   Dr. Salim Sultan Al Ruzaiqi
   Chief Executive Officer
   Information Technology Authority

As CEO of ITA, Dr. Salim is responsible for the implementation of the Digital Oman Strategy.
Throughout his 18-year career in the IT field, Dr. Salim held different technical and managerial roles in the Sultanate of Oman. Dr. Salim joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in March 1987 and led the IT initiatives in the ministry.

Dr. Salim had a diplomatic experience by joining the Sultanate's Diplomatic Corp as the First Secretary at the Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman in Washington DC from 1998 to 2003.

Born in December 1963, Dr. Salim Received Doctorate of Science degree in Information Systems and Communications from Robert Morris University of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Master of Science in Information Systems Technology from George Washington University of Washington DC and Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from Lindenwood University of St.Charles Missouri.

H.E. Juhan Parts

Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications

Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications Juhan Parts has been leading the ministry since April 2007, when the government coalition between the Reform Party and the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union was formed.
In 2003 and from 2005 to 2007 Juhan was a member of the 10th and 11th Riigikogus. Juhan led the government of Estonia as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2005. From 2002 to 2005 he was the Chairman of the Res Publica party. From 1998 to 2002 Juhan worked as the Auditor General. From 1992 to 1998 he was the Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice. As for his education, Juhan Parts is a lawyer – he graduated from the University of Tartu cum laude in 1991.
In addition to politics, Juhan is also interested in history. His free time activities include travelling and sports: he plays football, ice hockey and tennis, and also enjoys playing draughts.

Juhan has three sons and a daughter.

Sheikh Aimen Ahmed Al Hosni

Director General – Information & Statistics, HRMS Superintendent

Ministry of Civil Service, Oman

Aimen Ahmed Sultan Al Hosni is currently the Director General of Information and Statistics and Superintendent of Oracle HRMS Project at the Ministry of Civil Service. He started his career at the MoCS and has held various positions from 1999 to 2000 as Administration Officer and from 2000 to 2002 he became the Director of Planning and Follow-up. From 2002 to 2005, he served as Head of the Minister’s Office and in 2005, Director General for Administration and Finance. Sheikh Aimen Al Hosni is also a Board Member of the Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel).

Michel Nasrany

Product Manager HCM (Human Capital Management)

ORACLE Corporation

Michel holds a BA in Business Administration and a Master Degree in Computer Science. My Primary Area is Product Management for the Human Capital Management (HCM) applications and the BI (Business Intelligence) Solutions with focus on the Public Sector Industry, including Government, Ministries, Higher Education and Healthcare solutions, covering the Middle East and Africa Operations.

Michel has been working for Oracle Corporation for the last 9 years covering various applications, areas & roles in Oracle MEA. He is based in Oracle MEA HQ – Dubai - UAE DIC Bldg 12.

Tareq Hijazi

Country Manager

Microsoft Bahrain and Oman

In 2011, Tareq Hijazi was appointed to spearhead Microsoft operations in Bahrain and Oman. Prior to this, Tareq successfully led the Microsoft Commercial business in the UAE since 2006.

Tareq Hijazi joined Microsoft Corporation in March 2001 as the Technology Specialist covering the Jordan territory, part of the Eastern Mediterranean countries comprising Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, Syria, and Malta. In 2003, Tareq assumed the role of Corporate Account Manager looking after Financial Services, Telecommunications, Oil & Gas, and Manufacturing and Commercial organizations.

Tareq has fifteen years of experience in the Information Technology industry. Before joining Microsoft, Tareq consulted a number of organizations in the field of Information Technology and Computer Aided Design (CAD) automation and advanced visualization techniques.

Abdul Rahman Mohammed Al Thehaiban

Vice President, Middle East and Africa

Oracle Corporation

Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban is Oracle’s Vice President of Technology Public Services for Middle East and Africa. He is also the Managing Director of Oracle in Saudi Arabia.

Abdul Rahman is well known for his creative solutions to business issues. In fact it was his responsibility to develop and execute the company’s strategies to drive growth in the aforementioned regions. The team’s effort resulted in Oracle Saudi Arabia being nominated as No 1 Solution provider (In ERP and Technology) in the Public Services, Telecom, Financial Services and Private Industry.

Abdul Rahman joined Oracle in 1996 as Sales Director for the Saudi operation where, in three years, he helped propel the annual revenue growth, catapulting this region to be the largest in Middle East. At that time, Oracle subsidiary in Saudi was awarded the Oracle leadership award across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Abdul Rahman brings over 20 years of Information Technology industry experience to Oracle. Prior to joining Oracle, Abdul Rahman owned a leading software solutions consultancy that became Oracle’s first partner firm in Saudi Arabia.

Named Best General Manager in Business Development in Saudi Arabia for 2005 by leading technology publishing group ITP, Al Thehaiban is also a member of the Young Arab Leaders (YAL) group, an association of individuals who take an active and responsible role in improving the state of the pan-Arab world. In his tenure, Oracle Saudi Arabia won the 2009 Best Working Environment award.

Al Thehaiban has a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Edinburgh, and is married with four children.

Salim Ziade

General Manager

HP Personal Systems Group (HP PSG), Middle East

Salim Ziade is the General Manager of Hewlett Packard, Personal Systems Group (HP PSG), Middle East. He is responsible overseeing the company’s growth and operations across 11 countries in the region, including those of the GCC and Levant.

Ziade has been working within HP since 1997 where he began his career within HP’s Desktop Division. His most recent role was Channel Sales Director for HP Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa. He was previously Channel Sales Manager for HP Middle East, and prior to that, Category and Marketing Manager.

Ziade completed his masters in Industrial Engineering at L’Ecole Nationale Superieure de Genie Industriel in 1997 before he participated in various internships in Columbia, France and Lebanon. He then went on to commence his career within Hewlett Packard, where he has remained for the past 13 years.

Ziade has a wealth of knowledge and expertise relevant to the Middle East region, and within the Channel and PSG Group as a whole. He is trilingual and competent in English, French and Arabic. In his spare time he enjoys car racing, white river rafting, sailing and skiing. He is also the Vice-President of the Association of Industrial Engineering Graduates.

Jung-Ah Cho

Director

Gyeonggi Women’s Development Center (GWDC), South Korea

Jung-Ah Cho is Director of Gyeonggi Women’s Development Center (GWDC) which has developed in to a mecca for Korea women’s resources development through IT/CT Training, support for women entrepreseurs and a network information services. As a result, the GWDC was voted as a “Best practices in gender empowerment” by institutes and exports related to the human resources development of women such as the UNDP, the UNESCO, the OECD and the APWINCD. The GWDC was evaluated as being an international model for the human resources development of women in the information and knowledge society. Listed as an excellent example in the database directory published by the UN, the GWDC provides relevant information to foreign women so that they can learn about the operational expertise of the center.

Andy Nehme

Intel World Ahead Program Director-Middle East & North Africa

Intel

Andy Nehme has worked in the Middle East for the past fourteen years and for the last five has been responsible for driving Intel's transformation efforts with Governments and Large Enterprise in the region. A significant part of his time is spent on accelerated technology adoption by the people and organizations in the countries of the GCC to deliver better outcomes thru the integration of technology. In addition, Andy is responsible for implementing Intel’s Digital Transformation Initiative for the Middle East and North Africa region which is Intel's vision is to increase local human capacity & competitiveness through education, innovation and R&D.

Hamid A S Al-Bahry

HR Executive Manger

OPAL

Hamid Al-Bahry is the current HR Executive Manager of OPAL. Before joining OPAL in November 2009, he started his career with Oman International Bank where he worked for 23 years. He was one of the high fliers who was exposed to the key departments of the banking business and went up the organization’s ladder that took him to become the Head of Training Department. He later joined Dalma Energy & Co LLC, one of the leading Oil and Gas drilling companies in Oman as HR Manager. Here he was exposed to the real international operations and a very volatile industry as opposed to Banking as Dalma had its operations in 4 countries namely Oman, Saudi Arabia, India and Algeria. Hamid is an active member of Oman Oil & Gas HR Forum, and Arabia Society for HR Management (ASHRAM) and Oman HR Association (Under Formation).

Hamid has a Bachelors Degree in Arabic Literature from University of Damascus (Syria), and is holding a Post Graduate Diploma in Management studies (Part of MBA program) from University of Hull (UK).

Hamid has participated in HR seminars and Forum as a key note speaker or a panellist. He is OPAL’s leading person who organises and chairs panels of O&G executives to discuss and resolve common issues with impact on O&G fraternity or rather, OPAL’s 320 plus members.

Dr. Mohammed Al Mughairi

Senior Corporate Planner & Economist

Daleel Petroleum, Oman

Dr Mohammed Al-Mughiari obtained his under-graduate and post-graduate degrees from the University of Nottingham (UK). He worked as a supervisor for final year undergraduate projects and doing his PhD research at the same time. His BSc with Honours was in Pure and Applied Physics with Electronics, and was awarded The Bill More Prize for outstanding ability in experimental project work. He gained his doctoral qualification in 1996 in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imagin of Porous Media at the same university.

His 15 years professional work experience covered disciplines in the areas of petroleum exploration and production and strategic planing of national innovation projects with Petroleum Development Oman L.L.C., Daleel Petroleum L.L.C. and The Research Council, where he worked as the Assistant Secretary General for Innovation. His involvement in the hydrocarbon business ranged from geophysics to operational petroleum angineering to surveillance enginnering and reservoir management. He has presented and published many papers on hydrocarbon-related topics in specialised international conferencies and journals, and has locally registered intellectual properties. He chaired the Society of Petroeul Engineers in Oman for two years, and was granted the Regional Middle East Award for professional society contributions by the SPE International Office in USA. Dr. Al-Mughairi has received many other awards for his diverse contirbutions.

Dr Al-Mughairi is a Founder and CEO of a private business organization for experiemental hobbies; He is a member of The Oman National Commission for Science, Education and Culture, in which he is recognised as an associate expert. He is also a former member of few governmental committees such as Educational Innovation Commitee and Industrial Innovation Committee. Recently, he was appointed as Senior Corporate Planner and Economist for Daleel Petroleum L.L.C.. Dr Al-Mughairi enjoyes running, swimming, travelling and social sciences. He is married and has three children.

Biswajeet Mahapatra

Research Director

Gartner Research

Biswajeet Mahapatra is a research director for Gartner Research covering IT operations management topics on a global basis. As part of this global coverage, Mr. Mahapatra provides insight on managing IT services in cloud computing, virtualized and traditional data center environments. He also has a specific focus on hardware-oriented management tools and technology.

Mr. Mahapatra has more than 17 years of experience in the IT industry. Prior to joining Gartner, he was involved in the development and implementation of IT management tools for several major vendors. His previous responsibilities included: product management and product marketing, program management, business process implementation and project management. Mr. Mahapatra holds an M.B.A. from XIM Bhubaneswar and a B.E. in production engineering. He is ITIL certified.

Muhanna Moosa Baqer

Director - E-Payments

Information Technology Authority, Oman

Mr. Muhanna Moosa Baqer is the Director for e-Payments at the Information Technology Authority (ITA) in Oman. ITA has been tasked with the responsibility of the implementation of e.oman, the nation’s IT Strategy. Comprising a wide range of initiatives and services, the goal of e.oman is to significantly improve the quality of services the government provides to its citizens, thereby directing Oman towards becoming a sustainable knowledge-based economy.

Mr. Baqer is responsible for managing and developing the e-Payment Gateway (ePG) Services at ITA. He has participated in several national and GCC committees related to payment systems development.

He previously worked at the Central Bank of Oman, as the supervisor of clearing house and interbank transfers. Before transferring to ITA, Mr. Baqer was in-charge of Real Time Gross Settlement system (RTGS) at the Central Bank of Oman and worked very closely with banks and other stakeholders at the time of the implementation of RTGS. Additionally, as part of his post-secondary training at the college and institute he has held various internships at several local banks and audit firms.

Mr. Muhanna Baqer has a Bachelors of Accountancy degree from the George Washington University in Washington D.C., USA, and a Banking Sciences Diploma from the Oman Institute of Bankers (currently known as, the College of Banking and Financial Studies), Muscat, Oman.

Zaher Haydar

Regional Pre-Sales Manager- Turkey Emerging Africa and Middle East

EMC Computer Systems

Zaher Haydar is the Regional Pre-Sales Manager at EMC Computer Systems covering Turkey, Emerging Africa and Middle East region. In this capacity, Zaher leads the pre-sales team across the region, aligning the regional pre-sales resources with corporate initiatives while adapting EMC's focus solutions to the region's specific needs and demands. He is based at EMC's TEAM regional headquarters in Dubai, UAE.

Zaher has over 16 years of IT experience working for various multi-nationals, designing data centre infrastructure solutions. He was involved in designing numerous enterprise mission-critical data centre solutions serving several industries and across many countries around the world.

Zaher joined EMC in 2010 from HDS, where he held the roles of Business Development Manager for the Middle-East region and Solutions Consulting Manager for the Toronto district in Canada. Prior to HDS, Zaher worked for Sun Microsystems where he was Data Centre and Data Management Solutions Architect in the middle-east region. Zaher started his career in the networking industry specializing in Cisco WAN/LAN solutions and held multiple Cisco certifications.

Zaher holds a degree in computer & communications engineering from the American University of Beirut.

Haritha Ramachandran

Program Manager, ICT Practice, Middle East, North Africa & South Asia

Frost & Sullivan

Haritha Ramachandran joined Frost & Sullivan’s Technical Insights Practice in 2004. She joined the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia Team in 2005 and has four years experience in the ICT sector in India and the Middle East. To date, she has focused specifically on creating marketing and corporate strategies surrounding the issues of market entry, product diversification, organizational restructuring (design, M&A activity) and geographic expansion for telecom companies, telecom equipment vendors and software solution providers in the region. Haritha, in her current role at Frost & Sullivan has managed people across India on public sector consulting projects focused on knowledge management and business process re-engineering. She is currently working with the Qatar government to help streamline their ICT research objectives to meet their National ICT Plan 2015. With industry knowledge on the ICT sector coupled with extensive experience with global teams and international clients, Haritha, drives the research and project execution of the ICT MENA team. This Cambridge Commonwealth scholar has excellent communication skills and the ability to solve problems and provide research based solutions in a logical and organized manner.

Sharifa Albarami

Founder and CEO of

Al Jazeera Technical Solutions LLC

Sharifa Al-Barami, Winner of the Business Personality of the year award 2011, business woman category, by Al-Roya Business Newspaper. A passionate entrepreneurship development consultant, coach and business women with ten years work experience in both private and public sectors in the Sultanate and the United Kingdom.

Holder of a Bachelor of Science degree with Honors in Medical Sciences from the University of Portsmouth, U.K. Specializing in Total Quality Management Systems and certified Lead Assessor by the South African National Accreditation Service (SANAS) in Quality Assurance Management. She is also a certified master trainer of Entrepreneurship from the Cisco Entrepreneur Institute, USA.

She is the Founder and CEO of AlJazeera Technical Solutions LLC and its subsidiary AlJazeera Training. She also sits as Managing Director of Al-Jazeera Global Services & Investments (AGSI). Previously she sat as Business Consultant, Programs Manager & Trainer at Amideast/Oman, where she spearheaded the set up and launch of the Cisco Entrepreneur Institute for the organization.

- Community Contribution Roles:

Elected vice-president of the Omani Woman’s Association in Muscat (2010-2012).
SME committee member at the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI)
Human Resource & Workforce committee member at the OCCI.

Ms. Al-Barami currently focuses on coaching, mentoring and motivating local entrepreneurs and delivering keynote speeches at various conferences, workshops, colleges and seminars on entrepreneurship, business management and capacity building. She is also involved with communicating and bridging dialogue between private sector, civil society and government sectors in terms of SME development and promoting entrepreneurship. Follow her blog on the subject (http://www.omanentrepreneur.typepad.com).

   Neil Hannah
   Business Incubator Director
   National Technology Business Incubation

Neil's appointment as Director of the National Technology Business Incubation programme in Oman is a key element in a collaboration between the Information Technology Authority in Oman, United Kingdom Business Incubation (UKBI) and Coventry University Enterprises.

The aim of the programme is to develop a national business incubation and growth environment capable of assisting in the development of a globally competitive ICT industry in Oman by 2020.

Neil was Head of Business Incubation at Teesside University in the UK and a member of the UKBI Board of Directors. Neil has worked extensively with a range of young people, helping to develop their entrepreneurial skills and stimulate their interest in business creation as a career choice.

Prior to that, Neil ran a successful training and consultancy business and won a National Training Award. This followed a successful career in sales and sales management with T-Mobile and Xerox. At T-Mobile Neil was Head of Business Sales in the UK; at Xerox he was the UK’s top performing salesperson.

His early career was in teaching, heading up a science department before moving over to the business sector.

Dr. Zahra Al Rawahi

Director of ICT Sector

The Research Council Oman

Dr. Zahra AL-Rawahi is a Director of Research of Information and Communication Technology at The Research Council.

She is the founder of Telemedicine and Medical Informatics group at Sultan Qaboos University. She is also a member of many International professional organizations on ICT (Information and Communication Technology).

She has long experience in teaching Medical Informatics courses which are related to Computer Applications in Health Care and Medicine. Dr. Al-Rawahi was responsible, in particular, for developing the E-Learning/E-Assessment solutions and driving the integration of ICT in Higher Education.

Previously, Dr. Al-Rawahi serves as an Assistant Professor and as a Computer & Information Technology Chairperson at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) – College of Medicine & Health Sciences.

She has conducted research, workshops, and presented large number of papers on International conferences and gathering. Her Major research interests include e-learning/e-assessment, adaptive system and Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS), and Telemedicine.

Dr. Al-Rawahi holds a Ph.D in Computer Sciences and Artificial Intelligences from University of Sussex, a Master degree in Educational Technology from New Mexico State University and a Bachelor degree in Physics from Sultan Qaboos University.

Dr. Kiarash Kiazand