Prof. Juliana Najem is of Lebanese origin and was born in Colombia. She returned to her mother country in 1997. She founded PRODES NGO with a group of Lebanese women from the diaspora with the aim of fostering job opportunities in the villages and contributing to the country’s social and economic development. Since 2000, she has been implementing training programs for women in villages. From 2006 to 2009 she managed the launching of the Institute of Management and Services (IMS), a vocational training center in the hills of Byblos, offering a Management and Tourism Services Diploma with an Entrepreneurship Module. The training aims to offer professional insertion in the large field of tourism and hospitality services and to implement micro-businesses, responding to the growing demand in Rural Tourism as well as other local services. Ms Najem has been the project manager of projects such as: “Rural Routes”, “Micro-business Training for Women” and an EU project entitled “Social and economic promotion of Lebanese women in rural areas through the development of tourism, hospitality and networks of micro-entrepreneurs”. She is professor of Urbanism and Rural Development at the Lebanese American University (LAU) at Byblos and has participated actively in seminars, workshops and conferences in Lebanon and Europe.