SOAR - Cairo Chapter
Cairo joined the SOAR family in May 2014. Armenians in Egypt are a community with a long history, dating back to the 6th century. After the Armenian Genocide of 1915, Armenians in Egypt reached approximately 18,000. In the early 1950s, after Nasser’s Revolution, there were approximately 40,000 Armenians in Egypt. The number of Armenians has decreased in recent years. Today, there are approximately 6,000 Armenians in Egypt, concentrated primarily in Cairo and Alexandria.
In Cairo, clubs, schools, and sports facilities reinforce communications among Armenian Egyptians and revive the heritage of their forefathers. The community has four social clubs in Cairo and two in Alexandria. There is one home for the elderly and many activities for young people, including a dance troupe, Zankezour, a choir, Arax, and a children’s choir, Dziadzan. Armenian Egyptians belong primarily to the Armenian Apostolic Church or Armenian Catholic Church. There are five main Armenian churches in Egypt, two in Alexandria and three in Cairo.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
Marina Simonian
President
Marina is an experienced investment professional with 6+ years of experience across private equity, private debt, fundraising, and investment banking.
She is also a major AI enthusiast and AI literacy advocate – having ran multiple workshops for K-12 students with the aim of demystifying AI and nurturing its positive use cases (ethical AI) to enhance human intelligence.
Marina completed her Master of Science focused on AI & Machine Learning at Oxford University, where she also served as Oxford Mathematics Ambassador and Oxford Women in Business (OxWIB) Ambassador. She holds the Student Leadership Accreditation (Gold Award) from the SSAT (UK), and is certified in Machine Learning Safety by the Center for AI Safety (US). Marina previously completed her Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and Economics at McGill University.
She is also an active member of the SOAR community since 2015 in Montreal, assisting in the SOAR Language Tutoring Program and teaching English.