.
Sarah Jabbour led the 19 September Grad School Info Session. Her slides cover research experience, advisor selection, and PhD applications.
Sarah Jabbour discussed what a PhD involves and how students can prepare an application. She shared her slides and invited further questions in the community’s grad-school channel.
Members met online for an informal first-Saturday conversation about current work, open questions, and new AI topics.
The August meetup brought members together across time zones for a relaxed community conversation. The format remains intentionally open: meet people, share work, ask questions, and bring whatever AI topic is useful to discuss.
Community members connected at ICML, shared research posters, and represented Lebanese work across the conference.
Lebanese in AI members found one another at ICML 2026, visited the expo and main-stage program, and shared research including work on speculative sampling and long-video question answering.
The community used Slack and a temporary WhatsApp group to coordinate during the conference.
Industrial AI, agents and workflows, coding tools, and the changing role of engineers shaped the June virtual meetup.
The June conversation ranged from predictive maintenance and proactive manufacturing to agentic workflows, MCP, and the boundary between agents and deterministic processes.
Members also compared their experience with Codex, Claude Code, and coding agents, and discussed why domain expertise, judgment, and oversight remain central as model capabilities improve.
Mohsen Abdelaal's AI nutrition coach placed first; Jessica Chemali's Lebanese land-search platform placed second.
Mohsen Abdelaal’s Sahha took first place. The product combines an AI nutrition coach with food logging, meal plans, barcode and image recognition, gamification, and a deployed application.
Jessica Chemali’s ParcelScout / Lebanese Land Search placed second. It brings together thousands of Lebanese land listings, adds AI deal scoring, maps, zoning and buildable-area filters, and supports natural-language search.
The full showcase featured 12 builders and 12 working demos.
The community now has one place for news, useful work, meetup reminders, and important announcements.
The newsletter launched alongside the Slack workspace, WhatsApp announcement channel, and shared Google Calendar. Together they provide a discussion space, a low-noise announcement channel, event reminders, and a public digest.
Members gathered at Beirut Digital District for an in-person meetup focused on reconnecting, exchanging ideas, and strengthening the local AI community.
Lebanese in AI members met in person at Beirut Digital District in December 2025. The gathering gave people across the local community time to reconnect, meet new members, and exchange ideas face to face.
Lebanese researchers and community members connected in San Diego during NeurIPS 2025, meeting across the conference and poster halls.
Community members found one another during NeurIPS 2025 in San Diego, reconnecting across the conference and meeting other Lebanese researchers working in AI.
The gathering continued a recurring pattern at major conferences: using the Lebanese in AI network to make introductions and bring the wider research community together.
