WASHINGTON: Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who became the hero of the Egyptian revolution, said Sunday he planned to take an extended break from the internet giant to set up his own NGO in Egypt.
"Decided to take a long term sabbatical from @Google & start a technology focused NGO to help fight poverty & foster education in #Egypt," Ghonim wrote in a message on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Ghonim, Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, administered the Facebook page that helped spark the uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
The 30-year-old gave an emotional television interview shortly after he was released from 12 days in police custody that is credited with re-energizing the movement just as it appeared to be losing steam.
In an interview with CBS’s "60 Minutes" after the regime started to crumble, Ghonim said the protests that led to the Mubarak’s ouster would never have happened without online social networks.
"If there was no social networks it would have never been sparked. Because the whole thing before the revolution was the most critical thing. Without Facebook, without Twitter, without Google, without YouTube, this would have never happened."
TIME recently placed the Egyptian-born Ghonim on its list of the 100 most influential people of 2011 — on the magazine’s website he appeared as the first name, although TIME insists there is no actual ranking.
"Wael Ghonim embodies the youth who constitute the majority of Egyptian society," read a profile in the magazine penned by former UN atomic energy chief and potential Egyptian presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei.
"But, as with many of his generation, (he) remained apolitical due to loss of hope that things could change in a society permeated for decades with a culture of fear.
"By emphasizing that the regime would listen only when citizens exercised their right of peaceful demonstration and civil disobedience, Wael helped initiate a call for a peaceful revolution."
