Saudi e-Government Achievement Award

Jak Boumans

Mr. Boumans is principal consultant with Electronic Media Reporting, an electronic publishing consultancy specialised in content strategy, based at Almere (The Netherlands). He studied philosophy and got active in reference publishing since 1970, starting to specialise in electronic publishing from 1980. Jak Boumans has regularly been a project evaluator, reviewer and expert for the European Commission. He is General Secretary of the European Academy of Digital Media (EADiM), a network of digital media experts in Europe. Jak Boumans has edited and published articles and books on digital media in English and in Dutch.

Jak Boumans has been involved in several regional and global e-Content competitions such as the EUROPRIX and World Summit Award. He has monitored local e-Content juries in Kuwait and Bahrain and has lead workshops on e-Government content in Oman and Bahrain. He chaired the Bahrain e-Government jury in 2008 and has presented a paper at the first Bahrain International e-Government Forum.

Dr. Nibal Idlebi

Dr. Nibal Idlebi is currently the chief of the ICT Applications Section at ESCWA. She joined ESCWA in 2004 and has since been working on issues related to the ICT policies and strategies, enabling environment for the Information Society, the development of ICT applications and Digital Arabic Content.

From 2002 to 2004, she was Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Communications and Technology (MCT) in Syria. During that period she supervised Information and Communication Technology and International Cooperation activities. She also participated in the formulation of the National ICT Strategy for Social and Economic Development and coordinated the activities of the Strategic ICT Programme for Social and Economic Development implemented in cooperation between UNDP and the Ministry.

Ms. Idlebi worked at the Higher Institute of Applied Science & Technology (HIAST) in Damascus for more than 8 years and she was a lecturer in computer architecture and parallel processing. During her academic years, she was the coordinator of cooperative projects between the European Union and HIAST.

In addition, she was a Board Member of the Syrian Computer Society (SCS) from 1997 to 2002 and she lead the professional training programmes at SCS.

Ms. Nibal Idlebi has an Engineering Degree from “Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (Supelec)” in France, a “Dipôme d’Etudes Approfondies” in Software Engineering and Operating Systems from “Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Informatique et de Mathématique Appliquées de Grenoble (ENSIMAG)”, and a Ph.D in Computer Science from Nancy 1 University in France with specialization in Parallel Processing.

Ali Ghalib Beshara

Ali holds a Bachelor of Science with Honors in Computing from The University of Greenwich-UK and an Associate Diploma in Business Information Systems from the University of Bahrain. He attended many professional courses and workshops in different areas such as Management, Quality, Information Technology, Information Security and Social Activities.

Ali is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA). He is also a Certified Lead Auditor in Quality Management Systems ISO 9001 and Information Security Management Systems ISO 27001.

His work experience started with British Airways from 1999 till 2002. Then he joined The General Organization for Youth and Sports where he was part of the team which got the organization certified against the ISO 9001:2000 standard. He was appointed as Chief of Quality Assurance in the year 2008, then he joined the eGovernment Authority of Bahrain as a Senior Specialist in Quality Assurance, and currently he is Chief, Position Control and Organization Information at Bahrain’s Civil Service Bureau.

His experience with e-Awards can be summarized in the following:

• Jury member for GCC eGulf Award in 2009
• Jury member for eOman Award 2009
• Overlooking the development of the scoring engine for Bahrain Excellence Award
• Part of the organizing team of Bahrain eGovernment Excellence Award in 2009
• Jury member in Bahrain eContent Award in 2008

Mr.Mansour A. Al Harbi

Eng. Mansour Ali Al-Harbi represents the emerging Saudi youth society, who Saudi Government will need to serve more and more in the coming years and essentially grew up using technology. He worked for Saudi Aramco for 15 years and his last position with Saudi Aramco was the Mobile Solution Supervisor.

Mansour is an entrepreneur and an inventor as well. He granted a patent from King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology on 2008. His invention won the 4th position on Best innovation in the first-ever Saudi innovation exhibition which was held in Riyadh. One of his Business Plan was the 4th Best Business Plans on all over Middle East introduced in the Arabian Region during the 5th Investing in Technology Forum, held in Amman, Jordan.

Also, He is one of the first beneficiaries of BADIR-ICT technology incubator in Saudi Arabia, On April 2008, Mansour launched the first mobile applications (Widdee) which provide more than 150 informatics and commercial services to the end users.

Dr. Abdullah I. Almojel

Dr. Abdullah Almojel is Vice President, University Development for KAUST. He assumed his duties on September 1, 2008. Dr. Almojel is an engineer and university educator with 11 years of experience as a cultural ambassador and manager of international students. He taught at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where he holds an associate professorship in computer engineering. He previously served as department chairman. Dr. Almojel joined KAUST from the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education, where he served for eight years as Deputy Minister for Cultural Relations. In that post, he organized scientific and cultural relations between Saudi universities and institutions, including top international book fairs and exhibitions. In addition, he was the General Supervisor of the King Abdullah Scholarship Program, which grants scholarships to more than 50,000 Saudi students who wish to study at top universities abroad. Dr. Almojel managed two dozen Saudi Arabian cultural missions and attachés overseas where Saudi students abroad report. During his position, he introduced e-government concepts and technologies and supervised implementation of e-government applications in the ministry work processes and procedures either G2G or G2C. Dr. Almojel earned his doctorate in computer engineering and science at The George Washington University (1997), in Washington, D.C., where he majored in computer engineering and architecture. He holds a master's in Computer Science from the University of Denver (1991), in the United States, and a bachelor's in Computer Engineering from King Saud University (1987) in Saudi Arabia. He was a Visiting Research Scholar at Advanced Parallel Architecture Lab of George Washington University (May 1997 – June 1998). His research interests are similar to KAUST’s areas of research, including high-performance computing, parallel processing and architecture, performance evaluation and workload characterization, Grand Challenge N-body problems, interdisciplinary information systems, intelligent multimedia database systems, Internet computing, and e-government applications and technologies.

Dr. Almojel holds many academic and scientific honors including a Scientific Award from the Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences (CESDIS) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He is a fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, the Salzburg Global Seminar, and the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. He is also a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the IEEE Computer Society, Association for Computing Machinery, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the Saudi Computer Society (SCS), and the Saudi Society for Technology and Development Transfer (SSTDT).

Dr. Hend S. AL-Khalifa

Dr. Hend Suliman Al-Khalifa is an assistant professor at the Information Technology Department, CCIS, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She received her MSc degree in Information Systems (2001) from King Saud University, Riyadh, KSA, and her PhD degree in Computer Science (2007) from Southampton University, U.K. Hend has participated with more than 45 research papers in symposiums, workshops, and conferences and has published many journal articles.

She currently works as a Consultant at the national center for e-learning and distance learning and a User experience Consultant at IDRAC research and consulting for usability and eye-tracking studies.

Her areas of interest include web technologies (semantic Web/Web 2.0), technology enhanced learning (e-learning, adaptive hypermedia), computers for people with special needs, and Arabic language and computers.

Dr. Ahmed Al Shuaibi

Dr. Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Shu'aibi is currently the Dean of Studies Development and Community Service at King Faisal University. He joined the University since the year 1405H. Since then he was gradually promoted to various posts until he was promoted to an associate Professor at the Faculty of Administration and Planning. He is now the Head of and Member of several Government Committees. Professor Al Shu'aibi gives advice in technical and administrative issues to many government agencies. He published many scientific researches the latest of which was entitled "Constraints and the Viability of E-government Programs in the Arab world: a special study on Saudi Arabia."

Dr. Ahmed was the Dean of Undergraduate Development at King Faisal University from 1429H to 1430H. While from 1424H to 1430H he was the Director of Information Technology Center, King Faisal University.Dr. Ahmed Al Shu'aibi is now the Deputy Vic-chancellor of King Faisal University for Studies, Development and Community Service.

Dr. Ahmed obtained a Bachelors Degree from the Faculty of Business Administration, King Saud University - Riyadh, in Micro-technical & Information Systems Management in Saudi Arabia. He went on to obtain his masters Degree in the same specialization at California State University and the PhD Saint Andrews University, United Kingdom

Dr. Ibrahim AlBidewi

Dr. Ibrahim A. Al Bidewi is currently working as an Associated Professor - Department of Information Systems at the Faculty of Computer and Information Technology - King Abdulaziz University. He joined King Abdulaziz University in 1415 H. And he is the Chairman and a member of several governmental committees and has fourteen scientific books and he has many scientific supported projects.

From 1419 -1422 H, Dr. Ibrahim was the Computer Center Director at King Abdulaziz University. From 1427 - 1429 he worked as a vice rector/founder for the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology at King Abdulaziz University.

Dr. Ibrahim A. Al Badawi holds a bachelor's degree in Islamic Economics from the Department of Islamic Economics at Umm Al-Qura University in Mecca, , and then he completed graduate studies to earn a master's degree in Computer Science from the Computer Science Department at Swansea University in UK and a PhD in Photogrammetric Analysis by Computer from Electrical Engineering and Electronics Department, Swansea University in Britain.