DUBAI Friends and family have paid moving tributes to Giorgio Ungania, 46, who started TEDx Dubai in 2009 and was a senior manager of Dubai’s EXPO2020 team. He passed away on Sunday after cardiac arrest, leaving behind wife Natscia, 39, and son Sky, 15.
Those who knew him well and worked with him on various projects say the Italian – who also held a British passport – also leaves behind a legion of lives inspired by him.
Tamer Nahas, 38, who linked up with Ungania while founding BOLDtalks - a similar community platform engaging speakers in intellectual discussions - said Ungania was larger than life and was more than a real brother. “A selfless man, he knew how to reach out and touch lives,” added Nahas who first met the six-foot-five Ungania in 2009. “Before Giorgio, before TEDxDubai, nothing of that scale in community engagement existed here in the UAE. He changed all that,” said Diya Khalil, 29, who volunteered in the first TEDxDubai event Ungania organised.
Wife Natascia, who moved to Dubai ten years ago to live with Ungania said, “He loved Dubai like anything. He had a strange connection with this place as if he couldn’t have finished up anywhere else in the world. That’s exactly what happened, he proved his love for this place but he has left a sea of legacy.”
