In collaboration with the BMW Group Logistics and Supply Chain teams, Saint Joseph University of Beirut (USJ)’s School of Engineering (ESIB) invites you to participate in the 8th BMW Group - Lebanon Workshop on Vision Intelligence and Robots Applications: VIRA 2026. Following the previous iteration of this event (VIRA’25), the 8th iteration aims at promoting the collaboration between Lebanese Universities and BMW Group, allowing students who interned at BMW Group and IdealWorks to present and discuss their projects. The workshop also provides Lebanese faculty on the one hand, and BMW Group and IdealWorks experts on the other hand, with a yearly platform to share knowledge and experience in common fields of interest, including computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics systems, and related fields.
The event is held in collaboration with InMind Academy, a professional training program established in collaboration with BMW Group and international industry partners including Idealworks, InMind .ai, Palantir Technologies, and Magazino.
It is organized under the flagship of the ICT Knowledge & Innovation Community (KIC) within the Lebanon Innovate Program, funded by the European Union and led by BeryTech.
The initiative is further supported by the Lebanese American University’s School of Engineering, IEEE Lebanon Section, IEEE Computer Society Lebanon, IEEE Women in Engineering Lebanon, ACM SIGAPP French Chapter, IEEE USJ Student Branch, and IEEE LAU Student Branch.
Date: Friday March 27th, 2026
Location: Physically at USJ Mar Roukos campus, Maroun Semaan Conference Center, and virtually on this link.
Workshop Schedule
Session 1: Opening
|
10:00–10:10 |
Welcome notes |
• Jimmy Nassif, Ph.D., CTO of IdealWorks |
|
10:10–10:30 |
BMW Group Innovation in Logistics Robotics |
• Wafic El Ariss, Logistics Robotics Team Lead, BMW Group |
|
10:30–10:50 |
Idealworks: The Robotics Ecosystem Provider |
• Anthony Rizk, Innovation Lead, IdealWorks |
|
10:50–11:10 |
AI for Autonomous Driving |
• Chafic Bou Akar, Ph.D., Autonomous Driving, BMW Group |
|
11:10–11:30 |
Challenges and Opportunities of Applied AI in Industry |
• Jimmy Tekli, Ph.D., HR Analytics, BMW Group |
|
11:30–11:50 |
Introduction to InMind Academy |
• Joe Tekli, Ph.D., Professor - LAU, Director of InMind Academy |
|
11:50–12:00 |
Introduction to the ICT Knowledge and Innovation Community, powered by BeryTech |
• Ralph Sioufi, ICT KIK focal point, Lebanon Innovate, BeryTech |
| 12:10–12:25 | Dual Branch and Bi-Direction Self-Supervised Learning for Point Cloud Understanding | • Anthony Yaghi, Ph.D. student and engineer Supervisors: Joe Tekli, Ph.D., LAU, Raphael Couturier, Ph.D., UMLP, France, and Marc Kamradt, BMW Group |
| 12:25–12:40 | Single-Shot Quantum State Preparation via Latent Quantum-Classical Architectures | • Kevin Aoun, Eng. student Supervisors: Florian Kiwit, BMW Group, Carlos Riofrio, Ph.D., BMW Group, Samer Saab Jr., Ph.D., LAU, Andre Lukow, Ph.D., BMW Group, and Joe Tekli, LAU |
| 12:40–12:55 | Representation and Compression of 3D Point Clouds on Quantum Computers |
• Charbel El Bateh, Eng. student Supervisors: Florian Kiwit, BMW Group, Carlos Riofrio, Ph.D., BMW Group, Samer Saab Jr., Ph.D., LAU, Andre Lukow, Ph.D., BMW Group, and Joe Tekli, LAU |
| 12:55–13:10 |
Multi-Agent Systems for Industrial AI: Leveraging Synthetic and Hybrid Data for Small, Large, and Vision-Language Models |
• Abbas Abdallah, Eng. Student Supervisors: Dani Azzam, InMind .ai, Joe Tekli, LAU, and Abdallah Makhloul, Ph.D., UMLP, France |
| 14:00–14:10 | Multi-agent AI system using LangFlow and local LLMs to automate structured data generation and improve the quality of synthetic tabular datasets |
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| 14:15–14:25 | Simplifying digital twins creation using a generative AI pipeline that generates textured 3D meshes |
• Mohamad Jaber Supervisors: Joe Khalil and Marc Kamradt, BMW Group |
|
| 14:30–14:40 | Autonomous pick-and-place system using a Universal Robots UR10/20 robotic arm to explore challenges in industrial automation |
• Johnny Hanna Supervisors: Wafic El Ariss, BMW Group |
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| 14:45–14:55 | Cloud tools for Logistics software and their logs for monitoring analysis |
• Layla MAASSARANI Supervisors: Gilbert Jabbour and Alexander Decker, BMW Group |
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| 15:00–15:10 | Integrating cameras in transport robot hardware and software, and using AI navigation for cross embodiments developed by Nvidia |
• Maroun Hanna Supervisor: Anthony Rizk, IdealWorks |
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| 15:15–15:25 | Automating factory logistics processes, and developing robot pick-and-place systems for improved performance |
• Ali Rammal Supervisor: Wafic El Ariss, BMW Group |
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| 15:30–15:40 | Analytics and monitoring for Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) to support operational insights across robot fleets |
• Taline Zeidan Supervisor: Jad Keryakos, IdealWorks |
| 15:50–16:00 | Truck Loading application for logistics planning |
• Hani Abdel Ghani Supervisors: Gilbert Jabbour and Alex Decker, BMW Group |
| 16:05–16:15 | Operations in BMW Research and Development department |
• Ali Joumaa Supervisor: Hadi Koubeissy, BMW Group |
| 16:20–16:30 | Trend and news radar and orchestration agents that empower BMW decision making |
• Bahaa Almasri Supervisor: Kay Wuensche, BMW Group |
| 16:35–16:45 | Internal enterprise applications to improve system performance while reducing manual operational work |
• Elie Sawma Awad Supervisors: Gilbert Jabbour and Alex Decker, BMW Group |
| 16:50–17:00 | Building a 3D synthetic data generation pipeline and an AI parking system |
• Elie Fares Supervisor: Maximilian Hackl, BMW Group |
| 17:05–17:15 | Logistics planning applications for BMW Group for improving scalability, reliability, and performance metrics |
• Carmen Merheb Supervisors: Gilbert Jabbour and Alex Decker, BMW Group |
| 17:15–17:30 | Wrapping up: Next Steps and Expectations of the Cooperation | Round table |
