Middle East SDG’s Academy

Middle East SDG’s Academy is a joint Program by Middle East Cities Center at American University in Dubai (AUD) and Global Ambassadors of Sustainability. The academy was officially launched during the UN Habitat Global Campaign: “The City We Need Now”.
 
Its an open educational resource from the world’s leading experts on sustainable development, The Academy creates massive open online courses and educational materials on sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals. The Middle East SDG’s Academy contribute mainly to the SDG’s 4, 5 and 16.
 
Here are some of the offered courses:
–        Sustainable Development Principles and Practice
–        Environmental Management and Sustainability
–        Environmental Impact Assessment and Sustainability
–        Development, Environment and Politics
–        Diplomacy for Sustainability
–        Leadership for Sustainability
–        Business Sustainability
–        Green and Circular Economy for Sustainability 
–        Urban Journalism Academy
–        Sustainability Governance 
–        SDGs Reporting and CSR


Are You Interested to Join the Team of Trainers? Kindly Fill in the Form
Dr Mahmoud AlBurai-Founder
Dr. Mahmoud AlBurai is currently serving as Senior Advisor at the Real Estate Regulatory Agency of Dubai, mandated to work on a plan to make Dubai more competitive. Prior to this role, Dr. AlBurai served as the CEO of the Dubai Real Estate Institute for 10 years, during which time the institute graduated 80,000 real estate professionals from the region. He is currently the Chairman of the UNDRR Arise network in the UAE working on making businesses more resilient, in alignment with the Sendai Framework. He is also the Vice President of the International Real Estate Federation, FIABCI Arab Countries since 2016 and sits on the board of the International Real Estate Federation, the world’s largest global real estate network with more than 1.5 million associate members. Prior to this role, he served on the Board of the International Real Estate Society (IRES) for 5 years and the Board of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), a 1.3-million-member real estate network based in Chicago, from 2019-2020. Dr. AlBurai served as the Chairman of the UN Global Compact UAE from 2015-2020 and represented the MENA region on the UN Global Compact Advisory Board from 2016-2018. In his role as UN Global Compact MENA representative, Dr. AlBurai led many SDG driven initiatives. He started youth ambassador programs at seven UAE universities, recruiting over 150 youth and training them to help businesses become more sustainable. He also led the establishment of the Women Empowerment Principles Platform in the UAE with 60 companies signing on to the initiative. To promote SDGs among businesses, Dr. AlBurai launched SDGs Pioneers UAE celebrating SDG success stories of private and governmental organizations. Dr. AlBurai has been selected to be the FIABCI representative at the United Nations Economic Commission for West Asia (UNESCWA) and UNECE (Geneva). Recently, he established a Think Tank in Geneva under the name of the Middle East Sustainable Development Institute (MESDI) to lobby governments, businesses and communities to action on SDGs in the Middle East. He has actively lobbied the private sector in the region to be involved in SDGs. During his presidency of the MESDI, the UAE local network became the fastest growing network internationally. Moreover, Dr. AlBurai leads the affordable housing working-group at the World Economic Forum, and also serves as an advisor-MENA region at Happy City Lab, headquartered in Canada, that works on integrating happiness into urban design.
Dr Wesam Al Madhoun-Co Founder
Dr. Al Madhoun is a Global Climate and Sustainability Leader, he is the founder of a global initiative “Global Ambassadors of Sustainability ” which has more than 13000 members from 130 countries. Dr Al Madhoun  holds A fellowship on Sustainable Cities at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Malaysia Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT)  and a PhD of Environmental Engineering from Universiti Sains Malaysia.
He has 15 years of working experience (teaching, training, research and consultancy), where he had assignments in Brunei, Canada, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Palestine, South Korea and USA and  He was a Research Professor at University of Seoul, a visiting scholar at University of Windsor and he was a guest speaker at Harvard University, MIT and IIT.  
Dr Al Madhoun conducted several international training programs on Sustainable Development, Climate Change, Air Pollution and Environmental Assessment. He also was appointed as a consultant for projects funded by USAID, UNICEF and UNEP. In terms of publications, he has more than 55 papers published at international peer reviewed journals and international conferences. He is the Co Founder of Middle East SDG’s Academy and Dean of Engineering Faculty at Gaza University.
Expertise Area:
-Sustainable and Resilient Cities -Climate Change -Air and Noise Pollution -Environmental Impact Assessment and – International Relations.