Mohammed Jameel KBE

Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel KBE is the founder and chairman of Community Jameel, an independent, global organisation advancing science and learning for communities to thrive, through which Mr Jameel continues the tradition of community service established by his father, the late Abdul Latif Jameel.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) alumnus, Mr Jameel has led Community Jameel to a longstanding and deep collaboration with MIT, with support to four major centres: the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), whose use of randomised control trials has reached the lives of over 600 million people worldwide in 20 years and whose co-founders Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, along with longtime J-PAL affiliate Michael Kremer, won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics; the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS), which launched the Jameel Index for Food Trade and Vulnerability in 2022; the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL); and the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic).

With MIT, Community Jameel also established the Jameel-Toyota Scholarship for undergraduate students at the university who are from selected countries and who are refugees and displaced persons. Mr Jameel is an MIT Corporation life member.

Committed to improving healthcare for all, in addition to the Jameel Clinic at MIT, Community Jameel cofounded the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (Jameel Institute) with Imperial College London to combat threats from disease worldwide, and which launched the Jameel Institute-Kenneth C. Griffin Initiative for the Economics of Pandemic Preparedness to help governments model the economic and epidemiological impact of public health response to outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Broadening the scope of traditional healthcare, Community Jameel launched the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in partnership with the World Health Organisation (WHO), New York University and CULTURUNNERS to measure the impact of art on health. The lab marks the first major arts and health initiative by the WHO in its 75-year history and aims to radically improve global health through arts-related research and advocacy to drive policy implementation across 193 UN member states. Mr Jameel’s father established the Abdul Latif Jameel Hospital in Jeddah, the first non-profit specialist facility for physical rehabilitation, and today a centre for advanced therapies.

Food is at the heart of community, and food is at the heart of Community Jameel. In addition to J-WAFS at MIT, Community Jameel, the University of Edinburgh and MIT established the Jameel Observatory, which focuses on adapting to climate change’s effects on food systems. In 2021, Community Jameel, the University of Edinburgh, Save the Children, the CGIAR International Livestock Research Institute and J-PAL launched the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action in Nairobi, Kenya; and in 2023, Community Jameel, MIT, BRAC, the Agricultural Research Corporation-Sudan and J-PAL launched the Jameel Observatory Climate Resilience Early Warning System Network (Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet) to empower communities on the frontlines of climate change to prepare for climate impacts and minimise losses.

Community Jameel and the Royal College of Art (RCA), the world’s number one art and design university, launched CLIMAVORE x Jameel at RCA in 2023, a new initiative led by Alon Schwabe and Daniel Fernández Pascual, senior research fellows in the RCA school of architecture and co-founders of the Turner prize-nominated art and architectural practice Cooking Sections. The partnership uses research, education and action to reimagine how we eat as human activity changes the climate, and aims to develop new methodologies and enhance policies around the globe.

In music, Community Jameel and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, where Mr Jameel is a member of the advisory board, cofounded the Bocelli-Jameel Scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London to support students of opera on the basis of merit and financial need.

Committed to all forms of science and learning, Community Jameel, The King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts and the Cultural Development Fund in Egypt launched the Jameel House of Traditional Arts in Cairo in 2008. The Jameel House offers a two-year diploma in crafts, sacred geometry and other design techniques.

As founder and chairman of Bab Rizq Jameel, a job creation initiative in the Middle East and North Africa, Mr Jameel has helped hundreds of thousands of men and women improve their lives through work, with recruitment initiatives, microfinance programmes, and other innovative projects tailored to providing job opportunities for men and women in the Arab world. The Jameel family’s support for entrepreneurship opportunities in the region is also reflected in the Abdul Latif Jameel Centre for Middle East Management Studies, established by a gift to the American University in Cairo in 1989, and the StartSmart competition launched by MIT J-WEL.

As a patron of the arts, Mr Jameel supports Art Jameel to promote artists and creative communities around the world with programmes in learning, the arts and heritage. These include the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai; the Jameel Gallery and the Jameel Prize at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; and Hayy Jameel in Jeddah.

Mr Jameel is also the chairman and chief executive officer of Abdul Latif Jameel, an international, family-owned and diversified business, founded in 1945 by his father, the late Abdul Latif Jameel.

Mr Jameel has been recognised with a number of honours, including the highest award in Saudi Arabia, the King Abdul Aziz Medal of the First Order, which he received in 2008 from HM King Abdullah in recognition of his personal contribution to job creation initiatives amongst young Saudi men and women; and an honorary knighthood (KBE) from HM Queen Elizabeth II for his philanthropic activities and support for the development of arts and culture.