Bodour Bint Sultan Bin Muhammad Al Qasimi

Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi ( ar, بدور بنت سلطان بن محمد القاسمي; born 1978) is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of children's publisher Kalimat Group, Founder and Chairperson of Kalimat Foundation, Founder of the Emirates Publishers Association, Founder of the UAE Board on Books for Young People, and past President of the International Publishers Association. Her father is Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, who has served as Ruler of the Emirate of Sharjah since 1972.

Career and awards

Bodour Al Qasimi is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kalimat Publishing Group, a publisher of children’s books and educational content based in the United Arab Emirates. Al Qasimi is also involved in a number of regional and international initiatives to promote youth and children's empowerment, economic development, creative industry development, and cross-cultural exchange.

Since founding Kalimat Publishing Group in 2007, Al Qasimi has led its growth into a global, multi-imprint publishing and educational technology company with licensing and distribution in 15 countries. The publisher of over 400 titles, Kalimat is recognized as an industry pioneer for books highlighting traditional Arabic culture alongside the modern challenges faced by children as well as Arabic translations of titles which deal with themes that occasionally push socio-cultural boundaries. Kalimat has international partnerships with prominent international publishers, such as Éditions Gallimard Jeunesse and Quarto, and it has received several international awards including in 2016 the Bologna Children’s Book Fair Best Children’s Publisher of the Year award.

Kalimat Foundation, a corporate social responsibility initiative of Kalimat Group, is involved in promoting literacy, reading culture, and book accessibility. The Foundation supports children who are victims of war and displacement, and who are visually disabled. As of May 2021, the Foundation’s Pledge a Library initiative had donated books and delivered literacy programs globally in 17 countries. The Foundation’s Ara initiative is establishing accessible (braille, audio, e-text, large print) book standards for the visually impaired and blind in the Middle East and North Africa and supporting publishers to increase the number of accessible books for people with print disabilities. Ara also played a key role in United Arab Emirates’ accession to the Marrakesh Treaty. In February 2020, Ara was shortlisted by the Accessible Books Consortium in its International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing.

Al Qasimi founded the Emirates Publishers Association (EPA) in 2009 which became a full International Publishers Association (IPA) member in 2012. As EPA's Founder, she played a key role in national efforts to transform the publishing industry, which is valued at €250 million, and advocated for sensible industry regulations such as exempting books from valued added tax. EPA has also played a key role in engaging decision makers publicly and privately on freedom to publish. Al Qasimi was also the Founding president of the United Arab Emirates chapter of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), which promotes literacy and administered the Sharjah IBBY Children in Crisis Fund. She also chaired the Sharjah World Book Capital 2019 Committee.

She has called for redefining the principle of freedom to publish in the Arab World and globally in several international conferences and forums such as the Arab Publishers Conference in the United Arab Emirates and Tunisia. She has also led freedom to publish fact finding missions to countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Mauritania to lobby for publishers in peril and press for progress.

To support publishers, authors, and content creators in having their work recognized and protected, Al Qasimi led discussions with the Ministry of Economy, Emirates Writers Union, and the Emirates Intellectual Property Association on the need to establish a reproduction rights organization and enhance copyright enforcement in the United Arab Emirates. Due partially to her efforts, the Emirates Reprographic Rights Management Association (ERRA) was launched in March 2022. ERRA is accredited as an ad hoc non-governmental organization observer to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights.

After serving as Vice President from 2019 to 2020, Al Qasimi was elected to serve as President of the International Publishers Association (IPA) from 2021 to 2022. She is the second woman to serve as IPA’s President since it was founded in 1896 and the first Arab woman to hold the position. Her experience encountering global publishing’s longstanding diversity and inclusion challenge in running for IPA leadership motivated her to start PublisHer, a global network of women publishers committed to addressing industry diversity and inclusion. As IPA Vice President, she formed a partnership between Dubai Cares, a UAE-based global philanthropic organization, and the African Publishing Innovation Fund, to award $800,000 in grants to fund African literacy, reading promotion, and library development initiatives. In response to the impact of the global pandemic on publishing, Al Qasimi led the IPA’s industry recovery support efforts under the International Sustainable Publishing and Industry Resilience (InSPIRe) initiative. The InSPIRe initiative involved consultations with over 150 senior publishing industry executives from across the industry value chain – including publishing houses, distributors, authors, educators, book fairs, and literacy and free-expression advocates – to support industry recovery and led to the establishment of the International Publishers Association Academy.

Education

Bodour Al Qasimi holds a BA (Hons) degree from University of Cambridge, and an MSc in Medical Anthropology from the University College London (UCL).

Personal life

Bodour Al Qasimi is married to Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, who is also a member of Sharjah's ruling family and was appointed in August 2021 as Deputy Ruler of Sharjah.

References

External links

Forbes Profile

{{DEFAULTSORT:Qasimi, Bodour bint Sultan bin Muhammad
1978 births
Living people
People from the Emirate of Sharjah
Emirati autobiographers
Bodour bint Sultan
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Alumni of University College London