Egyptian Billionaire Nassef Sawiris Donates $6 Million to University of Chicago Program in El Gouna

Egyptian billionaire, Nassef Sawiris, has donated $6 Million to the University of Chicago as part of a collaborative effort to launch the first custom designed Executive Education Program in El Gouna.

The Chicago Booth Executive Program is set to start this year and end in 2021, with courses running in the form of 14-day sessions that offer hands-on methodical teaching and experiential learning methods to the country's upcoming leaders, while educating them on how to cope with ongoing contemporary challenges in the growing economic market on both the private and public scale.

“I am excited to support the launch of a new Chicago Booth program in Egypt, bringing the school’s strength in executive education to emerging leaders in the public and private sectors of Egypt and the wider region,” Sawiris, an alumni of Chicago University, said of the project.

The grant comes under the auspices of the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development, the first of its kind, donor foundation in Egypt, an NGO established with a purpose fuse the private and public sector together. Coming in as a partnered program with the prestigious Chicago university, whose list of prominent alumni include Politician Bernie Sanders, Washington Post's Katharine Graham and Famed Writers Kurt Vonnegut and Philip Roth.

Nassef Sawiris, who has been one of the University of Chicago's board members since 2013, previously partnered with it on a fellowship program between the American University in Cairo and Cairo University. Furthermore, the university declared that throughout the upcoming years, their will be a more concerted effort to involve participants from the Middle East and North Africa.