Wael Ghonim is an Egyptian Internet activist and computer engineer who emerged as a symbolic leader of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution when he was head of Google marketing for the Middle East and North Africa. In response to the murder of young activist Khaled Saeed, Ghonim created “We are all Khaled Saeed,” a Facebook page gathering stories of Egyptian police brutality. The page quickly turned into one of Egypt’s largest dissident platforms and the primary aggregator to coordinate the locations and dates of protests. In 2011, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize; Time magazine included him in the “Time 100” list of influential people; and he was awarded the Press Freedom Prize from the Swedish division of Reporters Without Borders. The following year, the World Economic Forum selected him as one of the Young Global Leaders, and he published his memoir, “Revolution, 2.0: The Power of the People is Greater than the People in Power.” Since then, Ghonim has founded Parlio, a social media platform for social and political discussions.
