DR. ISMAIL SERAGELDIN

Co-Chair, Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC); Vice President of the World Bank 1992-2000,
Egypt

Ismail Serageldin is the Founding Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), the new Library of Alexandria, inaugurated in 2002. He serves as Chair and Member of a number of advisory committees for academic, research, scientific, and international institutions, including as Co-Chair of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC), and serves as Patron of the International Science Council (ISC).

He has held many international positions, including as Vice President of the World Bank (1992–2000). He also co-chaired the African Union’s high-level panel for Biotechnology (2006) and again for Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) in 2012–2013, and was a member of the ICANN Panel for the review of the Internet Future (2013).

Dr. Serageldin has  many awards, including being the first recipient of the Grameen Foundation (USA) Award for a lifetime commitment to combating poverty (1999), and the presidential medals from the republics of Azerbaijan (2015), Montenegro (2016), Albania (2017), and Macedonia (2019), among others.