Gregory Levey (born c. 1978) is a Canadian writer and entrepreneur. He is Associate Professor of professional communication at Toronto Metropolitan University, co-founder of the software company Figure 1, a journalist and an author.
Career
Levey was a young law student at Fordham University in New York City when he was hired in 2004 as a speechwriter for the Israeli Delegation to the United Nations and then was a writer of speeches for an Anglophone audience for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon until 2006.[1][2][3] He worked for some years as a journalist and freelance writer, then became a professor of communication at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) and co-foundered the software company Figure 1.[4][1]
Levey's "controversial and much-discussed" 2009 magazine article,[5] "Lament for the iGeneration", caused a stir with its assertion that a generation of students, the iGeneration, brought up on online, lack the skills and capacity to handle a post-secondary education.[6]
Figure 1 (corporation)
Levey co-founded the social media company Figure 1.[4][7][8]
Books
Levey's 2008 memoir, Shut Up, I'm Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government: A Memoir, recounts his stint as a speech writer at the United Nations.[9][10] The book recounts how Levey, then a 20-year-old Law student, landed a job as a speechwriter for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The book's title went viral on social media.[11][3]
Levey's second book, How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six Months or Less: Without Leaving Your Apartment, was a satire of the Middle Eastern peace process.[12][2][13][1]