Special Guest Speaker
Ron Bruder – Honored by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People for his nonprofit work, Mr. Bruder is the Founder and Chair of Education for Employment (EFE), a network of nonprofits committed to creating employment opportunities for youth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). A social franchise of independent, locally-run affiliates, EFE identifies critical skill gaps in the local economy, then develops and delivers targeted training programs for youth with limited opportunity. Graduates are linked to jobs through partnerships with employers, civic and educational organizations. After graduating its first class in 2006 EFE expanded rapidly, with independent affiliates in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia and Yemen, and sister support organizations in the U.S. and Spain.
Mr. Bruder was an attendee at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. At the World Economic Forum in Tianjin in 2012, he was named a Schwab Foundation Global Social Entrepreneur for his work in founding EFE. He has served as a delegate of the Council on Foreign Relations to the Jeddah Economic Forum, and a contributor to the USIslamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar. He is frequently invited to share EFE’s best practices at major international conferences and fora, and has addressed audiences at the Clinton Global Initiative, World Economic Forum and the United Nations, among others.
