His Excellency Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani is President of the new Hamad Bin Khalifa University in the State of Qatar, where he is leading the evolution of an international consortium of elite universities into an integrated center of academic excellence. He is also Vice President, Education, at Qatar Foundation and Chairman of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), the leading global forum for innovative practice in education.

The World Economic Forum recently named Dr Al-Thani a Young Global Leader for his regional role in education reform and innovation.  In 2010 Dr Al-Thani co-organized a Ministerial Colloquium on Quality of Education in the Arab World which committed 17 Arab states to a common evaluation system of basic education.

Hamad Bin Khalifa University currently consists of nine academic centers offering a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programs, and conducting related research: Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar; Texas A&M University at Qatar; Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar; Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar; Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar; Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies; Northwestern University in Qatar; HEC Paris in Qatar; University College London in Qatar.

Among a diverse range of education-related initiatives, Dr Al-Thani is a board member of the Qatar Leadership Centre, an initiative of His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Heir Apparent of the State of Qatar.  Dr Al-Thani is a member of Qatar’s Supreme Education Council, which oversees reform at the K-12 level. He heads the project to build Qatar Foundation’s national library, which will house one of the largest collections in the Arab world.

He serves on the Executive Council of the World Digital Library at the Library of Congress in Washington, and on the Governing Board of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning in Hamburg. Dr Abdulla has been named to the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut; he also serves as a member of the Board of Advisers of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University in Houston. He is a Board Member of the Palestine Happy Child Center which promotes the welfare of traumatized children.

After receiving his doctorate in Civil Engineering from the University of Southampton (UK), Dr Al-Thani taught engineering at Qatar University; he now serves on the Board of Trustees.

Dr Al-Thani is a board member of Nakilat, the national gas shipping company and a vital link in the LNG supply chain for the State of Qatar.