Nafez is the CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation’s London office where he oversees the foundations strategic partnerships and talent development. He also leads the foundations engagement with the education entrepreneurship sector across MENA and globally. Under Nafez’s leadership the foundation recently launched the first education entrepreneurship competition for startups based in the Arab world. Prior to this role, Nafez founded Edraak.org, the largest Arabic online education portal that reaches over 3 million learners across the MENA region – where he is now the Executive Chairman. An initiative of the Queen Rania Foundation, Edraak’s learners come from all across the region and include disadvantaged youth in Gaza, Syria, and Iraq. Nafez was recognized for his work at Edraak as one of the top 50 “Makers+Shakers” in education technology globally by EdtechXGlobal in 2016; and received the Order of Independence First Class on behalf of Edraak from HM Abdullah II King of Jordan in 2017. Previously, Nafez was a strategy consultant working with different governments across the GCC, focusing on education to employment transitions. Nafez writes on education reform and technology regularly in Arabic and English publications (including the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Harvard Business Review Arabic and Edsurge). While at Yale he completed a yearlong, award winning, thesis on the Obstacles towards Curriculum Reform in the Middle East, using Jordan and the UAE as case studies, of which the Mohammed Bin Rashed School of Government in the UAE published an executive summary in 2011.