The Gaby Deek Internet Innovation Award 2024 edition, a national inter-university competition organized by the ISOC Lebanon Chapter, was held on June 25, 2024, in honor of the late Gaby Deek, a dedicated member and former president of the ISOC Lebanon Chapter. The event took place at the premises of the Ecole Supérieure des Ingénieurs Beyrouth (ESIB), Faculty of Engineering, Saint Joseph University (USJ). The event was attended by Gaby Deek’s family and friends, ISOC Lebanon Chapter President Me. Charbel Chbeir, Vice President Ms. Zakie Karam, Secretary Mr. Jacques Bakaev, Mr. Marc Ibrahim, Ms. Roua Deeb, the Chairperson of the Computer Science and Information and Communications Technology Departments Dr. Elie Nasr, and Dr. Michel Ouwayjian from the American University of Science and Technology (AUST).
ISOC board members highlighted the importance of holding this event yearly and continuing the legacy of Gaby Deek for the role he played in advocating for the right of access to the internet, and infrastructure development in Lebanon.
The jury comprised ISOC Lebanon Chapter members Me. Charbel Chbeir, Ms. Zakie Karam, Mr. Jack Bakaev, and Dr. Marc Ibrahim.
From the pool of candidates, four students won prizes as follows:
1st prize (USD 1,000): Alain Nohra, Raed Diab, Ahmad Atwi for their project “Blockphish,” a cybersecurity solution that employs emerging technologies to disable phishing links.
2nd prize (USD 900): Emile Matta, William abou Khalil for their project “man in the middle: a new approach” by exploring novel cybersecurity ways to achieve a man in the middle attack.
3rd prize (USD 500): Samya Tannir, for her project “Design of a Novel Compressed Sensing-Based Ultra-Wideband Receiver,” a low-cost, easy-to-deploy, unique receiver.
4th prize (USD 400): Mohamad Banat, Hassan Hammoud, Walid Shehab, Hassan Zbib for their project “Trancity,” a public transportation project that utilizes existing infrastructures and platforms to deploy a comprehensive public transportation mapping and solution in Lebanon.
The Gaby Deek Internet Innovation Award aims to harness the knowledge and expertise of community members from all regions and backgrounds to advance the mission of a safe, secure, trustworthy, and open internet across Lebanon.
