Skip to Content
Profiles in generosity

Walid K. Fakhry ’89, ’90, SM ’94

London, England.
February 21, 2018

Since earning undergraduate degrees in both mechanical engineering and management and an SM in civil and environmental engineering from MIT, Walid Fakhry has worked as an entrepreneur, investment banker, and investor. Fakhry recently gave an unrestricted gift to the physics department—his first gift to the Institute.

How MIT shaped his life. “My time at MIT fundamentally changed my outlook on the world,” says Fakhry, who is a partner at Core Capital Partners, a London-based private equity firm. “The rigor of MIT’s educational process built in me a certain discipline and confidence that has been key to my successes. At MIT, I developed the belief that hard work and focus would enable me to overcome every obstacle, no matter how complex or challenging.”

Choosing an unrestricted gift. “Over time, I developed a good relationship with various members of the physics department,” says Fakhry. “The work they do has the potential to deliver extraordinary discoveries with a broad impact. My unrestricted gift was a demonstration of support for the whole department and trust in their ability to make the right investments.”

How he sees his gift’s impact. “I hope the gift will support more risk-taking around ideas that would otherwise not be pursued and that those ideas yield change that will benefit society in a meaningful way,” says Fakhry. “While I do believe in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, being part of an effort by the best minds in the world who are attempting something new—and succeeding—is tremendously exciting.”

Help MIT build a better world. 

For more information, contact David Woodruff: 617-253-3990; daw@mit.edu.
Or visit giving.mit.edu. 

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.