Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh
Chairman & CEO
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization (TAGORG)
The Arab Organization for Global Professional Services

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh born on April 22nd, 1938 in Jaffa, is the Chairman and Founder of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization. Founded in 1972 (TAG-ORG) is an international professional services group, employing over 2000 professionals and operates out of its 71 offices in the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, India, Cyprus, Russia and China. It has representative offices in Europe and North America and non-exclusive strategic alliance agreements with various networks and individual firms thus enabling it to choose a firm best suited to its clients’ needs in virtually every country in the world.

It currently offers a composite range of professional services covering Accounting; External Audit; Internal Audit; Corporate Governance; Taxation; Educational Consultancy; Economic and Strategic studies; Management Advisory Services; Professional and Technical Training; Technology Transfer Project Management; Real Estate Management; Investors and Business Advisory Services; Human Resources and Recruitment Services; E-Government; E-Commerce; E-Education; IT and Security Audit; Webmastering and Web Design; Professional Interpretation and Translation; Website Arabization: Domain Names Registration; ICT Strategic Planning; ERP Consulting Services; IT and Internet Skills Training and Examinations; Intellectual Property News Agency; IP Business and Asset Valuation and Branding Services; IP Registration and Protection; Intellectual Property Renewals; IPR Protection and Management; Legal Services (Solicitors and Attorneys); and Public Offering.

Mr. Saleem Zoughbi
Regional Advisor
Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

As a regional advisor for Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Mr. Saleem Zoughbi provides technical assistance and advisory services to member governments. This includes special technical advice in different applications such as the evaluation of national policies and strategies, evaluation of IT departments within a CIO approach that includes business and process re-engineering, planning and evaluation in e-government and e-governance, databases, data centers and others.

Dr. Zoughbi worked in several career environments. In academic life he taught at the Computer Institute of Canada, Concordia University, Montreal, then moved to Jerusalem University and Bethlehem University in the Palestinian Territories. He was then involved in the in founding the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (the IT section), and worked as senior adviser in ICT to the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation of the Palestinian Authority. With support from UNDP he helped design the National Information Centre at the Ministry. He participated in several advisory, assessment and evaluation of projects and undertook many studies and reports with the UNDP, The EU and other international organizations.

Alex Butler
CEO

KindredHQ.com

Alex Butler has an unusual blend of skills and experience across corporate and start up organisations. She is CEO of recently launched KindredHQ.com, a brand new start-up community of people who work outside the traditional organisational structure. She is also a consultant specialising in digital innovation and transformation, working across a number of industries.

Until 2010 she led the transformation of the UK Government’s approach to and use of digital technologies establishing a programme of activity to improve the UK government’s online services. Responsible for the original service proposition for Directgov, the UK Government’s citizen website, she also established and ran a new digital delivery division, the forerunner of the UK’s Government Digital Service.

Alex put in place a digital innovation programme linking established digital and technology entrepreneurs with the UK’s Civil Service, with outstanding results. She championed the strategic use of digital technology by government, helping the UK government to collaborate with industry and entrepreneurs.

Her background is in marketing, from Saatchi and Saatchi and Interbrand, to large-scale product marketing and brand programmes in large multinational technology organisations, such as BT and Cable & Wireless, and start up organisations developing new brand identities and launch programmes.

Mr. Jeongwon Yoon
Executive Director
National Information Society Agency, Korea

Jeongwon Yoon has been working for more than 18 years as an Executive Director of the National Information Society Agency, Korea, previously known as National Computerization Agency.

He is responsible for ITPAP (Information Technology and Policy Assistance Program), assisting more than 40 developing countries (Argentina, Cambodia, Colombia, Colombia, Ethiopia, Morocco, and etc) in the area of e-Government, Public-Private Sector Promotion and Various ICT pilot projects. He expanded the program by making partnerships with various international organizations such as the UN and World Bank.

He successfully launched ICT cooperation centers in Mexico, Chile, Bulgaria, South Africa, Vietnam and Turkey, jointly with each of the countries’ governments. The centers played a critical role in creating and implementing pilot projects in the areas of RFID, G4C and High Speed Network. He introduced many successful projects of Korea such as Information Village Project and National Procurement Project to the centers of these countries. Specifically Information Village project, which enabled residents of rural areas to access digital economy, caught policy maker’s attention and triggered several pilot projects in rural areas of Latin American countries. The center’s unique success story is widely recognized by top political leaders in Latin America.

Prior to this, he was responsible for reviewing the Korean National Finance System, planning the National Backup Center and Digital Certification Authority, and developing IT Risk Analysis methodology.

He has BS and MS degrees in Computer Engineering from California State University in U.S. He has a Ph.D. in Information Management from Seoul University of Information and Venture.

Mr. Ralph Simon
CEO & Founder - Mobilium Global
Founder & Chairman Emeritus - Mobile Entertainment Forum Americas

Ralph Simon is one of the founders of the modern mobile entertainment and content industry. Over the past 15 years he has been a prominent mobile visionary, trailblazer and innovator, helping grow the global mobile content and entertainment industries, and playing a central role in the implementation and use of mobile as a tool for entertainment, education and developing countries’ ICT strategies. He is recognised for having grown the mobile industry and its impact and presence world-wide.

He heads Mobilium Global, providing high level strategic advice and guidance to multi-national telco operators, handset & tablet makers, technology infrastructure companies, e-Government and ICT Ministerial departments, media companies, brands, ad agency groups and platform providers around the world. Drawing from vast international and BRIC-developing market experience, Simon is at the forefront of mobile innovation with a unique understanding of what drives colloquial & contextual significance - a key imperative in today’s mobile strategy and revenue generation thinking.

Simon was named as one of world's Top 50 Executives in Mobile Entertainment, by Mobile Entertainment Magazine in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010. He received their Special Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Global Mobile Entertainment industry in 2007.

Mr. Baher Esmat
Manager, Regional Relations – Middle East
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

Baher Esmat is part of ICANN Global Partnerships where he manages ICANN’s relationships in the Middle East. He also leads on ICANN’s strategy and engagement in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Baher joined ICANN in February 2006 from the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), where he served since 2002 as a Telecom Planning Manager, in which his responsibilities included projects relating to network infrastructures and broadband services.

Between 1993 and 1999, Baher served as a Systems Engineer at Egypt’s Cabinet Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), where he participated in establishing the first Internet Point of Presence in Egypt. In February 1999 Baher joined Newbridge Networks Corp. as a Systems Consultant for Egypt and Levant until he moved to MCIT in 2002. Baher received a Bachelor Degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Cairo University in 1993, and a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the American University in Cairo in 1999.

Mr. Chris Rourke
Managing Director and Founder
User Vision, UK

Chris has over 20 years of commercial experience in usability, accessibility, human factors consultancy and training. Chris has worked with a range of clients including Hewlett Packard, Dell Computers, NCR, Houses of Parliament, Emirates Airline, DirectGov and many other commercial and public sector clients in the UK and abroad. His particular user experience interests include web accessibility, the application of Rich Internet Applications such as AJAX and Flex, remote usability testing, eye tracking and persuasion architecture.

Chris is the Founder and Past President of the Scottish Chapter of the Usability Professionals' Association and the UPA’s regional coordinator for Europe. He is a member of various professional organisations, including the British Human-Computer Interaction Group (BHCIG), and the Computers and Human Interaction Group of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM-SIGCHI).

Chris is a Board Member of ScotlandIS, the trade body for the software, IT and creative technology industries for Scotland. He is also on the Steering Committee for the world’s first Master’s degree in Design Ethnography at the University of Dundee which is helping train the ethnographers of the future. Chris holds a BSc. in Engineering Psychology from Tufts University and a MSc. in Ergonomics from the University of Michigan.

Mr. Hannes Astok
Senior eGovernment Expert

Mr. Hannes Asrok is an enthusiastic speaker for information society, specially promoting the role of local governments and challenges of mobile governance. Mr. Hannes Astok (47) is a former Member of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) and the former Deputy Mayor of Estonian second largest city Tartu.

As a Member of the Estonian Parliament, he was dealing mainly with information society development, intellectual property and electronic communication regulation issues. Mr. Astok graduated from Tartu University as a journalist. He started his political career in Tartu, Estonian’s 2nd largest city, working for a decade for the City of Tartu as a Deputy Mayor. Today Tartu is one of the world’s leading cities in e-governance, providing citizens and businesses a wide variety of internet and mobile phone based services.

Mr. Astok is also a senior associated expert in the Estonian e-Governance Academy (www.ega.ee), providing training and consultancy for central and local governments in Central Asia, Caucasus, South-East Europe, Middle East and other transition areas.

Dr. Bruno Lanvin
Executive Director, INSEAD eLab, France
Former senior executive at the World Bank and the United Nations

Dr. Bruno’s work focuses on competitiveness, innovation, skills and government reform. He has had a longstanding involvement with the World Economic Forum (participating in particular in the creation and annual production of the Networked Readiness Index and Global Information Technology Report since 2001). He has been playing leading roles in INSEAD’s work on innovation (development of the Innovation Readiness Model – IRM -, customization of the Global Innovation Index – GII -, generation of skills for innovation – work for the European Commission and the European Business Summits since 2009). A frequent keynote speaker in high-level meetings, Dr Lanvin advises global corporations and governments on strategic issues.

Dr Lanvin has degrees in Mathematics and Physics (License of University of Valenciennes, France), business (MBA from HEC, France) and economics (PhD from University of Paris I – Pantheon-Sorbonne, France); he speaks French, English and Spanish, and has a working knowledge of Portuguese, Italian and Russian, as well as some knowledge of Mandarin. A frequent speakers in high-level international conferences, he is the author of a wide range of books/articles and studies on international trade, development, innovation in the public sector.

Dr. Julia Glidden
Managing Director
21cCentury Consulting

Dr. Julia Glidden completed her D.Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University, and has extensive experience working with public administrations across Europe to improve service delivery. An internationally recognised expert in e-Government, Dr. Glidden was among the first to champion the importance of social media at the EU/Ministerial level. She used a recent keynote address at Poznan Ministerial pre-Conference to promote the use of Living Labs to engage citizens in the co-design and co-production of more effective public services and is actively involved the European Commission’s Smart City initiative. Dr. Glidden has authored numerous articles on citizen engagement, including a Council of Europe sponsored volume on eParticipation.

Dr. Glidden is regularly asked to speak on eGovernment at forums around the world. She is a guest lecturer at the European Institute of Public Administration in Maastricht, a member of the Scientific Committees for the Global Forum, Eastern European eGovernment Days, CeDem Conference and the annual Bled eConference. In addition, Julia has been retained by the European Commission as an official EU project evaluator, and is regularly invited to participate in and Chair juries for eGovernment competitions, including the Bahrain eGovernment Excellence Awards, the Issy Molineaux World eGov Forum competition in France, and the Nordic-Baltic Region Innovation in eGovernment Competition in Stockholm.

Dr. Gregory G. Curtin
Managing Director
Civic Resource Team

Gregory G. Curtin, Ph.D., JD is the Co-founder and Principal of Civic Resource Group, a leading Web/Gov 2.0 company providing innovative digital solutions for the public and civic sectors. A former public schoolteacher and college professor, municipal government attorney, political and government consultant, and a successful technology entrepreneur, his almost three decades of experience provide a unique foundation for vision and leadership in E-Government.

A true visionary, Dr. Curtin founded and directed the E-Governance Lab at the Bedrosian Center for Governance and the Public Enterprise at the University of Southern California. In 2004, he established the Journal of E-Government, the first peer reviewed academic Journal in the emerging field of E-Government. Since 2002, he has served as the principal investigator for e-government research, and as a contributing author for each of the United Nation's Global E-Government Readiness Surveys and Reports. he works regularly with the United Nations on e-government programs around the globe.

As an authoritative figure on E-Government, Dr. Curtin conducts workshops and speaks regularly at forums and conferences at all government levels, from locally to globally.

Overview: Publications, research and speaking engagements

Dr. Curtin has published widely in the field including "The World of E-Government" (Haworth Press, New York), and the groundbreaking article "Free the Data" (see below in highlights). Other articles authored by Dr. Curtin have appeared in the Journal of E-Government, the Journal of Public Affairs, and the Journal of Political Marketing. He has authored chapters in texts dealing with technology in government around the globe, including "Latin America Online: Cases, Successes, and Pitfalls", and an upcoming publication on Cyber Security, and has served on the editorial boards of numerous academic and practitioner guides and books related to e-government.

Dr. Theresa Pardo
Director, Center for Technology in Government
Associate Research Professor, Public Administration & Policy
University of Albany-New York

As director, Theresa works with a variety of government, corporate, and university partners to lead applied research projects on the policy, management, and technology issues surrounding information and information technology use in the public sector.

Theresa's current portfolio includes the development of a public value assessment framework for U.S. federal government open government initiatives funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and the development of models of social and technical interactions in cross-boundary information sharing and integration as well as information technology enterprise governance.. Theresa is a Research Associate Professor at the Rockefeller College of Public Administration and Policy and an affiliated faculty member of the College of Computing and Information at the University at Albany. She is one of the founding developers of the highly ranked Government Information Strategy and Management curriculum at Rockefeller College. The academic program focuses on the policy, management and technology dimensions of information and technology use in the design and delivery of government programs. In 2008, Theresa received the University at Albany’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

Theresa has written over 100 articles, research reports, book chapters and case studies focusing on IT innovation in the public sector, cross-boundary information sharing, trust and knowledge sharing, preservation of government records in digital form, and multi-method research. She has received numerous awards for her written work, including the 2008 best paper of the year award from the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology and Best Paper Award in the E-Government Track at the 2009 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS).

Dr. Tomasz Janowski
Head of UN University IIST Center for Electronic Governance
Senior Research Fellow

Tomasz Janowski is a Senior Research Fellow at United Nations University - International Institute for Software Technology in Macao (UNU-IIST) where he founded and heads the Center for Electronic Governance. His expertise is in foundations and frameworks for Electronic Governance, tools and applications of formal techniques, and rigorous development of enterprise systems, particularly systems for the public sector. He founded and coordinates a series of International Conferences on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV), and serves as an Editorial Board member and Programme Committee member and chair at various journals and conferences.

As part of his contribution to international development, he assists and collaborates with several governments including Afghanistan, Argentina, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, Jordan, Republic of Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Macao SAR, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Nigeria and Palestine on how to design and implement Electronic Governance programmes based on the rigorous framework EGOV.* he developed in the Center. His projects have been funded by Macao Foundation, World Bank, Microsoft, UNDP, EU and others. He has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Warwick, UK.

Mr. Gary Schwartz
CEO
Impact Mobile

Gary has played a leadership role in the mobile industry. He is also a pioneer in mobile marketing and managed the first cross-carrier short code mobile campaign in North America.

In 2006 Gary founded the mobile committee for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). There he spearheaded the production of important industry resources such as the Mobile Buyer's Guide. This work, explains how agencies and marketers can extend their digital buy into mobile. Gary was recognized with the IAB award for Industry Excellence in 2009. During this period Gary also worked with the Media Rating Council (MRC) to establish a joint task force between the IAB and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) to develop global, auditable mobile measurement standards.

In 2010, the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) - a global mobile content and commerce advocacy organization - re-elected Gary as Chairman of the Board in North America, charging him with the task of developing a mobile commerce practice to service brands, retailers and content owners.

In 2011, Gary is working to develop m-commerce security and privacy guidelines with X9 security standards body. Gary is the recipient of the Macromedia People Choice Award and the Dodge Foundation award for innovation. Gary is the author of the upcoming book on mobile commerce, “Click2K’Ching: The Mobile Shopper & The Impulse Economy.” Gary is alum of Columbia University in New York and the Stanford University Center in Yokohama, where he was the recipient of the Asia and Japan Foundation Fellowship.

Mr. Alexander Felsenberg
Executive Director
Felsenberg Consulting

Since 1980 Mr. Felsenberg has had different Jobs in film production, production management for TV, later director for Corporate Videos and TV-Commercials, he was also a Freelance writer and editor for TV-Programms, and an author for special interest magazines on media development (book about the introduction of HDTV).

In 1990 he was a director and later a producer at Pütz und Partner GmbH Düsseldorf; in 1993 he played a role as the corporate developer and the Manager of the first Multimedia Department at MEDOX Medien GmbH.

In 1995 he worked as a research Scientist at Germans largest media research programm conducted by the German Research Society (DFG) at the University of Siegen on Interactive Media. Later on, he filled in the position as an assistant Professor at the University of Siegen in the media faculty; later he was the Founder and Managing Director of the German Multimedia Association (dmmv) e.V. (now renamed to: German Association for the Digital Economy, BVDW e.V.). Later in 1999 he was the Managing Director dmmv-service GmbHa Group Marketing and service development company for the Internet Service Companies.

And in 2005 Mr, Felsenberg was appointed as a Conference Director of the ICT Africa and the 3rd African PrepCom for the UN-WSIS. In 2006 he was appointed as CMO for the Solar System Company “Systaic”. Furthermore, he was in charge for the Europe’s largest online-marketing exhibition and congress OMD in Düsseldorf. Finally, since 2008 he has been working as a media- and marketing strategy-consultant.

Mr. Raul Zambrano
Global Lead on ICT for Development and e-governance
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Raul Zambrano is Global Lead on ICT for Development and e-governance at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Democratic Governance practice based in New York. For the last 20 years, he has supported the deployment and use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in over 90 developing countries with the goal of fostering development agendas and promoting social inclusion, working together with national governments, the business sector and civil society organizations.

His current portfolio focuses on e-governance policies and programmes that enhance public information and service delivery for the poor and promote participation of stakeholders and marginalized communities in public policy and decision making processes. In addition, his work also supports the use of social networks and mobile technologies to provide voice to all stakeholders and enhance human development, especially for marginalized groups and under-served areas.

Before he joined UNDP in the early 1990s, Mr. Zambrano worked in the academic sector in the US. He has a background in engineering, sociology, and economics.

Mr. Kei Shimada
Director, Business Development
Future Communications Department, Dentsu Inc.

Kei grew up in the United States and moved to Japan upon entering High School. As CEO and President of Infinita, he is responsible for the corporate strategy, and is in charge of the domestic and international sales.

From his experience in mobile, telecommunications, manufacturing and security industries, Kei brings deep expertise in corporate strategic planning, human resources and sales/marketing. He is always keen on experimenting with and implementing new business ideas, across cultural and geographic boundaries. Kei is bilingual in Japanese and English, conversational in Italian, and just starting to learn German.

After graduating from Waseda University in 1996, Kei worked for Matsushita Electric, Lucent Technologies, Cybird and Synchro; all are leading companies in their respective industries. A firm believer in the power of networking as a catalyst for business success, Kei continues to expand his base of contacts around the world.

R. Erdem Erkul
Founder and Editor
Digital Government, Turkey

R. Erdem Erkul started his academic career in Hacettepe University, Turkey. He also worked for the Department of Public Administration in 2003. In 2005 he established www.digitaldevlet.net a web portal on egovernment and informatics, and is also the editor of this website. In 2008, he started a new web site: www.digital-government.net. R.Erdem Erkul has publications and studies in e- government, web 2.0, Strategic Planning, Total Quality Management, New Public Administration, Informatics and Strategic Management. Erkul conducted research at the National Center for Digital Government, (which was established at Harvard University in 2002 in USA) with Prof. Jane Fountain as a Doctoral Research Fellow during the 2008-2009 academic year. His research interests include implementation of digital government as a public policy. He is also interested in issues regarding mobile government (m-government).

He is an Executive Board Member of the Informatics Association of Turkey and he consults many digital government activities and awards. He is editor of Informatics Magazine by the Informatics Association of Turkey. Since January 2010, R. Erdem Erkul is an official representative of the Informatics Association of Turkey, Member Society of CEPIS. Erkul, is also a member of the Turkish American Scientists and Scholars Association (TASSA).