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Bodour bint Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi
Emirati business and academic leader From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi (Arabic: بدور بنت سلطان بن محمد القاسمي; born 1978)[1][2] is the daughter of the Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, the ruler of the Emirate of Sharjah since 1972.
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She is the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees and President of the American University of Sharjah.[3][4]
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Education
Bodour Al Qasimi holds a BA (Hons) degree from University of Cambridge, and an MSc in Medical Anthropology from the University College London (UCL).[5]
Career and awards
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Al Qasimi leads several Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE), regional, and global institutions and initiatives. Her career spans public service, business, and community organisations.
In January 2023, Al Qasimi was appointed Chairperson of the Board of Trustees and President of the American University of Sharjah.[6] The appointment came after Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, who held the role for 25 years, stepped down.[7]
Al Qasimi chaired the committee that earned Sharjah the designation of UNESCO World Book Capital for 2019.[8][9][10]
Al Qasimi founded the Emirates Publishers Association (EPA) in 2009[11] which became a full International Publishers Association (IPA) member in 2012.[12]
Al Qasimi is an advocate for developing publishing markets and global publishing industry issues such as literacy, freedom to publish, copyright, digital transformation, and diversity and inclusion.[13] She has called for redefining the principle of freedom to publish in the Arab World and globally in several international conferences and forums such as the Arab Publishers Conference in the United Arab Emirates and Tunisia.[14] She has led freedom to publish fact finding missions to countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Mauritania to lobby for publishers in peril and press for progress.[15]
Al Qasimi led discussions with the Ministry of Economy, Emirates Writers Union, and the Emirates Intellectual Property Association on the need to establish a reproduction rights organisation and enhance copyright enforcement in the United Arab Emirates.[16] Due partially to her efforts, the Emirates Reprographic Rights Management Association (ERRA) was launched in March 2022. ERRA is accredited as an ad hoc non-governmental organisation observer to the World Intellectual Property Organization's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights.[17]
After serving as Vice President from 2019 to 2020, Al Qasimi was elected to serve as President of the International Publishers Association (IPA) from 2021 to 2022. She is the second woman to serve as IPA's President since it was founded in 1896 and the first Arab woman to hold the position.[18][19] She founded PublisHer, a global network of women publishers committed to addressing industry diversity and inclusion.[20] As IPA Vice President, she formed a partnership between Dubai Cares, a UAE-based global philanthropic organisation, and the African Publishing Innovation Fund,[21] to award $800,000 in grants to fund African literacy, reading promotion, and library development initiatives. The Fund received global attention for its financial support toward the restoration of the Kaloleni Library in Nairobi.[22][23] In response to the impact of the global pandemic on publishing, Al Qasimi led the IPA's industry recovery support efforts under the International Sustainable Publishing and Industry Resilience (InSPIRe) initiative.[24][25] The InSPIRe initiative involved consultations with over 150 senior publishing industry executives from across the industry value chain – including publishing houses, distributors, authors, educators, book fairs, and literacy and free-expression advocates – to support industry recovery and led to the establishment of the International Publishers Association Academy.[26][27]
She is a contributor to UNESCO's World Book Capital Cities Network, a collective of member cities committed to literacy, reading, international exchange, and lifelong learning as cornerstones to inclusive, sustainable societies.[28][29] Al Qasimi was the first Emirati woman to co-chair the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa[30] and the first woman to chair the World Economic Forum‘s Regional Business Council for the Middle East and North Africa.[31] She has leveraged the World Economic Forum's global platform to catalyse action on youth education and employment,[32] female entrepreneurship,[33] small and medium-size enterprise development,[34] expanding funding for the cultural industries,[35] and climate change.[36]
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Personal life
Bodour Al Qasimi is married to Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, who is a member of Sharjah's ruling family and was appointed in August 2021 as Deputy Ruler of Sharjah.[37]
References
External links
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