ABOUT THE SOUTH AMERICAN GEM ACADEMY

Gérard Raphaël Quintin - CEO & Director of Education

Gérard Raphaël Quintin is born in Paris France where he studied Art and Design and graduated from Ecole Boulle. His taste for the diamond world may have been inherited from an uncle who worked in the diamond business.

In 1978 he took the gemology colored stone and diamond course with GIA while he was mining diamonds in the Sewa River in Sierra Leone and where he started the first diamond cutting center in West Africa.

In Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire in 1992 Gérard founded the diamond cutting formation center with a gemological laboratory 'Hardy’s', followed by the installation of the colored stone and diamond cutting facilities in the jewelry school EIBMA.

Continuing his tour in the world of gemstones, Gérard went to Madagascar as an expert for a French Government project to develop the organization and skill of the gems sector.

Professor of Gemology in the Jean Guehenno Jewelry School in Saint-Amand-Montrond France, he then moved to Bolivia to fund and manage the ‘Instituto Gemologico Boliviano’ where students learn gemology and the art of gem cutting.

Since 1997 Gérard has been a member of the Organisation Internationale des Experts based in Geneva, Switzerland.

ABOUT THE WORLD GEM FOUNDATION

The World Gem Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that was formed in 2015 with the mandate to provide quality and affordable gemmological training to students, jewellers and professional gemmologists.

Currently consisting of seventeen national and regional gem academies in the United Kingdom, Holland, the U.S, Canada, Spain, Belgium, France/Monaco/Switzerland, Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland), Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, Republic of Kosovo, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovak Republic and Slovenia), East Africa (Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique, Réunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Somaliland, Southern Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe), South Central Africa (Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa), West Africa (Ascension, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Saint Helena, Senegal, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Togo, Tristan da Cunha), Central America (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica; Belize and Panama), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname), the Caribbean (Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cayman Islands (U.K.), Cuba, Puerto Rico, Curaçao (Netherlands), Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Maarten, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Turks and Caicos), Sri Lanka and India. We plan to establish more academies around the world in 2023.