“CodeBrave is really making a difference”
(Joseph, 18)
Education is a fundamental right. In the 21st century, we believe tech education should be, too. For centuries, literacy has empowered individuals to improve their lives and get better jobs. Digital literacy is now the passport to participating and thriving in the modern world.
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 nearly 300 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
In our Marj and Tariq al-Jadideh centres, 132 students aged 11-12 years are learning coding and robotics through our Foundational STEM curriculum.
In our Geitawi Centre, 19 students aged 12-13 are learning coding and robotics through our Foundational STEM curriculum.
In Autumn 2020, the first cohort of 20 students aged 14-15 completed CodeBrave’s Digital Skills and Entrepreneurship course remotely via donated iPads.
Donate
You can contribute to CodeBrave’s work by donating to CodeBrave Foundation, a registered charity in England and Wales, no. 1188692.
One-time donation
could buy robotics equipment for two children.
could buy internet access for 1 child for a year.
could pay for a tablet.
could buy a tablet and internet access for a child for 1 year.
could pay for a teacher’s salary for a month.
could fund a child’s coding education for 1 year.
Ongoing monthly donation
could fund robotics equipment
could fund 6 children’s internet access for a year
could fund a child’s education for a year
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!
Partners
In The News
CodeBrave Lebanon Team
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).
Marie El Habr
Coding & Robotics Trainer
Marie is a full-stack web developer and coordinator of robotics training workshops. She graduated from LAU and has also taught at robotics camps at Notre Dame University in the US.
Paolo Khayat
Coding & Robotics Trainer
Paolo is an engineering graduate with skills in Data Science and Machine Learning, Controls and Robotics, and Renewable Energy, and was the President of the AUB Artificial Intelligence Club.
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.
Steven Wilbur
Co-Founder
Steven leads on CodeBrave’s Education and Pyschology approach. He is a former teacher and an expert in child psychology with eight years experience and degrees in Educational Psychology (Washington) and Math (N. Texas).
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.
Hana Bechara
Board Member
Hana 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.
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
Mounir Mouawad heads up product strategy and operations for Google Pay in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Prior to that he managed some of Google’s largest e-commerce clients in Europe, and spent three years in marketing and buying at Amazon. Mounir holds a computer engineering degree from the American University of Beirut and an MBA from the London Business School.
Sandy Fahed
Advisory 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.
CodeBrave Foundation Team
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
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.
Elizabeth Edwards
UK Board Member
Elizabeth has a background in programming to support civil society, peacebuilding and stabilization programmes in the Middle East. Her roles have covered project implementation, monitoring and evaluation and research to inform policy-making. She has led fundraising in the UK for grassroots charities in the Middle East and managed a network of donors supporting civil society.
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 an Institutional Donor Grant Auditor at PKF Littlejohn. She qualified as an ICAEW Chartered Accountant with Deloitte, where she was an auditor specialising in private-equity backed businesses. She holds an MA in 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.”
Yasmina Brihi
UK Board Member
Yasmina is a Senior Director at Google, where she spent the past 13 years leading, building and scaling Google’s consumer businesses and teams in EMEA – covering hardware, software and platforms, and apps products.
Prior to Google and the tech world, Yasmina spent 10 years advising clients on their business and marketing strategies, first as a management consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, and then as a member of WPP’s fellowship program.
She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MSc in Management from the London School of Economics, and a B.A. in Politics from the American University of Beirut.”
