Zaki Naguib Mahmoud

Zaki Naguib Mahmoud
Zaki Naguib Mahmoud is one of the pioneers of enlightenment along half a century. He is "the philosopher of authors and author of philosophers," as Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aqqad put it.
Zaki Naguib Mahmoud was born on February 2,1905 in Damietta governorate. He attended Gordon College in Sudan where his father was working at that time, returned to Cairo and joined the department of philosophy at the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University. He graduated in 1930. Then, he worked as a teacher of philosophy in the secondary stage. In 1974, he was given a scholarship to England to do a doctoral thesis on self-determinateness. There, he knew closely the philosopher of the 20th century Ph.D. Bertrand Russell and the great logician John Eyre.
When he came back, he was appointed lecturer, then, assistant professor and finally professor of philosophy at the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University. Among the distinguished positions Zaki Naguib Mahmoud held are: professor of philosophy in the University of Kuwait, writer in Al-Ahram Newspaper, member in the Supreme Council of Culture, the National Council of Culture and the National Council of Education and Scientific Research.
Zaki Naguib Mahmoud’s encyclopedic reference books on philosophy and literature, not to mention his translations of the masterpieces of philosophy, all contributed to enrich Arabic literature. His intellectual life is divided into two main stages:
• In the first stage, Zaki Naguib Mahmoud laid the foundations of his intellectual production from which and sometimes from the corrective or polemical treatment of which the second stage emerged. He held that disciplined and systematic verification of knowledge is the ultimate object of philosophy and that logical analysis of language is the prime tool to that end. He concluded that knowledge is of two kinds: mental and sentimental.
At that stage, Zaki Naguib Mahmoud wrote:
Symbolic Logic (1951), The Philosophy of Science (1952), The Mythology of Metaphysics (1953) reprinted in 1983 under the title An Attitude Towards Metaphysics, Intellectual Life in the Modern World (1956), The Theory of Knowledge (1956) and Towards a Scientific Philosophy for which he was given the State Incentive Award.
• The second stage began with the publication of The Artist East in 1956 where Zaki Naguib Mahmoud revealed the historical dimension of knowledge and the civilized, structural and comprehensive significance of such a dimension rather than its limited social perspective. It is in that book that he began to discover the main cultural peculiarities of eastern cultures against a background of those characterizing western cultures through dichotomies between the sky and earth, sentiment and reason, good and evil, originality and modernity and so on. He generally attributed the first item of each pair to the East, the second to the West. The two items were not, however, dealt with as being completely separate.
In his later works such as The Poetry of Al-Ghazali and The Attitude of Ibn Khaldun Towards Philosophy, the question of the historical reality of the Arab culture occupied his mind and he became much more interested in the Arab cultural heritage.
His book The Revival of Arab Intellect written in 1970 marks the peak of the second stage. It drew a distinction between the genius of the Arab culture and borrowings from other cultures. The two criteria he established were the nature of creativity and the way borrowing occurs.
In the books mentioned below, Zaki Naguib Mahmoud attempted to shape an integrated philosophical attitude, engage in, criticize and foresee the future of the cultural and intellectual Egyptian and Arab life. These are:
• The Reasonable and the Absurd in our Intellectual Heritage (1975). • Our Culture Facing the Challenges of the Age (1976). • Our Intellectual Life (1979). • This Age and its Culture (1980). • On the Philosophy of Criticism (1983). • An Islamic Vision (1987). • On the Modernization of the Arab Culture (1988). • Seeds and Roots (1990).
Zaki Naguib Mahmoud was given the State Incentive Award in 1960, State Merit Award in 1970, Arab Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Award in 1984 and The American University in Cairo Honorary Doctorate in 1985.
In September 1997, the London-based Association named for Zaki Naguib Mahmoud was established.

Ismail Serageldin

Ismail Serageldin
Ismail Serageldin, Director, Library of Alexandria, also chairs the Boards of Directors for each of the BA's affiliated research institutes and museums and is Distinguished Professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Ismail Serageldin is an Egyptian national, born in Giza in 1944. He is married with one son. He is tri-lingual: Arabic, French and English.
Dr. Serageldin serves as Chair and Member of a number of advisory committees for academic, research, scientific and international institutions and civil society efforts which includes the Institut d'Egypte (Egyptian Academy of Science), TWAS (Third World Academy of Sciences), the Indian National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is former Chairman, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR, 1994-2000), Founder and former Chairman, the Global Water Partnership (GWP, 1996-2000) and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), a microfinance program (1995-2000). Serageldin has also served in a number of capacities at the World Bank, including as Vice President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (1992-1998), and for Special Programs (1998-2000). He has published over 50 books and monographs and over 200 papers on a variety of topics including biotechnology, rural development, sustainability, and the value of science to society. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from Cairo University and Masters' degree and a PhD from Harvard University and has received 18 honorary doctorates.
Education
1964 B.Sc. (First Class Honors) Cairo University 1968 M.R.P. (With Distinction) Harvard University 1972 Ph.D. Harvard University
Honorary degrees
1996 Doctor of Sociology, University of Bucharest, Romania 1996 Doctor of Agricultural Science, University of Melbourne, Australia 1997 Doctor of Science, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, India 1998 Doctor of International Affairs, American University, Washington, DC, USA 1998 Doctor of Science, Punjab Agricultural University, India 1998 Doctor of Science, Tamil Nadu Veterinary & Animal Sciences Univ., India 1998 Doctor of Natural Resources Management, Ohio State Univ., USA 1999 Doctor of Science, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India 1999 Doctor of Science, ANGRAU, Hyderabad, India 1999 Doctor of Economics and Management, CNAM, Paris, France 1999 Doctor of Science, Egerton University, Kenya 1999 Doctor of Agricultural Science, University of Tuscia, Italy 2000 Doctor of Humane Letters, American University in Cairo, Egypt 2002 Doctor of Science, SNHU, Manchester NH, USA 2003 Doctor of Science, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada 2004 Doctor of Letters, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia 2004 Doctor of Letters, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France 2005 Doctor of Laws degree, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
Currently
Director, Library of Alexandria. Distinguished University Professor, Wageningen University, the Netherlands Also serves as chair and member of a number of advisory committees for academic, research, scientific and international institutions and civil society efforts.
Previous appointments
Chairman, Youth Employment Summit (YES) Campaign (1998-2002) Special Advisor, The World Bank Distinguished Visiting Professor, American University in Cairo (AUC) (2000/2001) Advisor to the Egyptian Government on the New Library of Alexandria Vice President of the World Bank till July 2000, (for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, from October 1992 to March 1998, and for Special Programs from March 1998 to July 2000) Chairman, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR, 1994-2000) Chairman, Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), a microfinance program (1995-2000) Chairman of the Global Water Partnership (GWP, 1996-2000) Chairman, World Commission for Water in the 21st Century (August 1998-March 2000) Worked in a number of capacities at the World Bank since joining in 1972.
Economist in education and human resources (1972-76); Division Chief for Technical Assistance and Special Studies (1977-80), and for Urban Projects in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (1980-83); Director for Programs in West Africa (1984-87), Country Director for Central and Occidental Africa (1987-89), Technical Director for all Sub-Saharan Africa (1990-92), and Vice-President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (1993-98).
In addition, he was active in promoting NGO-Bank relations, and served as Co-Chairman of the NGO-Bank Committee (1997-99). Prior to joining the World Bank, worked as a consultant in city and regional planning, and taught at Cairo University and Harvard University.
Professional Memberships
Supreme Council for Culture, Egypt Institut d'Egypte (Egyptian Academy of Science) National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India European Academy of Sciences and Arts, Austria Bangladesh Academy of Science, Dhaka American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Third World Academy of Sciences, Italy World Academy of Arts and Sciences, USA Academia Bibliotheca Alexandrinae (ABA)
Publications & Speeches
Over 50 books and monographs (edited or authored) and 200 articles, book chapters, and technical papers on various topics, including: Nurturing Development (1995), Sustainability and the Wealth of Nations (1996), Architecture of Empowerment (1997), Rural Well-Being: From Vision to Action (1997, with David Steeds), The Modernity of Shakespeare (1998), Biotechnology and Biosafety (1999, with Wanda Collins), Very Special Places (1999) and Promethean Science (2000, with G. Persley).

Salah Abdel Kerim

Salah Abdel Kerim
A third child of five, Salah Abdel Kerim was born in the Egyptian city of Fayiom in 1925. His father was a public server. The family moved in 19737 to Cairo and a year later the Abdel Karim met Hussein Bikar, the great artist, under whom he studied for two years in Qena school. In 1940, Abdel Karim he met Hussein Yousif and the members of Contemporary Art Society in King Farouk secondary school based in Abassia area, where he made his first acquaintance with their surrealism.
In 1943, he joined the faculty of Fine Arts and majored ornamentation. He graduated in 1947 with t grade average point of excellent with honor.
He was nominated as an assistant in the same faculty. In 1952, he traveled to France where he studied theater decoration and advertisement.
In 1956, he moved to Rome where he studied cinema decoration art and was granted San Vito Romano International Award in photography in Italy. He obtained PhD form the Experimental Institute for Cinema Decoration in 1958.
Back home a year later, he set out his teaching career in the faculty of Fine Arts and embarked on metal sculpture work. He won the first Biennale Alexandria award for his objet d'art, Revolution. He took part in the fifth Biennale in S?o Paulo and was awarded the International Medal of Honor, Mencao Hpnrosa, for his statue, the Fish.
Abdel Karim represented Egypt in Guggenheim competition where his oil picture ' the Cocks Struggle' won the award. He also participated in Venice Biennale.
He laid the foundations of the Interior Engineering department in the faculty of Fine Arts and developed necessary student curricula. He, also, founded the Fine Art Museum at the faculty. He played a major part in establishing and teaching in the decoration departments in both Cinema and Theater Institutes.
He designed the decoration of many public building such as the People's Assembly, Television and Police Academy buildings, hotels such as M?venpick Heliopolis and Cairo Sheraton and banks such as Alexandria Bank, Kuwait International Bank and the Euro-Arab Bank in Brussels.
Cooperating with Kamal Malakh, he founded the Luxor Museum for Antiquities. He participated in a good many number of international exhibitions in Cairo and Damascus. He participated in the seventh Biennale in S?o Paulo (Brazil) and won the international award of honor 'Honuosa Mencao' for his statue 'Beast's Scream'.
He won the Order for Science and Arts, first class, in 1963 and in the same year was delegated to New York to organize the Egyptian suite in New York International exhibition.
In 1964, Abdel Karim was granted the State's Encouragement Prize in ornamental sculpture and photography and took part in the Egyptian suite in Montreal. In 1967, he participated in Biennale Venice and won the Republic's Order, third class. In 1968, he participated in the first Triennale in India, then the Indian government bought his statue Kaboria 'Crab' for the Modern Art Museum in New Delhi. Indeed, Abdel Karim was one of the Egypt's celebrities in the world of art in general and sculpture in particular.
He chaired a department in the faculty of Fine Arts in 1979-1980, then was nominated as the dean of the same faculty in 1982. He took over he presidency of Helwan University in 1984 and was awarded the Medal of Distinction, first class, in 1985. He retired in 1986, but continued his teaching career in the Faculty of Fine Arts. He gained the State's Award of Appreciation in arts. He died on November 20, 1988.
Orders and Medals • Order for Science and Arts, first class, in 1963 • State's Encouragement Prize in ornamental sculpture and photography, in 1964 • Republic's Order, third class, in 1967 • Medal of Distinction, first class, in 1985 • State's Award of Appreciation in arts, in 1986