Dr. Jorge Grünberg, Rector of the Universidad ORT Uruguay, has been announced as the 2023 recipient of the Robert Singer Award for Outstanding ORT Professionals.
The annual award recognizes ORT professionals globally whose efforts and achievements for the institutions in which they work advance beneficiaries locally and support the ORT network as a whole.
Robert Singer, former World ORT Director General and Chair of the Board of Trustees, for whom the award is named, described Dr. Grünberg as an “outstanding professional – creative, innovative – a real educator and a top manager”.
Mr. Singer lauded Dr. Grünberg for building from scratch, along with his mother Charlotte de Grünberg (winner of the award in 2020), the Universidad and developing it into one of the leading universities in the world.
He also spoke of Dr. Grünberg as a man “devoted to Jewish values, Jewish community and the State of Israel”, having come from a family of Holocaust survivors who made their new home in Montevideo.
Having graduated from Oxford University with a Masters degree in Education (he has since gained his Doctorate), Dr. Grünberg has served as Rector of the Universidad since it attained private university status in 1996. Under his leadership, the institution has grown to be rated the best in the country and among the 500 best universities worldwide. It offers a wide range of technical courses and undergraduate and graduate degrees in Architecture, Engineering, Biotechnology, Business, Economics, International Relations, Design, Animation, Communications and Education.
Dr. Grünberg also represents ORT in his capacity as Deputy Chair of the Academic Advisory Committee and serves the Uruguayan academic community as a full member of the National Academy of Engineering of Uruguay and as founder and secretary of both the Council of Rectors of Private Universities of Uruguay and the Uruguayan Computer Society.
Dr. Grünberg has also worked as a consultant for several global organizations, both public and private, and he has had more than 50 specialized articles published: his academic specialty is the integration of new technologies in educational systems.
“Winning this award means a lot to me,” Dr. Grünberg said. “First of all because I am proud to be part of a group of many illustrious people, much more deserving than me, who have won this award in the past, and secondly because it serves as validation that what my team and I do is perceived as valuable for the educational mission of the ORT family worldwide.
“The Robert Singer Award has a consistent record of commitment to highlighting useful educational practices to share within the global ORT network. Sharing and collaborating is, I believe, one of our network’s most important differentials and strengths and one that we should cultivate, using the award as an important platform to that end.
“What makes ORT special is that it is not a job, but rather a cause and a calling. When imbued with the ORT spirit, one develops a tremendous commitment – towards education in particular and the Jewish people in general.
“When you work at ORT you really feel that you are making a difference in people’s lives and this is invaluable as a reward. The work that we do provides us with meaning and purpose and there is no substitute for that.”
