Who is wael ghoneim

Wael Ghonim is a computer engineer, an Internet activist, and a social entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Parlio , a new media platform for public conversations that rewards civility, which has been acquired by Quora. Wael spent 6 years at Google during which he used to head up Marketing and Product in the MENA region responsible of driving the growth of Google's products across the region and evangelizing the use of the Internet and growing the Arabic content in the region.

Coined the "keyboard freedom fighter," he used the power of the internet and social media to fight for social justice, democracy and human rights in Egypt. Emerging again, he denied he had done anything heroic at all, instead paying tribute to the young activists who had been on the streets since 25 January. But his return to the public eye - marked by an emotional TV interview on 7 February which gripped Egyptian viewers - re-energised the movement just as it seemed to be losing steam.

The fact that hundreds of thousands of protesters returned to the streets of Cairo the day after he spoke testifies to his appeal. Mr Ghonim walked free after a campaign waged by Google on behalf of its marketing manager for the Middle East and North Africa.

The search engine giant may not have been aware that its Dubai-based manager had been running a popular Facebook page, with , Egyptian followers, outside of office hours, BBC technology correspondent Mark Gregory reports.

Named after Khaled Said, a businessman who died in police custody in Alexandria last year, the page played a crucial role in organising the protests. The "We are all Khaled Said" website became a rallying point for a campaign against police brutality. For many Egyptians, it revealed details of the extent of torture in their country.

The Facebook page, which was operated anonymously under the handle "El Shaheed" the martyr , became a rallying point for the anti-government protests that began on Jan. On Jan. On his Twitter feed that day, he wrote this chilling note: "Pray for Egypt. Very worried as it seems that government is planning a war crime tomorrow against people.

We are all ready to die Jan For several days, family, friends and Google co-workers struggled to determine Ghonim's whereabouts. It was discovered that he was being held by Egyptian authorities.