Hassan Kassir was born in Sour, Lebanon in 1954. The Kassir family lineage claims it roots to Malik Al-Ashtar.
Hassan was raised with three strong and parallel development tracks:
(1) Intellectually provoking Islamic thought (read heavily in teenage years),
(2) highly regarded education, and
(3) exciting and innovative entrepreneurship (since his father was a merchant).
He migrated to France in 1972 and then to the USA in 1974 seeking higher education.
In the USA, Hassan experienced these three parallel tracks: Islam, academia, and entrepreneurship.
In Islamic thought, Hassan has been driven by and continues to research and write on questions like:
Why did Muslims fall behind? Is there conflict between Islam and science?
Are Islam and Modernity coherent? And, what is “my role” in all of this? “What am I supposed to do?”
Hassan has several planned publications; his pen name is “Ibn Abbas.”
In academia, Hassan obtained a BA in Economics from UCI,
a Master Degree in Comparative American Culture from UCI,
and (also at UCI) advanced to PhD candidacy in Comparative American Culture with research focus on:
“The Sociology of Technology: The Impact of the PC Revolution on American Culture.”
In entrepreneurship, Hassan has founded and operated many start-up companies.
Since he started research on the Sociology of Technology in the late 1980ies,
Hassan shifted his entrepreneurial projects to internet related start-ups.
Among his most exciting technology start-up experiences was an education technology project
(similar to Khan Academy) and eLocal.com (where he served as Chairman and CEO).
Since the debt market crisis of 2008, Hassan has been working on a “Debt Restructure Clearing House”
solution for non-performing debt (or toxic assets); he started up a new company called “Bid4Debt.com.”
Hassan was recently awarded a patent (# 8,489,480) making him officially the inventor of the technology.
In the past few months, Hassan was finally able to combine his academic and entrepreneurial quests;
Hassan has applied to a “Direct PhD” program to complete his PhD by submitting a research proposal for
a dissertation on “Debt Restructure Optimization” to the UEL-The University of East London.
The research proposal was accepted; Hassan is back to the university as a student working on his research
and dissertation while at the same time leading his very exciting Bid4Debt.com technology start-up company.