The crowdsource funding platform for farmers, BOOSTani, won the first prize at the Startup Weekend Beqaa organized by Berytech at Ecole Superieure d’Ingenieurs d’Agronomie Mediterraneenne (ESIAM) campus of Saint Joseph University (USJ) in Zahle. Some 40 participants coming from the areas of engineering, agriculture, marketing and business took part in the event which aimed at resolving challenges in the agro-food sector. BOOSTani, which was designed by Ahmad Hassan (Beirut Arab University), Michel Metri (LAU graduate) and Danielle Monsef and Rima Hijazi (Current ESIAM students) won a prize of USD 1500. The second prize (USD 1000) went to E-Hesba, an application for retailers to order fruits and vegetables from wholesale farmers. And the third prize went to an application for customers to track the source of their produce. Besides the cash prizes, the winning teams received support from Berytech to implement their projects and to participate in the Agrytech Accelerator organized jointly by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Lebanon and Berytech to help startups in the agro-food industry. (L’Orient Le Jour, December 19, 2017)