| “LET THEM WRITE THE SCRIPT OF THEIR TOMORROW” *
Powering Lebanon’s next generation with tech skills
“CodeBrave is really making a difference”
(Joseph, 18)
We are a tech education charity. We combine STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) with educational psychology-based teaching techniques. Our students are 12-18 year olds from disadvantaged areas in Lebanon. We are funded by our social enterprise and our donors.
Our impact so far.
Our Story
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In 2018, CodeBrave’s co-founders, Clem and Steven, were volunteering at a shelter for homeless youth in Lebanon. Many of these young people ended up back on the streets when they left the shelter, becoming trapped in a cycle of poverty and exploitation.
When one of the boys asked to learn coding, it sparked an idea. Steven and Clem realised that tech education could give these young people the skills, confidence, and opportunities to access jobs of the future. They set up coding and robotics classes in the shelter – and the students loved it!
CodeBrave now works to create lasting social change through tech education across Lebanon, with more than 400 children joining the programme so far.
We believe in the potential of every child.
We train former street youth and refugees for jobs of the future based on skills that are in-demand allowing them to take advantage of the growing Middle East tech sector and opening up an international online job market.
Many of our students come from traumatic backgrounds of conflict, abuse or poverty. We are leading thinking on integrating STEM education with trauma psychology.
Our Projects
We started with SuperCoder at Dar El Awlad, a course that teaches kids coping mechanisms to take care of their physical and mental health.
In the CodeBrave Scholars pilot programme, 7 youth with great promise received a solid foundation in coding and critical thinking skills.
In our Marj and Tariq al-Jadideh centres, 132 students aged 11-12 years are learning coding and robotics through our Foundational STEM curriculum.
Donate
You can contribute to CodeBrave’s work by donating to CodeBrave Foundation, a registered charity in England and Wales, no. 1188692.
US supporters are now able to make tax-deductible gifts to CodeBrave through Chapel & York Foundation. To donate go to www.chapel-yorkfoundation.org/donate/ and select CodeBrave Foundation as the ‘fund holder’. And remember, if you commit to monthly donations you will automatically join the CodeBrave Club!
• Fund inclusivity: £25 could give robotics equipment for 2 children.
• Fund connection: £50 could fund internet access for 1 child for a year.
• Fund participation: £100 could pay for a tablet.
• Fund access: £150 could give a child a tablet and internet for 1 year.
• Fund opportunities: £200 could give a teacher in Lebanon a salary for 1 month.
• Fund learning: £500 could give a child coding education for 1 year.
Partners
In The News
CodeBrave Lebanon Team (A-Z)
Ali Mezher
Coding & Robotics Trainer
Ali is a patented inventor with a passion for tinkering. He is a Mechatronics Engineering student at LAU and has been a Robotics instructor for 2 years.
Clementine Brown
Director and Co-Founder
Clementine leads on CodeBrave’s Operations and manages CodeBrave Tutors, our affiliated social enterprise, which provides coding tutoring to students around the globe and donates all profits to CodeBrave Lebanon. Prior to founding CodeBrave, Clementine was a data analyst including for the UN. She has a M.A. in Arabic & Persian from Oxford University.
Eliana Sleiman
STEM Education Manager
Eliana combines her BE in Mechanical Engineering with a MA in Educational Psychology (both AUB), embodying CodeBrave’s joint expertises!
Gracia Soued
HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS
Gracia has 10 years of experience in marketing, digital communications and events in the tech entrepreneurship and Oil & Gas sectors. She has a M.A. in Marketing & Communications from ESA Business School and ESCP Europe.
Hana Bechara
Project Manager
Hana manages CodeBrave’s projects in Lebanon and trains our teachers on Child Psychology. She has a background working with children from deeply traumatic backgrounds both as an operations coordinator and therapist. She has a degree in Psychology from AUB and is currently working on a Masters in Project Management.
Hani Janzi
Coding & Robotics Trainer
Hani is a self-taught full stack web developer. He has taught kids of all ages from Scratch to Web Development. He is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Physics at Beirut Arab University (BAU).
Jawad Kaisania
Coding & Robotics Trainer
Jawad has been teaching programming to children and adults for over 3 years and is currently doing his Masters in Computer Science at AUB, with a particular focus on machine learning and its applications in the medical field.
Kareem Tayara
Strategy & Modelling Volunteer
Kareem works as an independent consultant for an emerging market investment company. His background is in financial marketing, venture capital and strategy consulting. He has a degree in English Literature (Durham).
Razan Ali Hussein
Lead Robotics Trainer
Razan teaches coding through interactive craft-based robotics. She is full-stack web developer by training, with a degree from LIU.
Lebanon Board
Dolly Choucair
Board Member
Dolly has more than 16 years of experience in business law, NGO and governance, business and legal structuring, as well as experience in lecturing, mentoring and training.
A renowned supporter of civil society initiatives, she has helped and co-founded more than thirty NGOs since the year 2000. Dolly is the Head of the Aviation Practice Group and Senior Associate in the Corporate, Commercial and M&A Practice Group at ALEM & Associates law firm.
She is the President of MEPI Lebanon Alumni Association.
Fadi Bizri
Advisory Board Member
Fadi co-founded and co-leads SE Factory, a leading skills-training-for-jobs academy in Lebanon. SEF provides intensive coding bootcamps for low-income youth, helping them train on the necessary practical programming skills as well as soft skills that are required by the job market. Fadi is also a Partner at B&Y Venture Partners, a $46M venture capital fund based in Beirut, investing in high-potential technology startups, with a global mandate. Fadi co-founded and managed two of Lebanon’s first tech accelerators and has over 11 years experience in entrepreneurship ecosystems. Fadi is a mentor and board member at a number of startups and regularly advises on innovation policy.
Michel Chebli
Board Member
Michel worked in civil engineering and investment banking until he decided to become the manager of a socially responsible small hotel in Beirut. Michel holds a BA in Civil Engineering and a Masters in Finance.
Mounir Mouawad
Advisory Board Member
As VP of Payments and Emerging Products since August 2021, Mounir is responsible for scoping and delivering new products and leading the teams required to deliver them. Mounir joined Fidel API from Google, where he oversaw the product strategy and European operations for Google Pay. Mounir led the launch of Google Pay across 20 markets and frequently served as an advisor to regulators on open banking. Mounir holds a computer engineering degree from the American University of Beirut and an MBA from the London Business School.
Sandy Fahed
Board Member
Sandy has substantive cross-sectoral experience in innovation and strategic management, capacity and entrepreneurship development, and community and partnership building both in the MENA region and further afield. She has contributed to the development of international and non-profit organizational learning programs as well as social innovation and youth-led community initiatives. Sandy holds a bachelor’s in Business Administration with an emphasis on Human Resource Management from Haigazian University, and a Master’s of Science in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the University of Sussex, a degree she obtained while studying in the UK as a Chevening Scholar. Sandy is currently a consultant at Beyond Group where she catalyzes initiatives for meaningful change across all three practices.
Stephen Hall
Board Member
Stephen is a Partner with McKinsey and Company’s Middle East office. Most of his work is with governments and donors on addressing social sector topics, with a particular focus on education and public health. Originally from the UK, he has lived in Lebanon for over a decade. Stephen holds degrees in Middle Eastern studies from Cambridge and in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Zalfa Nassar
Board Member
Zalfa is the senior partner at Serhal Nassar &Co. based in Beirut and Dubai with more than 50 years in activity. Before that, she was a senior auditor at Ernst & Young in Beirut. In the academic track, Zalfa also was an audit and financial accounting courses lecturer at AUB in 1996.
Zalfa holds several international certifications including US CPA, US CBA, US CIA and US CMA in addition to the Lebanese CPA. She also is an active member in the Information systems audit and control association and international federation of francophone accountants. Zalfa attained an M.B.A from the American University of Beirut (AUB) (1993), and a B.A. in Business and accounting from AUB as well (1991).
CodeBrave Foundation Team
Steven Wilbur
Co-Founder & US Donor Relations
Steven leads on CodeBrave’s Education and Psychology approach. He is a former teacher and an expert in child psychology with eight years of experience and degrees in Educational Psychology (Washington) and Math (N. Texas).
Tatiana Woodhouse
Executive Director
Tatiana has a background in project management and child protection in the humanitarian sector, with three years experience in Lebanon. She has degrees in Ancient and Modern History (Oxford) and Human Rights and Humanitarian Action (Sciences-Po PSIA).
CodeBrave Foundation Board of Trustees
Amanda Ogilvie
UK Board Member
Amanda is a solicitor qualified in both English and Scots law. She is Legal, Risk and Compliance Counsel at Action Against Hunger UK. Amanda has experience working as a specialist charities lawyer at DLA Piper and Bates Wells. She has also worked at a senior level in risk and compliance at Plan International, including work in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Amanda has extensive experience of advising charities on a wide range of legal, risk, compliance and governance matters with a particular focus on international humanitarian organisations.
Bilal Skaf-Halaby
UK Board Member
Bilal is a Strategy and Operations Manager at Google, focusing on a variety of topics including video ads and privacy products.Prior to Google, Bilal was working at Nuance Communication, an international leader in speech recognition technologies. At Nuance, Bilal was part of the product team that built the speech recognition engine that powered the early versions of Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri. Throughout his career, Bilal has covered multiple roles within the tech industry ranging from product engineering to consulting and business development. Bilal holds a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from McGill university in Canada, and a MBA from INSEAD business school in France.
Martin Brown
Secretary
Martin Brown has a 50 year career in the financial services industry, initially as a stockbroker and investment fund manager with Henderson and Clerical Medical International, where he specialized in offshore funds for international investors in Luxemberg and Guernsey. He later moved into the media and creative services sector of the financial services industry. He has been the Treasurer of an education charity in the UK for five years.
Olivia Peacock
UK Board Member
Olivia is a Senior Analyst at Finance Earth and works across a range of natural capital investment advisory projects.
Previously, Olivia worked in audit and advisory. Olivia worked in Deloitte’s Private Markets division, providing audit and advisory services to private equity backed businesses. Olivia subsequently joined PKF Littlejohn’s Not For Profit team, providing audit services for Institutional Donors, namely on EU and UN grants.
Olivia is a qualified Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales and holds an MA (Oxon) in Modern Languages (French and Spanish) from the University of Oxford.
Robert Milburn
UK Board Chairman
Robert was a senior audit partner with PwC, specialising in the retail and consumer, leisure and real estate sectors, until his retirement in 2014.
He is currently a member of the audit and risk committee at the care sector charity Marie Curie, the Valuation Office Agency (an executive agency of HMRC), The National Archives and Canal and River Trust. He is also a governor, trustee and Chair of the Finance Committee at Lady Eleanor Holles School in Hampton.
Robert is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and holds an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University.”
Sheetal Vyas
UK Board Member
Sheetal Vyas is the Director of PwC’s Disruption practice which focuses on how emerging technologies and global megatrends collide to disrupt both business and society.
She is a strategy consultant with over 20 years’ experience working in both the private and public sectors for PwC in the UK and across Asia and Africa. Her experiences includes working in venture capital with technology start-ups and delivering innovation and entrepreneurship programmes. She is a qualified chartered accountant.”
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