“I started playing oud when I was 12 years old. Music is very important to me because it allows me to express the artistic part of my personality. I even wanted to become a musician, but my parents encouraged me to get a ‘real’ job.

So, I studied engineering at AUB; it ended up being a good thing because I discovered my other passion: robotics. And this is what allowed me to merge my creative and rational mindsets.

As a musician, I always struggled to tune my instrument; I had to wait for the weekly visit of my teacher to do it properly. In 2008, I took the control system design course at AUB, where we learned how to automate things. This is when I got the idea to create a device that would automatically tune my oud.

With this project, I won first place at Stars of Science TV. 2 years later, I reached out to my friend Hassane Slaibi, who’s blessed with absolute pitch and wanted to spread his gift to other musicians, to help me grow the project.”

Bassam and Salibi are the co-founders of Band Industries.Their devices are sold in more than 80 countries worldwide.