About Us

What is the Arab Development Initiative (ADI)?

The Arab Development Initiative (ADI) is a student-driven, non-profit organization that encourages youth to direct their knowledge, skills, and resources towards addressing and creatively solving some of the development challenges facing the Arab World. We are a group of 30 students and young professionals – based principally in Montreal, Quebec - working to establish the ADI as an intermediary to both those wishing to get involved with existing organizations and those hoping to kick-start their own initiatives in the Middle East.

To accomplish such, we have dedicated our energies towards the following:

1. Enlisting the expertise of renowned leaders, thinkers, and scholars to identify and evaluate the most pressing obstacles to development in the Arab world
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2. Creating opportunities for students to engage in regional development efforts through our organized series of conferences, networking events, and workshops.

3. Building a global network of youth dedicated to development efforts in the Arab world through both internal and external social media platforms.

We are affiliated with the Arab Students Association of McGill University and falls under the purview of the Student Society of McGill University. We strictly decline association with any political, ideological, and religious movement.

Why the need for the Arab Development Initiative (ADI)?

The ADI was founded in 2011 by group of students at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec), primarily as a reaction to the dramatic onslaught of the Arab Spring. As a rare, unprecedented sense unity amongst  young members of the scattered Arab diaspora, the founders hoped to seize the moment to create an umbrella organization through which Arab talent Abroad could be merged and more easily challenged towards development back home. With the Arab Spring a year a half later transformed, with few Arab states unshaken, that need to unite youth in North America to channel energy towards development in the Arab world remains pressing. It remains undeniable that the effort to rebuild, revive, and redefine the Middle East will require talent, creativity, and people power. Hence, our initial role as an intermediary, providing our event participants with the necessary skills, exposure, and advice to pursue their own measureable goals for the region, remains unchanged.

How to implement the aims of the Arab Development Initiative (ADI)?

Thus far, our efforts have gone forth to the execution of the following projects: The Envision Arabia Summit (EAS) 2011, Diwaniyat Dubai, and The Montreal Round Tables Conference. From October 6-8, 2012 – we will be hosting the Envision Arabia Summit 2012 (EAS12) at the Kimmel Center in New York City. Moreover, with the official commencement of registration for EAS12, we will be launching our own digital platform, entitled Sharek, to be utilized throughout and beyond the upcoming summit as a networking and planning base. Our public relations campaign has been spearheaded through the use of social media and though regular Information Sessions conducted by our network of ambassadors at various universities in the USA and Canada, Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East.