IPA Announces Winners of Champion and Innovation in Publishing Awards

• IPA Champion: Ibrahim El Moallem, Dar El Shorouk (Egypt)
• IPA Innovation in Publishing Award: Publishing 2030 Accelerator
• World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) also announces winners of 2024 WIPO Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) International Excellence Awards.
• Prix Voltaire announcement to follow

A compelling first day of discussions at the 34^th International Publishers Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico closed with a glamorous Gala dinner to celebrate publishers with a number of awards being delivered.

The IPA Champion Award celebrates an individual who has, during their career, gone above and beyond the norm to help the IPA achieve its goals on behalf of the publishing industry.

The IPA Innovation in Publishing Award seeks to strengthen and unite the publishing industry to move forward together and seize new opportunities for publishing practices and environments, adapting to new circumstances and challenges. Specifically, the award recognizes groups or individuals whose work implements innovative publishing practices that can be replicated by others and benefit the industry.

Receiving the IPA Champion Award, Ibrahim El Moallem said: It is with immense gratitude, joy, and humility that I accept this prestigious award. This recognition holds a precious place in my heart because it comes from my colleagues in the profession which I love deeply, and to which I have devoted more than 50 years of my life. A long journey which has been eventful, challenging, sometimes risky but mostly rewarding. For 30 of those years , I have worked with and within the IPA.

Receiving the IPA Innovation in Publishing Award and speaking on behalf of the Publishing 2030 Accelerator, Rachel Martin (Elsevier), said: The Publishing 2030 Accelerator was born from a desire to embrace innovation to shape the future of publishing and provide concrete actions that address climate change. The concept to test three early-stage ideas has resulted in three white papers, developed over 18 months, that have helped to establish the foundations for climate action in our sector. This recognition is a testament to the power of collaboration, vision, and our shared commitment towards climate action from everyone who was involved. We are very thankful for the IPA for their support and for the wider sector who are committed to carrying on this important work.

Photos of the winners and from the ceremony are available here.

The 10^th edition of the WIPO ABC International Excellence Awards saw both a publisher and an initiative recognized for their outstanding leadership and achievements in improving the accessibility of e-books or other digital publications for persons who are blind, have low vision, are dyslexic or have mobility impairments that impact their ability to read the printed word.

The awards were delivered by WIPO Deputy Director General, Sylvie Forbin. The winners were:

Publisher category

• Gerbera Ediciones (Argentina)

Initiative category

• Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities (Australia and New Zealand)

You can read WIPO’s Press Release here.

Note for Editors:

About IPA
The International Publishers Association (IPA) is the world’s largest federation of publishers associations with 101 members in 81 countries. Established in 1896, the IPA is an industry body with a human rights mandate. The IPA’s mission is to promote and protect publishing and to raise awareness of publishing as a force for economic, cultural and social development. Working in cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and numerous international NGOs, the IPA champions the interests of book and journal publishing at national and supranational level. Internationally, the IPA actively opposes censorship and promotes copyright, freedom to publish (including through the IPA Prix Voltaire), and literacy.

More information: www.internationalpublishers.org

About the 34^th International Publishers Congress

Organised by the Mexican Publishers Association with the support of the Association of American Publishers Association, the University of Guadalajara and the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the International Publishers Congress is taking place under the theme Turning Pages: Publishing and the Future Society. With speakers and delegates from around the world, the Congress gathers together some of the biggest names in publishing and international governmental agencies to discuss the topics that will define the future of publishing and our societies.

www.publisherscongress.com

About Ibrahim El Moallem

A publisher for almost 60 years, Ibrahim El Moallem is co-founder and Chairman of the Shorouk Group, one of the most successful and independent, privately-owned publishing and media companies in the region. The Shorouk group comprises several companies, covering publishing, distribution, media production, printing, packaging and paper production with a workforce exceeding 3500 employees.

• In 1968, along with his father, a long-time publisher and political activist, Ibrahim co-founded Dar El Shorouk in Cairo. This marked the Moallem family commitment to liberal, private-sector publishing, as it came in the wake of the nationalization of Shorouk’s predecessor and the detention of its owner, El Moallem senior. It was not long before Shorouk managed to acquire its reputation and set its cultural imprint in the publishing scene.
• In 1969, Ibrahim co-founded Dar El Shorouk, Beirut and then in 1978 Shorouk Printing, Cairo,.
• In the 1970s, Ibrahim took the lead in acquiring the rights of a wide selection of foreign titles and publishing quality translations, thus setting a precedent and a model for respect for intellectual property rights at a time when this was still a little-understood novelty in the region. During this period, he also focused on developing high-quality children’s books, a task which required the search for and development of authors and illustrators, as well as high technical production skills.
• In 1980, Ibrahim became chairman of Shorouk, Beirut, and in 1992 he became chairman of Shorouk Cairo. Under his leadership, the company experienced significant growth.
• Ibrahim led Shorouk to become the only publisher in its region to win several international publishing awards, thanks to its successful collaboration with some of the most notable authors and artists, many of whom were renowned not only for their talent, but also for their global outlook, liberal thinking, and advocacy of the confluence of cultures. Capitalizing on this success, several Shorouk titles were translated into more than 30 languages.
• In the 1990s, Ibrahim established a company for digital publishing, another for media production, and a third for periodicals publishing. In 2000, he launched the first Book Review magazine, to be followed in 2009 by Shorouk Newspaper, a daily independent in-print and online newspaper. In little over one year, it made its mark in the public debate and gained respect, as well as considerable market share, from long-standing state-owned newspapers.
• In 2007, Shorouk Bookstores was established, to help meet the challenge of lack of distribution networks serving the trade aspects of publishing. It is now Egypt’s leading bookstore chain.
• He has held the positions of elected President of the Egyptian Publishers Association (1996-2008), elected President of the Arab Publishers Association (1995-2007), as well as elected member of the Executive Committee of the International Publishers Association (IPA), the Freedom to Publish Committee, and elected Vice President of IPA (2009- 2014).

About the Publishing 2030 Accelerator

Co-founders: Jörg Engelstädter (Canon) and Rachel Martin (Elsevier)

Co-chairs: Michiel Kolman (Elsevier) and Richard Charkin (Mensch)

The Publishing 2030 Accelerator, introduced at the time of COP 26, is arguably the best organized and structured commitment program in climate change offered yet to international publishers.

This ambitious project harnesses cross-community expertise, collaboration and accountability to generate a tangible output (notably, the publication of three informative papers). The initiative addresses how to achieve sustainable development and growth in publishing and provides direction for further national and international collaboration. It contributes to our sustainability as a global industry by presenting data, evidence, prototypes and the preliminary development of production standards.

Established with the support of the International Publishers Association, it has the same limitation that many other orchestrated programs have: If signatories do not actually take the program’s steps and authentically fulfill their commitments to do that, then it becomes a kind of credentialling checkbox.

But with its initial intent in place and its information and tools being made available openly, it is the most lucid ‘first step’ publishing-industry coordination effort mounted to date.

This kind of collaborative effort between publishers — with substantial contributions from a printer — is especially useful as the industry continues to address the impact of climate and technology on the way we work and publish in various print and digital formats.

About the IPA Innovation in Publishing Award

The 2024 IPA Innovation in Publishing Award shortlist nominees were: