Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, to speak at 2013 commencement

February 19, 2013

By News Staff

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, a former president of Dartmouth College, will deliver the commencement address at this year’s ceremony, President Joseph E. Aoun announced Tuesday. (Photo Courtesy/Creative Commons/World Bank Photo Collection)

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank and former president of Dartmouth College, will deliver the keynote address this May at the university’s 111th commencement ceremony, Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun announced via Twitter on Tuesday evening.

Kim, a co-founder of Partners in Health and a former director of the HIV/AIDS Department at the World Health Organization, became president of the World Bank on July 1, 2012 after President Barack Obama nominated him to the post. Kim is the 12th president of the World Bank Group.

The World Bank, according to its website, is a source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world.

“We help governments in developing countries reduce poverty by providing them with money and technical expertise they need for a wide range of projects — such as education, health, infrastructure, communications, government reforms, and for many other purposes,” the organization states on its website.

Born in 1959 in Seoul, South Korea, Kim moved to America at age five and grew up in Iowa, according to his biography on the World Bank website. After graduating from Brown University in 1982, Kim earned an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1991 and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in 1993, according to his biography.
Kim became president of Dartmouth College, an Ivy League school, in March 2009 and held that position until leaving to head up the World Bank in 2012.

The commencement ceremony will be held Friday, May 3 at TD Garden.

Be sure to check this week’s edition of The Huntington News for more on Tuesday’s announcement.