AUB promotes entrepreneurship and students protest against Nestle Café

The American University of Beirut (AUB) celebrated yesterday for the third consecutive year the Innovation Day 2016 where dozens of booths were set up for students to expound their causes and cultural campaigns. The aim of the event was to raise awareness for innovation and entrepreneurship through participation in various educational activities. Among the organizers were 4 AUB bodies and 15 student societies. The program of the day included recreational games and competitions aimed at familiarizing students with innovative methods of thinking required for the development of projects in specific areas, notably, waste management, environment protection and social schemes. The list of the organising bodies included the Center for Research and Innovation, the Office of Grants and Contracts and the Technology Transfer Unit, in coordination with the Nature Conservation Center, the Darwazah Center for Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship and the AUB libraries. 

On the other side, a number of AUB students staged yesterday a sit-in in protest against the privatisation of  Nestle Toll House Café, and this after the extension of lease to the cafe by the university’s administration. The movement came part of a recently-launched campaign ‘Students against Nestle’ which triumphantly succeeded in blocking all the entries to the Café for one whole hour. A petition that was circulated among students and staff that collected some 400 signatures rejected all attempts to privatize the coffee shop and called for the termination of the lease agreement with Nestle and the replacement of the multinational by a local enterprise. The petition expounds the many reasons behind the students move, notably, Nestle’s support to the Israeli occupation, the practice of child labor and theft of the groundwater resources of many countries worldwide. To be recalled, that in the past, students have protested the Nestle Toll House Café presence at AUB but the latter’s administration has failed to respond.  (The Daily Star, As Safir, Al Akhbar, October 6, 2016)