Mr. Saad-Laib is the General Manager for DIDACTICA, Ecole Superieure de Management et des Technologies de l'Information. He has represented Algeria in the "Euro Mediterranean Movement for management and quality in the SME and handcraft companies", an EU project in the framework of the Eumedia Initiative.

Mr. Saad-Laib is also a Consultant in data Computing Systems, Networking and ICT Consultant for different organisations throughout his country.

He is a member of Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) and recently was the guest Editor for PARTNERS- the GKP Newsletter.

Nawaf M. Abdulrahman - Chief, Information Technology in the General Organization for Youth & Sport, Vice President of Bahrain Internet Society and Head of the Jury & Technical Committee in Bahrain eContent Award - is a skilled Information Technology professional with leadership qualities and strong hands-on experience in solutions & applications developments beside to infrastructures, networks & security.

Nawaf oasts 12 years of experience in the IT field with proven ability to manage large scale projects through the entire lifecycle, consistently delivering these engagements within time and budget constraints. A confidant manager with a solid track record for leading and motivating technical professionals & teams in order to achieve high levels of performance.

Nawaf has an MBA with concentration in Finance & Bachelor in Information Technology; he is also CISA, ITIL & MCSE. He worked in many project through Bahrain Internet Society such as IT Future Leaders, which aims to take the top 15 students from the university into a comprehensive program to certify them in ITIL, Leadership, IT Project Management and MCIT beside to training in Microsoft and Microsoft partner before their graduation.

Another project is the eCitizens which aims to train the citizen in basic computing. Also he worked in many projects through his professional career such as a unique unified communications solution which considered the first of its kind in the Middle East by integrating Microsoft & Nortel technologies and provided a wide range of features that are not available in the other UC solution which made Microsoft to publish a case study about it in Microsoft.com.

Nawaf conducted several courses, workshops and lectures in IT related topics such as "Users Awareness in Information Technology", "How Information Technology Empowering People" and "The Information Technology and The Youth Opportunities".

Ahmed Yahia Darwish has extensive expertise in directing the delivery of enterprise-wide national projects, encompassing application development, IT infrastructure, operations and customer support. His background includes Private and Government organizations. He is currently working as the Senior Programs Director of the Information Technology Development Sector of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) in Egypt.

In this position his responsibilities are to manage the strategic national programs and initiatives that focusing on developing the Egyptian Information Technology Industry in terms of building the capacities of the ICT companies, human capital and talent pool development, awareness and marketing the companies' products and services in the targeted international markets, branding Egypt as an international ICT hub, and encouraging the Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) in Egypt in order to play the main role of the Egyptian economic and social development.

Mr. Akram Othman Al-Mashaikhi
President
Iraqi Computer Society

akram [dot] othman [at] gmail [dot] com

Degrees:

• PhD in Computer Science, Department of computer Science, University of Technology, 2003, Thesis title " An Approach for knowledge representation using Natural language".
• M. Sc. in Computer Science , college of science, Baghdad University, 1990. Thesis title "Arabic Transformational Grammar for Building Knowledge-Based System".
• B.Sc. in Mathematic Science, college of science, Al-Mustansiryah University,
  Baghdad, Iraq 1971

Jobs :

1. Assistant Prof. from 2003-2007.
2. Senior Advisor IT strategies from 2003-2007.
3. Iraqi computer society President from 1998-2007.
4. Lecturer since 1984-2003.
5. Director General from 1984- 2003.
6. IT Executive Manager from 1976-1984.
7. Programmer/analyst since1972-1976.
   

Ms. Mais Daoud
ICT National Strategy Director
INT@J - Information Technology Association of Jordan

mais [dot] daoud [at] intaj [dot] net

Ms. Manar Al-Hashash
Project and Marketing Manager
Dot Design

manar [at] kuwaiteaward [dot] org [dot] kw

Manar Al-Hashash is the Founder and Project and Marketing Manager of Dot Design, a software development company. She has also launched the IT magazine Dot, of which she is the owner and Chief Editor.

In 2004, Ms Al-Hashash launched and managed a local e-Content contest, the Ghiras Electro Contest 2004, which was aimed at youths in Kuwait (14-22 yrs old), competing for best website design, best presentation and best graphic design. She was awarded an IEEE for her outstanding Internet and e-Commerce projects in 2000.

Ms Al-Hashash is in charge of and presents the weekly IT programme Compunet World on the Kuwait Satellite Channel in Arabic and an IT programme on KTV2 in English called Zero Ones. She also writes a weekly IT column for the Al-Watan newspaper.

Mr. Gabriel Deek
President
Professional Computer Association of Lebanon (PCA)

gdeek [at] pca [dot] org [dot] lb

Mr. Deek graduated in 1982 with a degree in Electrical Engineering. His early experience was in software development in a major SW House "Isticharat" working in Lebanon and the Gulf.

In 1987 I joined the HolCom Group, where I started in SW Consulting and Project Management. I joined Quantech (part of the Holcom Group) in January 2000, where he still manages the digital media and the e-business divisions. In 1996 he joined the Professional Computer Association (PCA) and Mr. Deek became its Secretary General in March 2003 and today he serves as the President.

The PCA groups 125 Companies representing 80% of the ICT business in Lebanon. He is also the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the "Golden Chip Awards" a competition intended to discover and support young Lebanese talents in the field of ICT and promotes their work throughout the business community.

In June 2003, I was invited to join the Arab Regional Network (ARN). The ARN is working as part of the UN ICT Task Force to help e-enable the various communities in the Arab World.

Mr. Issmail Ellabib
Director General
Information and Documentation Center
GPC for Higher Education- Libya

iellabib [at] higheredu [dot] gov [dot] ly

Dr. Issmail Ellabib received his B.Sc. from Computer Engineering Department and M.Sc. from Engineering Management Department at Alfateh university, Tripoli-Libya, in 1989 and 1996. He started his Ph.D. study in the year 2001 at Waterloo University, Waterloo-Canada, focusing on Artificial Intelligence techniques and its applications in routing problems. He finished his Ph.D. in 2005, and joined the Computer Engineering Department at Alfateh university, Tripoli-Libya, as lecturer in 2006. Dr. Issmail is the author/co-author of many refereed journal publications and conference proceedings. His current research interests cover a wide range of topics such as Software development for Information Management Systems,

Intelligent techniques for data mining and documents clustering, Intelligent routing and clustering techniques for data communication and computer networks. He is appointed as Head of ICT Committee University of Al-Fatah Tripoli-Libya from January 2007 to February 2008, and Director-General of Information and Documentation Centre for Higher Education starting August 2007. Currently, Dr. Issmail is involved in establishing a national ICT project of higher education in Libya with the help and support by UNESCO.

This project will provide greater flexibility in learning situations, creating a new educational platform, promoting increased interactivity for learners and connectivity to people and learning resources.

Kamal Okba is the Regional Director of Maroc Telecom, the first telecom operator in Morocco. Before this occupation Kamal Okba was the CEO of CASANET an Internet Company owned by Maroc Telecom and specialized on content development. Casanet was managing the First Moroccan Portal www.menara.ma and worked with organizations and the government to develop a portal and website.

Kamal Okba is member of the APEBI (Federation of Information Technologies) and MISOC (Moroccan Branch of ISOC). Kamal OKBA is a Computer Engineer and holds an ENPC MBA.

Ms. Zawan Al-Sabti
Projects Specialist
Information Technology Authority (ITA)

zawan [dot] alsabti [at] ITA [dot] GOV [dot] OM

Zawan Hamed Al-Sabti works for the Information Technology Authority. Zawan started her career in the only Telecom Company in Oman in the e-services department as a business analyst. After that she moved to the Information Technology Authority as a marketing & training specialist. Working for ITA,

Zawan was a member in the first editorial team which started Digital Oman magazine and worked on its content for 5 issues. In 2006 she managed e-Oman Marketing & Awareness campaign. In the period from 2004 to 2005 Zawan was a key member in Oman WSIS preparatory Task force & represented Oman in the regional international WSIS conferences and meetings. Zawan is currently coordinating 2 National projects which are 'Digital Literacy Certification for Civil Servants' and the 'National PC initiative'.

Ms. Reem Al Mansoori
e-Inclusion Manager
ictQATAR

ralmansoori [at] ict [dot] gov [dot] qa

Reem Al-Mansoori's 12+ years in the IT field leads the e-Inclusion team at ictQATAR and working on developing the digital inclusive society across Qatar creating and implementing state of art e-skills and technology that is responsive to the needs Qatar Society.

The ictQATAR's "e-Inclusion" program consist of both inclusive ICT and the use of ICT to help people to overcome economic, social, educational, territorial or disability-related disadvantages. This program focuses on to coordinate initiatives and help set policy to reduce gaps in ICT usage and promote use of ICT to improve economic performance, employment opportunities, quality of life, social participation and cohesion. Reem Al-Mansoori has a wealth of experience in e-Literacy and ICT development. She has worked in e-Inclusion strategy development, ICT Capability building program planning and implementation, developing ICT curriculums. She has conducted lectures in computer safety.

Currently she serves as a member on the board of Qatar Academy school. Reem Al-Mansoori was project Manager at the e-education team at ictQATAR. The ICT strategy for e-Education aims at enhancing the learning experience through ICT, and building the underlying ICT capabilities to improve productivity and quality of life.

It focuses on universalizing access to ICT and expanding the pool of resources and opportunities while improving the quality of education to nurture a population ready for competing in the information age. The strategy taps on providing services to the education sector per se but extends to the over all community while addressing the governmental needs and partnering with the corporate private sector. She managed several initiatives such as School Learning Management System "Knowledge Net", Teachers Learning Portal "Global Gateway", e-Literacy, K-12 Cyber Safety, and ICT Community centers. Before joining ictQatar, Reem Al-Mansoori was leading the Business Intelligence Module and a Data Warehouse for Kahramaa (Qatar General Corporation for Electricity and Water) : to support Management decisions , managing and measuring organization performance.

Prior to that, worked as University Teacher Assistant at Qatar university, and she has published at Journal of Intelligent Systems, about using Information technology at the Medical field.

Furthermore she holds an MSc in "Computational Intelligence" from University of Plymouth at UK, and BSc in "Computer Science " from Qatar University at Qatar.

Mr. Mohammad AlQasem
Minister's Advisor for IT
Ministry of Communication and Information Technology

mqasem [at] mcit [dot] gov [dot] sa

Mr. AlQasem holds a PhD in Computer Science and a MSc. in Information Science. He is presently serving as the Minister's Advisor for Information Technology, Ministry of Communication and IT, in Riyadh. He was formally the Chairman of the Computer Science Dept. at King Fahad Security College, Riyadh, where he also worked as an assistant Professor.

Mr. ALQasem is also the Chairman of the IT Laws and Regulation team for the Saudi National IT Plan Project and a member of the organizing team of the National Female Competition (of web site development), Saudi National IT Plan Project. Mr. AlQasem also works as a part-time Consultant for several governmental and private organisations.

Mr. Noureldeen Abdulrahman Noureldeen
Dean, Faculty of computer Science and Information Technology
Sudan University of Science and Technology

noureldien [at] hotmail [dot] com

Dr. Noureldien Abdelrman is the Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (FCSIT)at University of Science and Technology (UST), Omdurman, Sudan. The FCSIT at UST is recognized as one of the most famous private academic faculties in Sudan and the African region in Computer Science and IT studies since its establishment in 1995. Dr. Noureldien worked with UST since 1997, during this period he affiliated engaged leading positions in IT. Beside his official work at UST Dr. Noureldien worked with Sudan National Information Centre (NIC),

Sudan Central Bank, National Telecommunication Corporation and others as an ICT Consultant. Dr Noureldien is a member of numerous organization and associations such as Sudanese IT Association and Sudanese Internet Association. Dr Noureldien participates in most International and Regional activities concerning Internet issues and he had been the internal comanger for WSA activities in Sudan in 2005 and 2007.

Ms. Nibal Idlebi
First Information and Communication Technology Officer
United Nation - Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

Idlebi [at] un [dot] org

Dr. Nibal Idlebi is currently involved in the development of studies and undertaking advisory services for the formulation and the implementation of ICT policies and strategies in the ESCWA region. Furthermore she focuses on improving the capabilities of Western Asia countries for the use of ICTs for social and economic development in cooperation with the governments, regional and international organisations for building the Information Society.

Previously she was the Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Communications and Technology in Syria and a lecturer in computer architecture and parallel processing and has been active in the academic sector for more than 8 years. She was also a board member of the Syrian Computer Society (SCS) from 1997 to 2002, and leader of the professional training programmes at SCS. Major qualifications: Engineering Degree from "Ecole Superieur d'Electricite (Supelec)" in France, and Ph D. in Computer Science from Nancy 1 University in France in Parallel Processing and Distributed Systems.

Mr. Faouzi ZAGHBIB
General Manager
R2i

faouzi [dot] zaghbib@r2i [dot] com [dot] tn

Faouzi Zaghbib is expert in information technologies, General Manager of R2i (an IT firm) and Administrator of ESPRIT (Tunisian university specialized in ICT). From 1981, Mr Zaghbib conducted information systems projects and implemented ICT solutions for public services (human resources, budgeting, investment, foreign trade, investment, statistics, health, education, telecom,..) and enterprises (ERP, finance, distribution) using several technologies (data bases, data warehousing, eBusiness, business intelligence, multimedia, networks, common development and quality insurance standards) in many countries. Mr Zaghbib is an active member of numerous organizations.

He is the Chairman of the Tunisian ICT Federation (UTICA-FED-TIC), and member of WITSA (the World IT & Services Alliance), founder member of IJMA3 (the Arab IT Association) and AFICTA (the African IT Association). From 1998-2007, he worked on national and regional committees in charge of capacity building, internet governance, eCommerce, ICT4D, education and research.

Since 2003, he is member of the WSIS organization and follow-up committee. Mr Zaghbib is graduated in economic sciences (Tunis University - 1977), engineer in computer science (Tunis University - 1981), certified in business management (Beyster Institute at the Ready School of San Diego, UCLA - 2004) and certified for ICT security auditing (ANSI - 2006).

Mr. Sarkis Semaan
Director of Digital Media - Broadcast Group
Organisation: Abu Dhabi Media Company

sarkis [dot] semaan [at] admedia [dot] ae

Sarkis Semaan is the Director of Digital Media covering the broadcast group in Abu Dhabi Media Company. The broadcast group consists of 5 TV channels in addition to 4 radio stations. Digital media in broadcast group is a newly established department with an aim to achieve one of the biggest multimedia online presence in the middle east.

Before becoming Director of Digital Media, Sarkis worked as acting chief operational officer in the broadcast group. He also participated in many consultancy projects in the broadcast media sector including the reconstruction of Iraqi Media Network after the latest war and the complete destruction of that sector, a joint project between Harris Corporation and Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation Overseas.

Sarkis graduated with a Masters degree in Computer Science from the Lebanese American University where he stayed for more than 8 years as Alumni President. He is also part of many organisations most of them focused on encouraging small media initiatives online and offline.

Mr. Abubaker Alsheik Abubaker
Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems
Hadramout University of Sience and Technology

a4sheikh [at] gmail [dot] com

Abu Baker Sheikh is Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems (MIS) and Director of the Information Center (1999-2001) at the, University of Hadramout.
After more than 10 years Experience in IT as, government administrator, senior executive, consultant and programming development

Outside Yemen:

1. from (1989-1990) worked with government institution of civil information (state of Kuwait) as systems test
2. trainig course in (IMPS) USA (1993) .

Business Experience:

• Consultant and improving business process performance of more than 10 companies and training institute in Yemen.
• Abubaker received his Bachelors in Statistics at Kuwait University,
• Kuwait (1984), his MBA (2003) and PhD (2006) in MIS from the Sudan university of science and technology ,Sudan.
• Dissertation Topic of PhD " Suggested model to activate use of ICT towards successful implementation of e-government in Yemen".