MI President is ‘Education CEO of 2013’

Abu Dhabi: Dr Fred Moavenzadeh, President, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MI), was on Tuesday honoured as the Education CEO of the Year by the Gulf Business Industry Awards.

Dr Moavenzadeh received the award from Razan Dozom, Servcorp, at a ceremony held in Dubai.

The Gulf Business Industry Awards aim to recognise the most successful businesses and leaders from sectors comprising banking, real estate, aviation, retail, media, energy, tourism, education and technology.

The event was attended by government officials and corporate leaders from across various industry spectrums.

The judges selected Dr Moavenzadeh for his extraordinary contribution to knowledge and human capital development in clean energy and sustainable technologies. The eminent jury panel included Ibrahim Al Ansari, CEO of Dubai First, Husam Hourani, Managing Partner at the region’s largest law firm Al Tamimi, Y.S. Shashidhar, Managing Director of Frost and Sullivan’s business in Middle East and North Africa region, and Peter Cooper, Editor and Publisher of the Middle East’s independent subscriber-based website and investment newsletter ArabianMoney.

Ian Fairsevice, Managing Partner and Group Editor-in-Chief of Motivate, the publishers of Gulf Business, said, “The Gulf Business Industry Awards reflect the maturing of various economic sectors that continue to evolve in the UAE. The award winners are selected by a panel of judges who are specialists in their fields. We congratulate all the winners, including Dr Fred Moavenzadeh, whose contributions to human capital development are exemplary.

“The awards aim to recognise such accomplishments and we believe emerging professionals will be further incentivised to work towards excellence in their respective industries.”

Dr Moavenzadeh said, “I am grateful to the organisers of the Gulf Business Industry Awards for choosing me in the Education category. Recognitions such as this provide further motivation and encouragement for setting the individual professional benchmark even higher. With the UAE leadership’s support, Masdar Institute has ensured continuous academic and research excellence and we hope to register more knowledge-led milestones in the coming years.”

Widely recognised for his innovative role in building global institutions and developing new models of teaching and research through international initiatives in education, science and technology, Dr Moavenzadeh has a long and distinguished career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was named the President of Masdar Institute in July 2010 to support the mandate of transforming the emirate into a leading source of advanced technologies and highly skilled human capital. He remains instrumental in driving multi-disciplinary research in science and engineering at the Institute.

Under Dr Moavenzadeh’s stewardship, MI continues to achieve academic and research milestones in addition to driving collaborations with various government institutions and leading corporate entities for adoption of clean energy technologies. At present, MI has entered into more than 40 such industry and government research partnerships, evidently demonstrating the relevance of research in sustainability in the UAE and the region.

Dr Moavenzadeh has also ensured research remains the focal point of education at MI. So far, the research-based institution has notched up several accomplishments including one issued patent, 21 patents applied for, more than 50 invention disclosures, over 550 peer-reviewed and conference papers, 19 book chapters and two full books.

Earlier, Dr Moavenzadeh served as a private consultant to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank and various United Nations agencies including United Nations Centre for Human Settlement and UNIDO. His research interests cover the areas of Project Management and Finance.

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