Wael Ghonim

Wael Ghonim is an Egyptian Internet activist and computer engineer who became an international figure in 2011 as one of the organisers of the social-media campaign that helped spur the mass demonstrations that forced President Hosni Mubarak from power. ^{1 2} No source read for this record names a religion or school for him, and none is recorded in his data. ^{1 2}

He was born to a middle-class family on 23 December 1980 in Cairo, and grew up in Abha, Saudi Arabia, moving back to Cairo at thirteen. ^{1 2} He earned a degree in computer engineering from Cairo University in 2004 and an MBA in marketing and finance from the American University in Cairo. ¹

He worked as marketing and sales manager of Gawab from 2002 to 2005, then founded the financial portal Mubasher.info. ¹ He joined Google in 2008 and in January 2010 became its head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, based in Dubai. ^{1 2}

In June 2010 he anonymously created the Facebook page "We are all Khaled Said", in support of a young Egyptian tortured to death by police in Alexandria; the page became a forum on police brutality with hundreds of thousands of members. ^{1 2} After the Tunisian uprising, he used the page to call for action on 25 January 2011, publishing the event "January 25: Revolution against Torture, Corruption, Unemployment and Injustice". ¹ He disappeared on 27 January and was held in secret detention for 11 days, interrogated about the page, which he administered with AbdelRahman Mansour. ^{1 2}

Released on 7 February, he appeared the same day on Dream TV, praised the protesters, mourned the dead whose names and pictures the host read out, and was overcome on camera. ¹ The interview is often credited with re-energising the protest movement. ² On 9 February he addressed the crowds in Tahrir Square: "This is not the time for individuals, or parties, or movements. It's a time for all of us to say just one thing: Egypt above all." ¹ He consistently rejected the role of spokesman or hero, comparing the revolution to Wikipedia: everyone contributing, no one the hero. ¹ Time included him in its Time 100 list of 2011, and he received the JFK Profile in Courage Award on behalf of the people of Egypt. ¹

His memoir Revolution 2.0 was published in 2012, and he donated the proceeds of his book deal, some 2.5 million dollars by the article's account, to charity work in Egypt. ¹ He founded Tahrir Academy, a non-profit online learning platform for young Egyptians, which halted its activities in 2015 when it could no longer secure funding. ^{1 3} In 2015 he co-founded Parlio, a social-media platform acquired by Quora in March 2016, and he is a non-resident senior fellow at Harvard's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. ^{1 3}

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