Arab Countries and Middle East

Algeria
Mr. Mohamed Saad-Laib
Project Manager
DIDACTICA, Higher School of Management and Information Technologies

Mr Mohamed SAAD LAIB is an international consultant in ICT4D he is the General Manager of DIDACTICA, Higher School of Management and IT in Algeria and one of founders of AL AWAEL Education and Learning (Primary, College and Secondary school) the both are leader institutions in Algeria using ICT in their curricula since beginner of 90 years of the past century. His activities are mainly oriented to use ICT4D in education and learning and how to set policies and strategies to reach targets in the high level of decision and policy makers.

Mr Mohamed SAAD LAIB is the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) regional coordinator of GKP (Global Knowledge Partnership, http://www.globalknowledge.org ) and a member of membership committee.

Bahrain
Mr. Nawaf Abdulrahman
Chief, Information Technology
Ministry of Housing

Nawaf M. Abdulrahman is Chief, Information Technology, Ministry of Housing, Bahrain, Vice President of Bahrain Internet Society and Head of the Jury & Technical Committee in Bahrain eContent Award Nawaf oasts 12 years of experience in the IT field with proven ability to manage large scale projects through the entire lifecycle.
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 pr the eCitizens which aims to train the citizen in basic computing. Furthermore, 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.
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".

Comoros
Mr. Ibrahim Mze Mohamed
Directeur de l'Informatique et des Nouvelles Technologies
Comores Telecom (ex-SNPT)
Egypt
Mr. Ahmed Yahia Darwish
Senior Projects Manager
Information Technology Industry Development Agency- ITIDA

As the senior projects manager of ITIDA, Ahmed brings with him extensive expertise in directing the delivery of enterprise-wide national projects, encompassing application development, IT infrastructure, operations and customer support. Ahmed is responsible for the management of the physical and personnel infrastructure including applications, technology deployment, network and systems management, integration testing, and the development of professional staff. Additional responsibilities include overseeing the development of corporate standards, enterprise architecture, technology evaluation, and transfer, and sponsoring the business technology planning process.

Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Mr. Ehssan Riazi Esfehani
IT Consultant
Hamsafar eSolutions

Ehssan Riazi Esfehani, born in 1982, is an IT consultant and eSolutions project manager working with governmental and private organizations in Iran and abroad in order to help develop better e-contents and e-solutions. He has helped in development of e-contents and narrowing the digital gap by writing in different IT and economical papers, having many media interviews, working closely with ICT reporters, speaking at conferences and writing on the web. Ehssan has been the co-founder of “e-solutions festival” (IranWSA.com) since 2004, the first contest on e-content and digital media in Iran which has also served as the national approved contest for WSA05 , WSA07 and WSA09. He is the current chairman of “e-solutions festival”.
Ehssan has also organized the first WSA Road Show in Iran to help Iranian experts and solution developers get better understandings of the WSA key matters and get more familiar with the world's best in e-content. Ehssan encourages Iranian developers to promote their products and show them opportunities to have a bigger share in e-Activities in the world through.

Iraq
Mr. Ghassan H. Abdul-Majeed
Director
Computer Center Baghdad University

Ghassan H. Abdul-Majeed graduated in Electronic Engineering and works as Director of the Computer Center of Baghdad University. Being member of various science committees in- and outside Iraq, he also evaluates technical papers for journals and is adminsitrator of several Exam Centers. He has over 25 years of teaching and training experience and is the author of more than 70 papers and 7 books related to Computer Science.

Jordan
Haneen S. Al-Rashid
Director of e-Initiatives Unit
Ministry of Information and Communications Technology

Haneen works for the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology where she launches and supports initiatives to improve the ICT sector. Before that she  coordinated the national Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in cooperation with Microsoft. Hanneen studied Computer Engineering in Washington.

Kuwait
Ms. Manar Al-Hashash
General Manager & Secretary General of Kuwait e-Award
Dot Design

Manar Al-Hashash is the Founder and General 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.

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

As founder and CEO of Digital Media Solutions Companies and Manager of eBusiness Solutions Activities for the past 20 years, Gabriel Deek was involved in multiple projects related to eBusiness Infrastructure, Multimedia, Advanced Collaboration, Video Production and Post-Production, and News-Room Automation Systems. He is the General Manager of OmniSystems sal. an affiliate company to OmniTech Holdings and MDS Holdings. While keeping a close relationship with the Academia, he joined the PCA in 1996. President since March 2007 he acts on community initiatives aiming to bridge the Digital Divide. He also chairs the Organizing Committee of the Golden Chip Awards since its creation in 1999. This competition is intended to discover and support young talents and promote their work in the business community.

Mauritania
Mr. Kamal Okba
CEO
Mauritel

Kamal OKBA is the CEO of Mauritel, the  principal telecommunication company in Mauritania. Before he was 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. Casanet was managing the First Moroccan Portal www.menara.ma and worked with organization and government to develop 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 will end an ENPC MBA in 2008.