the conscientious are perplexed,

at the vista of a fragile world—

  “Bibo” Habib AL-ASSAAD (حبيب الأسعد) is a social experimenter through Kₓ2™, his integral platform for actioned resiliency + change. He also performs as intercessor to private members of the Dubai & Abu Dhabi Ruling Families, an advisor to MIRAKI Innovation, and as independent non-exec Board Director at AFAQ (ex-officio):

  The matriarchical Principal's family, descending of the great Bani Yas tribe for generations (originating circa Abu Dhabi), are renowned for their piety, judgment, poetry, and knighthood, and had been entrusted a significant role in the unification of the Trucial States to form the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). Their seed of wisdom continues today through marital consort with members of the contemporary Al Maktoum line, globally reputed following the visionary leadership of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the Vice President, Minister of Defence, and Prime Minister of the UAE, Emir (Ruler) of Dubai, and Chairman of the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD).

  Global societal sustainability through enabling responsible enterprise is a recurring theme in Mr. Al-Assaad’s career. Following formative commercial & corporate philanthropy tenures at publicly held corporate titans like ORACLE, GM and Motorola between 2001 and 2011, Mr. Al-Assaad forayed into development finance and early fintech by upstarting the Oryx SIS 1 banking fund; however, he is most known among forerunners of Dubai’s nascent 2010-2015 startup scene as an investor & early Maker in the Impact Hub network... a frenzy of 20,000 sustainability innovators in 80 cities which rotate to convene the annual Unlikely Allies Summit. Impact Hub Dubai was the 1st legal Incubator in the UAE, launching the 1^st Emirati accelerator in collaboration with the Dubai Department of Economic Development, hosting eBay and Bitcoin’s 1^st official events in Arabia, and mentorship to Emirates Foundation’s Awards for Gulf Youth social entrepreneurs.

  With thanks to the scaling efficiencies of such multinationals, as well as advances in impact-measurement methodologies, Mr. Al-Assaad carries a personal triple-bottom-line of $427M in cumulative Profit generated, enabling self-employment for 132,000 People in 66 countries, and a Planetary ecofootprint of 2.21gha where the avg. is >4.

  Established 2015, AFAQ custodians the personal estate of the Emirati Principal, privately emitting ethical outbound capital to further innovations abroad that are existential to the region. It also maintains a portfolio of operational vehicles to facilitate strategic aims, including LMM General Trading, Teknix for project services, and Irtiqa Human Development… aligning with likeminded families and their companies abroad, and working with local government bodies to steward regulatory permits, security clearances, land, IP, talent, operational infrastructure, and agented representation, for risk mitigation and return acceleration of FDI through Dubai’s regional hub.

  By the Principal's appointment, in 2019, Mr. Al-Assaad placed the Arab world’s direct presence for MIRAKI, a Harvard Square-based I.P. commercialization firm bearing the Principal's auspices, to link the West's and East's health R&D ecosystems into a network making miraculously lifesaving DoD grant- and private capital- funded medical devices (from sepsis filtration to surgical robots and radiological A.I.) publicly accessible, commoditizing current previous-gen technology and thus reducing cost of care to the ill-stricken. Its founder and his truly authentic friend, Chris Velis, has gained accolades for reducing risk and time horizon in medtech after masterminding AURIS, which recently sold to Johnson & Johnson for $5.7B.

  Earlier affiliations range from the UN Global Alliance for ICT & Development, Medcap Funds, 3BL Holdings, Alliance of Civilisations, Change Facilitation Associates Network, Hivos Mideast Creatives, Mudara-Hawkamah Institute of Corporate Governance, Alternative Direct Investment and Securities Association, Project Management Institute, American Marketing Association, and the Zayed University National Advisory Council.

  An avid proponent of the classical humanities and the spirit of benevolent venturing, Mr. Al-Assaad was furthermore a nominator of fellows to the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures (sic), and Commerce of Britain, a scholar of the 1st INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Programme (2006), the 1st awardee outside the United States of an EDSF grant, and an A.U.S. Pioneers recipient by HH Sheikh Dr. Sultan Al-Qasimi (Ruler of Sharjah).

  Running long in Mr. Al-Assa'ad’s line is a duality of diplomacy and defiance: Unrelated to Syrian or Palestinian Al-Assads, he is among very few living legacies today of the El-Assaad dynasty, whose lineage defended fellow denizens of history’s Jabal Aamel (Mount Amel) principality – today southern Lebanon – for 36 generations, throughout the Arab caliphate by Sheikh al Mashayekh (Chief of Chiefs) Nassif Al-Nassar (the Invictor) ibn Al-Wa’ili, Ottoman conquest under Shabib Pasha Al Assaad, and colonial French administration by his grandfather Hassib Beyk—also supreme court Judge and grand Speaker at halls across the Levant.

  His patriarchy originated when the kin of the Najdi (today Saudi) traveling bedouin Ali El Sagheer (Seger, the Young) were proclaimed Al Assaad (the Most Rejoiceful) by their adopting people of Jabal Aamel after liberating Sidon & Tyre, its ancient and Biblical capitals, from Byzantine tyrants (wherefrom the term originated). His tribe, the Anazzah (of Bani Wa’il), as are the Al-Saud royalty and other Najdis… yet, a branch of the Rwala side that caravaned northwest in search of arable farmland (one cluster headed by Prince Mejhem ibn Meheid, holder of a Croix de Légion d’Honneur and taken Lady of Ellenborough, Jane E. Digby.

  Having for generations thereafter bloodmixed to the point of synosanguinity with the local Mediterranean population, during their Al-Assaad era, they, as provincial governors by consent, were given Khuwwa (brotherly voluntary crop-sharing) by local clans to finance protecting their co-operative trade from outside occupation, peacefully upholding the autonomy of a laborious few in the midst of one massive imperial taxation hegemony after another. This continued until contemporary domestic ideological belligerence and foreign interferences led to rapid depredation of the Al-Assaads’ popularity-base and ability to deliver its constituency from external subjugation, ultimately resulting in the exodus of Mr. Al-Assaad's immediate family upon Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, perhaps returning in better times, if at all, meanwhile connecting to new international causes— letting go of the past unless birthed new context.

  Today, the Al-Assaad name is carried by a handful of fearless perseverants in the disjointed Lebanese electoral landscape, such as his cousins Riad (businessperson, financier of the Together Towards Change syndicate of independents), Maan (human rights lawyer & propagator of the Tayyar Al Assaadi current), and Ahmad (founder of the Lebanese Option Party & Saving the Next Generation)… as well as those in international service, such as Nael (cousin) – envoy for HM King Abdullah of Jordan and former husband of late Saudi magnate Adnan Khashoggi’s sister Soheir. Mr. Al-Assaad's sister Hoda, an organizer of IMF’s 2003 Annual Meetings and ex-Clearstream Banking, Dubai Holding, and the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, recently joined the Arab Media Group after running the office of Fouad Makhzoumi – the ultra-HNW industrialist behind the National Dialogue Party.

  Other deceased notable relations in modernity included the much renowned Kamel Beyk – Speaker of the House of the Lebanese Parliament and genitor of the Social Democratic Party (grandcousin); Haidar (father) – historian and among the first official delegates to visit the new People’s Republic of China in the 1960’s following Ministerial civil service – later serving as a Director at the FAO of the United Nations and consultant to TRW and the World Bank; his passed uncles… namely His late Excellency Sa'id, Ambassador of Lebanon to France and Belgium who was wed to Bahija El-Solh, the aunt of HRH Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of K.S.A. and daughter of Riyad El-Solh, architect of Lebanon’s independence from French mandatehood and drafter of the newly formed republic’s first constitution (leading to the small country’s becoming an exceptional example of economic and touristic freedom in its wider region until Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war); and Hazaa – who entered Middle East Airlines into alliance with Pan Am (led by Najeeb Halaby, father of Lisa Halaby, who later became HM Queen Noor of Jordan). Surviving them —last of the elder circle—are esteemed power-broking socialites such as Bassam and Madame Zahye. Similitude to Habib Pasha Assaad, 1922-1936 Prime Minister and President of Lebanon, is coincidental.

    Mr. Al-Assaad himself has no partisan affiliations or political aspirations but endorses the Union of the Mediterranean. While identifying more with technology than nationality, to this day he remains solely Lebanese by choice and has not sought other citizenship, albeit depending on scenarios he is currently monitoring.