I have been honored to initiate the Yemen Research Needs Conference in Yemen. The conference provides research and graduate students the opportunity to identify research projects based on industry leaders needs and from their 5-minute pitches they make in the conference. The youtube channel provides these short videos of research projects worth working on to serve Yemen’s economy and development. The speakers are well selected based on a list of criteria spelled out in the graduate program of MBA in the Lebanese International University. These speakers come from different players in the Yemen economy. Speakers come from the private sector, INGOs, local NGOs, government agencies, and local authorities.

Research projects that I have worked on include:

Banking Sector Research

Working for 6 years in the banking industry as a research and development manager at the International Bank of Yemen provided me with a wide experience in financial performance, products, and processes. Developed papers include:

• Regulations associated with mobile money, a comparative study among Kenya, Philippines, and Yemen.
• Challenges associated with POS merchant acceptance and implementations challenges facing electronic services.
• Banking service pricing in Yemen
• Customer perceptions of banking services.
• Microfinance, opportunities, and challenges.
• Mobile money, consumer experiences, and penetration among Yemeni customers.
• The use of technology to enable microfinance, the use of social media.

Yemen Local Economy Research

Working as a consultant for international organizations in Yemen provided me with experience over the local economy. From capacity assessments to monitoring and evaluation projects, one has encountered a diverse experience in measurements and experimentation. Some of my studies include:

• Employer’s organizations’ effectiveness in Yemen.
• Higher education graduates challenge in creating jobs, volunteering, and entrepreneurship.
• Business interventions, challenges, and opportunities.
• Yemen e-commerce, challenges and opportunities.
• Yemen post-war, Resilience, Livelihood, Social cohesion, and self-reliance.
• Microfinance industry challenges and opportunities.
• Various supply chain evaluations and development such as handloom, sesame, coffee among others.
• Foreign fund effectiveness, efficiencies, and impact in several sectors.
• INGOs in Yemen.
• NGOs in Yemen, critical successes and failures.
• Electronic payments, challenges and opportunities.
• Business Continuity in Yemen, perceptions, and expectations.
• The pharmaceutical industry, ethics between standards, practices, and perceptions.
• ERP systems challenges and opportunities for local businesses, a perspective of end-users.

In addition to a large number of business plans and proposals in various sectors of the economy. I have worked with over 30 leading organizations in Yemen.