Rami Ghandour

Rami Ghandour (born October 31, 1963) is a computer scientist, entrepreneur and businessman based in Los Angeles, California most notable for designing an information mapping system used to categorize and build relationships among raw information and business intelligence. He is also the founder and CEO of Forestweb Inc and Industry Intelligence Inc, where his proprietary mapping process is used to deliver actionable market intelligence to companies in the forest products, packaging, and Food & Beverage industries.
Early life and education
Ghandour was born in Tripoli, Lebanon, on October 31, 1963. His family’s business is trading in the forest products industry in Lebanon. He attended high school at Collège du Léman, Switzerland. After graduation, Ghandour came to the United States for his undergraduate in Computer Science at the University of Southern California (USC). Ghandour continued his graduate work at USC, receiving his Masters in Computer Science.
Career
Early career
From 1985 to 1991, Ghandour developed and invested in projects in the California real estate market.
From 1991 to 1999, Ghandour helped manage his family business, which specializes in forest products trading. Being immersed in the family’s company, Ghandour realized that effective business decisions could only be made when managers and other decision makers had complete access to information about their industry.
Forestweb Inc.
In April 1999, Ghandour and business partner Marwan Jaroudi founded Forestweb Inc to deliver relevant market intelligence to the forest products industries. Seeing the information challenges that companies were facing, Ghandour invented and patented a new process to bind and map information called the Network Resource Categorization and Tracking Apparatus, Method and Computer-Medium (NRCTA). The patented “binding” technology was the underlying technology behind all of Forestweb Inc’s services.
Industry Intelligence Inc.
After the success of Forestweb Inc, in 2005 Ghandour and Jaroudi began expanding into other industries and started using the name Industry Intelligence Inc The technology and information management solutions originally developed for the forest products industry are now available for the packaging industry and global food and beverage industry.
When asked about his company’s services, Ghandour replies: “We gather, organize and deploy relevant market information so our clients can spend their time understanding, applying and making decisions. We serve the right information, at the right time, exactly where it is needed — at the users’ fingertips".
Patents
NRCTA Mapping Process
Thinking about a multi-dimensional approach to transforming raw information into intelligence, Ghandour developed in February 1999 a concept to achieve greater value from disparate and raw information through a mapping process that grabs individual items, contextualizes them and then tracks and delivers the organized information into actionable knowledge solutions.
Ghandour received the patent to his proprietary Network Resource Categorization and Tracking Apparatus, Method and Computer-Medium (NRCTA) in 2007. The NRCTA system is best applied in an environment where a vast amount of information is generated and/or received every day, and where users need up-to-date and contextualized access.
Query Response System and Method
On a Friday afternoon in 2011 during a recreational brainstorming session, Ghandour and a few other employees were joking about creating a phone application that would provide its users with Star Wars quotes. After a few days, the idea became a reality. Zepto was born.
Zepto is a free mobile-search service tool, facilitating search for real-time news by sending a snapshot market intelligence report of the searched topic to its users. The creation of Zepto triggered the creation of a second patent filed in 2011 for Ghandour’s proprietary Query Response System and Method where Ghandour sees a great potential in its implementation. Ghandour’s system determines four parameters (consideration medium, originating framework, user identity and user profile) in order to provide more accurate information to its users. Ghandour is currently implementing this system into Industry Intelligence Inc.’s next generation services.
Philanthopy
Ghandour is a board member of GO Campaign, a U.S. nonprofit organization founded in 2006 (originally named TunaHAKI Foundation) to address the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in different locations around the world. Scott Fifer, Founder and Executive Director of GO Campaign, is Ghandour’s longtime friend.
Patent
United States Patent on Network Resource Categorization and Tracking Apparatus, Method and Computer-Medium, Patent No. 7,243,107, July 10, 2007.
United States Patent on Query Response System and Method. Patent application No.: 13/366,001, filed February 3, 2012.
Notes and references

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