Talks

Tarek Shawki

Learning for Life

Biography

Tarek Shawki

Dr. Tarek Shawki is the Dean of the School of Sciences and Engineering at the American University in Cairo. Educated at Cairo University and Brown University in Rhode Island, U.S. Dr. Shawki spent 13 years as a researcher and professor of theoretical and applied mechanics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the top engineering schools in the world. He has a Ph. D. and an M. Sc. in engineering, an M. Sc. in applied mathematics, and a B. Sc. in mechanical engineering.

Dr. Shawki is the Chair of the Presidential Specialized Council for Education and Scientific Research. Prior to that, he served as the Director of UNESCO's Regional Bureau for Science in Arab States as the Chief of the Section for ICTs in Education, Science and Culture within the Information Society Division in UNESCO. Dr. Shawki managed UNESCO's file on public-private partnerships with the IT private sector. In addition, Dr. Shawki is the architect behind the emerging [UNESCO framework for ICT Competencies of Teachers] besides being directly responsible for a number of national, regional and global UNESCO projects in the fields of ICTs, Education, Science and Culture. His leadership is considered paramount to the Arab region in modernizing university education in basic and engineering sciences. In his talk, he shares with us his journey with learning and how education had shaped his life.