Philippe Jabre, Patron of the Class of 2026 at Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour
Philippe Jabre, Patron of the Class of 2026 at Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour
An alumnus and patron of the Class of 2026 at Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour, Philippe Jabre returned to address the graduates. The man who had left Lebanon in 1975, at the outbreak of the war, with no celebration to mark his departure, now speaks to a class he sees "shining over the next fifty years, in Lebanon and abroad."
"In our country, it is hard to speak of the future with certainty," he acknowledges. "But it is precisely in such difficult times that deep convictions take on their full meaning." His address was built around five ideas.
"No great dream has ever begun anywhere but on a school bench." Jamhour is not merely a school - it is a lifelong fellowship, an experience, a way of being, one felt all the more keenly once you are far from it. On leaving its benches, the graduates carry with them an education, a method, values and a remarkable human network. That bond is a rare strength.
"Expect the unexpected." Quoting Edgar Morin, Jabre recalls that his generation changed careers two or three times in a lifetime - theirs will do so far more often. What matters, then, is to have learned how to learn, and to stay that way: to become lifelong learners, to surround oneself with curious people - curiosity is contagious - and to remain humble before knowledge. "Whoever believes they have finished learning has already begun to fall behind."
"True abundance is measured not by what we possess, but by what we bring to others." Success does not rest on intelligence and knowledge alone. It also depends on courtesy, humility, integrity, and the ability to work together and honour one's commitments: "We work with reliable people, people we trust, whose word carries weight." Helping someone back to their feet, supporting a friend, opening a door: these are acts that shape a life more deeply than material things.
"Mastering it is a game changer; dismissing it, a game over." Technology must be made an ally - accompanied, questioned, turned into a tool in the service of one's judgement. Jabre has watched the revolutions follow one another: chemical engineering in his early days, the telephone in the 1990s, the internet and computing, coding, today artificial intelligence and robotics, tomorrow quantum computing. His conviction: human capital remains the primary engine of the prosperity that AI generates.
"Your value will lie in your ability to ask the right questions." From this follows a cardinal quality: agility in the face of change. Many of the careers these graduates will pursue most likely do not yet exist; they will live in a world that changes faster than anything previous generations have known. They will need to adapt, to reinvent themselves, to take risks, and to cultivate their critical thinking in a world where machines will provide more and more of the answers.
He closes his address with a call to solidarity and commitment: that each of them make a difference for their country. "A sense of belonging brought me back, and it will bring all of you back, to Lebanon."
