Honoris Causa Degree conferred to Nicky Camilleri – ALIVE Charity Foundation.
RIDT would like to congratulate Nicky Camilleri co-founder of the ALIVE Charity Foundation who was conferred with a Masters of Letters Honoris Causa by the University of Malta.
This is the oration given by Professor Richard Muscat on this very special occasion.
Oration by Professor Richard Muscat
B.Sc.(Hons)(Liv.), M.Sc.(Lond.), Ph.D.(Lond.)
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Your Excellency President Dr Myriam Spiteri Debono, Honourable
Leader of the Opposition, Chancellor, Rector, Pro-Rectors, Fellow
Members of the Academic Body, Honorary Graduands, Distinguished
Guests.
On this wondrous occasion I stand here before you to honour Mr
Nicky Camilleri for his continued gallant efforts in the field of
philanthropy dedicated to Medical Research, most notably cancer
research, here at our University.
Nicky graduated in Graphic Design and Interior Design from the Art &
Design Centre in 1998 and immediately entered the design and
communications industry. At Repro House he quickly scaled the
corporate ladder and within two years was appointed to senior
management. As Repro House evolved to pioneer digital offset
printing and established Impressions Ltd., Nicky’s expertise was
instrumental in the operations and he now serves as the managing
director and has been doing so for the past 20 years.
The foray into philanthropy and cancer research has always been a
very personal matter to Mr Nicky Camilleri. In 1998, his mother
succumbed to cancer and since then he has lost other family
members and some friends to the illness. In 2011, while cycling with
his friend (and eventually co-founder of ALIVE) Miriam, he decided to
do something that would change the research landscape forever and
for the better and in turn give back to society at large.
Just to provide you with some notion of what Nicky was facing some
ten or more years or so ago, as this provides the frame that really
signifies the hurdles that had to be surmounted to arrive at the point
of where the Alive Foundation stands today. It was only in 2007 that
Foundation Act came into modern operation here in Malta, which
was followed by the 2008 Act enabling the formalisation of voluntary
organisations and in 2011 the Research and Innovation Development
Trust came into being. These structures in the main facilitated the
social aspect related to community action, but not that to do with
research. So much so, the EU study in 2014 on foundations providing
support for research, noted that in Malta this was negligible except
for two of some 800 NGO’s amongst others, and again the funds
made available were for business enterprises and cultural projects –
not science or for that matter for medical research efforts.
In a stepwise fashion, Nicky, with the Alive Foundation, set out to
tackle the lack of funding for research in this domain. At the start it
was difficult to say the least, both from an expectation point of view
by each of the parties, that is us and Nicky, and too from the
community and the business sector. However, as we got to know
each other better the resultant trust and friendship grew and
through the efforts of Nicky, the community and the business sector
came on board. Nicky kicked off the initiative with the launch of the
Alive Foundation in 2013 and the first cycle challenge, in aid of
cancer research, that took the cyclists, some 35, from Paris to
London through Brussels, and raised some Euros 55,000 that was a
genuine first.
Since those heady days at the start of this venture between Alive
Foundation and RIDT, the sum of over some Euros 920,000 has been
raised to strengthen research efforts here in the field of cancer
research. Without entering into a discourse on the science of cancer,
it is of relevance though to point out, that as a nation we have a
particular genetic profile and if we want to tackle this disease we
need to understand why and how cancer develops amongst us to
then be able to treat accordingly. Nicky and the Alive Foundation
have enabled us to make significant inroads this field of endeavour
deserves and with that he is a most notable recipient of the award of
Masters of Letters by this alma mater.