Mobile apps that make a difference
Arab Countries and Middle East
Algeria
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 the beginning of the 90's 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.
Bahrain
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 is 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
Comoros GAC representative
ICANN
Karim ATTOUMANI MOHAMED is a lecturer at the Comoros University. Engineer in telecommunications, he obtained a DEA (Master II) in regulation and reglementation of Telecommunications from the Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique d’Antananarivo (Madagascar). His memory project which related to a law proposition to regulate the ICT sector in Comoros was voted by the National Assembly and promulgated by the President. After a short passage at UNICEF-Comoros, he was recalled to constitute the initial team of the National ICT Regulation Authority as the Head of department networks and services and then become Head of studies and projects Department.
He was the ICT indicators and statistics focal point with the ITU and continuous to assist technically the ICT Ministry in various projects and programmes. He represents Comoros in the ICANN within the Governmental Advisory Committee. He is involved in Internet Governance since he followed the ISOC e-learning course "Next Generation Leaders" on the Internet Gouvernance provided by DiploFoundation. He looking for an encadror in a University to carry out a thesis on the ICT regulation, the ICT for development or ICT Gouvernance to make so that the development of the African societies by the ICT become a reality.
He is teaching Open Source Technologies in web development, e-learning and network under Linux. He hold the ICT4D passeport n°3404-4362 as trainer from the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie.
Finally, he is the Technical Assistant in Telecoms and Procurement Management at the Project Implementation Unit for the Regional Communication Infrastructure Programme (RCIP4) with the IDA – World Bank Group
Egypt
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)
IT Consultant
Hamsafar eSolutions
Ehssan Riazi Esfehani 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), 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
Director
Computer Center Baghdad University
Ghassan H. Abdul-Majeed graduated in Electronic Engineering and works as Director of the Computer Centre of Baghdad University. Being member of various science committees in- and outside Iraq, he also evaluates technical papers for journals and is administrator of several Exam Centres. 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
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
Secretary General, Kuwait eContent Award
Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS)
Manar AlHashash is a Computer Engineer from Kuwait, holding a master degree (MBA) with focus on Management of Information Technology. Based on that academic technical background, Manar works in two parallel lines, technical and social with an experience of 15 years in Kuwait, the region and worldwide. She is the co-founder of DotDesign, a software development company which developed the first mobile game application in Kuwait market, followed by many projects with the latest “Merzaam” and “Alzebda”, a smart aggregator for popular news both on the web and AppStore. She had also pursued with a technical focus as a programmer, system analyst and concluded being an IT audit Team leader at Kuwait Fund for Economic Development. On the other hand, she multi-tasks several activities with her main goal “Promote ICT in society for Development”. Manar has been involved in media and public work in many ways to achieve that goal. She prepares and presents a weekly IT program on Kuwait Satellite Channel in Arabic as well as in English.
Ms. AlHashash launched and Managed a Local e-Content Annual Contest under the name of “Ghiras electro Contest” which aims at youths in Kuwait (14-22yrs) competing for Best website design, Best Presentation, Best Graphic design and Best mobile e-greeting card, all focus on local content. She worked in KFAS*on establishing Kuwait eContent Award, an open competition for the public, in collaboration with the World Summit Award (WSA). Manar also has rich experience in the press media publishing for IT, as she wrote a weekly IT page for an official daily newspaper (Al Watan) in Kuwait, where she concluded that experience by launching the IT magazine "Dot" of which she was the founder and Chief Editor. As a student Manar was awarded an IEEE for her outstanding Internet and e-Commerce projects. In addition to being a member in WSA board of directors, Manar was a member of the High-Level Panel of Advisers of Gaid – United nations, and She was appointed as the first eLeader for Youth and Technology by Gaid – United nations, where one of the assignments she worked on was producing a Strategy for Youth and Technology for Development for the UN.
*KFAS: Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences
Lebanon
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. 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. This competition is intended to discover and support young talents and promote their work in the business community.
Mauritania
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 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.