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Biographies

Hossam Allam Regional Director for Sustainable Growth, Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE) Dr. Hossam Allam is the Regional Director of Sustainable Growth at the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE), international organization based in Egypt. Dr. Allam has more than 25 years of international, regional, and national experiences in Sustainability including sustainable consumption and production, green economy, waste management and recycling, sectorial assessments and information & communication technology for development themes. Dr. Allam holds a Ph.D. from the University of Plymouth, UK and MSc. from the University of New Haven, USA. He is a graduate from Ain Shams University Faculty of Engineering.
Leonidas Anthopoulos Professor and Department’s Head, Departnment of Business Administration, University of Thessaly, Greece Dr. Leonidas Anthopoulos is a Professor in e-business at the University of Thessaly, Greece. During his current mission and at his previous job positions (as an Expert Counselor at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a Special Advisor of the Mayor of Trikala, Greece and as an ICT project manager at the Information Society S.A. (Greece)) he planned and supervised several critical projects, worth mentioning the smart city of Trikala. He is the Director of the “Intelligent Production Systems and Smart Cities” Research Institute and the Director of the Postgraduate Program in Agile Management at the University of Thessaly, Greece. He is a member of numerous committees, worth mentioning working for the ITU (Rapporteur of Q13 of the SG5), he is the head of the Smart and Sustainable cities’ working group for the Greek Standards, the Associate Editor of the IET Smart Cities journal etc. He is the author and editor of several book collections, which can be located in Cities, Technological Forecasting and Social Change and Government Information Quarterly (ElSevier), ACM Computing Surveys monograph for Springer etc. His research interests concern, among others, smart city, e-Government, Enterprise Architecture, Strategic Management, etc.
Paolo Gemma WP2/5 Chairman, ITU-T Study Group 5, ITU, Senior Expert, Huawei Dr. Paolo Gemma plays an active role in international standardization activities. Since 1993, he has been engaged in ETSI (European Telecommunication Standard Institute) activities and he also participates in the development of EMC standards. In 1997, Dr. Gemma joined ITU-T Study Group 5 on Environment, climate change and circular economy as a Rapporteur and he is now the Chairman of Working Party 2 “Environment, energy efficiency and the circular economy. He has participated as speakerat several conference (for example: IEEE Intelec, ITU Green Standards Week, Ewaste conference Durban, Huawei energy summit, among others). In 2002, Paolo Gemma was appointed as the Secretary of the Committee ETSI TC EE and as of 2009 he holds the position of Chairman of the EEPS EE (eco Environmental product standard) working group. He is also Vice-chairman of the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative and the Co-chairman of Focus Group on Environmental Efficiency for Artificial Intelligence and other Emerging Technologies (FG-AI4EE) at ITU. Paolo Gemma is a senior expert of Huawei Digital Power WEU product Management and representative of Huawei on issues related to energy saving and environmental sustainability. Paolo Gemma is a graduate in electrical engineering from the University of Genoa.
Erlijn van Genuchten Changemaker in the field of sustainable living, Cyber security expert, and Member of the Task Force on Digitalization in Energy of the Group of Experts on Energy Efficiency Dr. Erlijn van Genuchten is a global changemaker in the field of sustainable living (Twitter: @ErlijnG), sharing how sustainable living makes us happier, healthier and wealthier and making it easy to live more environmentally friendly too. As she is also a cyber security expert with a vast experience as penetration tester (ethical hacker), has a PhD in Psychology and an M.Sc. in Educational sciences, she is able to combine knowledge and skills from different fields contributing to sustainable living and energy efficiency through digitalization. She is from The Netherlands and lives in Germany.
Okan Geray Q7/20 Rapporteur, ITU-T Study Group 20, ITU Dr. Okan Geray has more than 20 years of experience in management consulting in various industries. He has consulted for several organizations in Netherlands, France, Italy, South Africa, Turkey and Dubai. He has worked in A.T. Kearney global management consulting firm for 6 years and was a member of global Telecommunications and E-business core team before he joined Dubai Government in 2002. He has worked in Dubai eGovernment, Dubai Smart Government, Smart Dubai Office and more recently in Dubai Digital Authority after its establishment. His responsibilities include Strategic Planning, Strategic Performance and Impact Management, and Policy Making. He has Co-Chaired Enhancing Innovation and Participation Working Group in United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) joint global initiative by ITU and UNECE by addressing Smart Governance, Smart Economy and Smart People aspects in smart cities. He has been designated as the Leader for “Guidelines on strategies for circular cities” and also “City Science Application Framework” deliverables during the second phase of U4SSC initiative. He is also a Co-Rapporteur for ITU Study Group 20 Question 7 regarding “Evaluation and Assessment of Smart Sustainable Cities and Communities”. He holds double major B. S. degrees in Industrial and Computer Engineering, an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and a Ph. D. degree in Systems and Control Engineering from University of Massachusetts in USA.
Nibal Idlebi Chief of Innovation Section, UN-ESCWA Dr. Nibal Idlebi is the chief of Innovation Section at UN-ESCWA. She is a senior policy expert in digital transformation, innovation and technology for sustainable development, knowledge society and digital and open government. She has long experience on policies and strategies advancing knowledge society, digital government transformation and innovation and technology for promoting entrepreneurship in the Arab countries. She also supervised several regional initiatives on Digital Arabic Content, building trust in cyber space; regional profile of information society and she is currently leading the ESCWA initiative on fostering open government in the Arab region and the ESCWA Award for Digital Arabic Content. Dr. Idlebi is active member in several international and regional working groups and is a jury member of regional and international awards on innovation, entrepreneurship and digital content, and she was a jury member in many e-Government Awards in the Arab Region. Before joining ESCWA, Ms. Idlebi was deputy Minister in the Ministry of Communication and Technology and professor of IT in the Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology in Syria. Ms. Idlebi has a computer engineering degree and a Ph.D in Computer Science from France.
Bilel Jamoussi Chief of Study Groups, TSB, ITU Tunisian born, Dr. Bilel Jamoussi is Chief of the Study Groups Department of ITU Standardization Bureau in Geneva Switzerland. Since 2010, he has been leading the bureau’s standards making activities into a new era characterized by rapid convergence and the need for increased collaboration with vertical sectors and partnership between developed and developing countries. Prior to 2010, Jamoussi worked for a Telecommunication equipment and solutions provider for 15 years in Canada and then in the United States where he held several leadership positions and was granted 22 US patents in diverse areas including packet, optical, wireless, and quality of service. He holds a BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is fluent in Arabic, French, and English and speaks some Spanish and German.
Nada Laabidi Senior Expert, Project Managment Officer, Arab Information and Communication Technologies Organization (AICTO) Nada Laabidi works as Project Management Officer at the Arab Information and Communication Technologies Organization [AICTO] and is charge of the setting, follow up and coordination of AICTO’s regional projects and programs. Current focus areas include digital transformation, digital Innovation, digital Inclusion and Digital trust. She looks back on more than 10 years of experience in AICTO with proven qualification in project & WGs management, interregional & international cooperation, Information System management, IT services management, strategies setting up & deployment, Nada is the focal point of AICTO in charge of the coordination with some specialized committees of the league of Arab states, international Working Groups (UNCITRAL Working Group IV -Electronic Commerce / UfM - Digital Economy Working Group , ITU-T SG5 Regional Group for the Arab Region (SG5RG-ARB), ETSI …) and with the China Satellite Navigation Office on the “BeiDou/GNSS test and assessment” in the Arab region.
Abdelmenam Mohamed Regional Coordinator for Science, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Abdelmenam Mohamed is the Regional Coordinator for Science, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) West Asia Office where he is responsible for programmes related to strengthening the Science-Policy Interface and data and information for decision-making as well as integrating environmental dimensions into the UN cooperation mechanisms. Abdelmenam manages the delivery of other key UNEP products and services, which include producing the first ever Environment Outlook for the GCC countries and providing web-based tools and technologies to support sharing of environmental data and information from national to global levels. Furthermore, as the office focal point for digital transfornmation, Abdelmenam led the organization of the Digital Transformation Conference for Environmental Sustainablity. Abdelmenam holds a doctorate degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Lüneburg / Germany, a Master of Engineering in Environmental Protection with special focus on renewable energies from the Nürtingen-Geislingen University of Applied Science/Germany and a BSc in Environmental Studies from University of Sebha/Libya.
Eiman Farouk Mahmoud Osman Vice-chairman, ITU-T-Study Group 5, Head, Environmental Effects Division, TPRA, Sudan Eng. Eiman Farouk is a head of Environmental Effects Division, working at Telecommunications & Post Regulatory Authority (TPRA) - Sudan Technical Department in (Standards & Specifications section) since 2008 she has a Master degree in Solid physics & Telecom Engineering experience on: - Management of Electromagnetic Radiation issued by radio stations. - Base Station (Telecom Tower) Specifications. - Electronic Waste Management for communication and information technology equipment. - Minimize environmental impacts and climate change from the use of communication technology. - Type Approver of Communication devices and equipment.
Nevine Tewfik Vice-Chair, ITU-T SG5 I Senior International Relations Expert, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Egypt Nevine Tewfik holds a BA and MA degrees in Political Science from the American University in Cairo where she worked for several years as Instructor of Political Science. Nevine has also been working for the past 30 years in the field of International Relations, Research, Policies, Studies and Strategic Thinking. She is currently Senior IR Expert at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. Prior to that she held several positions including Head of Research, Studies and Policies, Deputy Director and Head of The European Cooperation Department. Her current work cuts across the different portfolios of the International relations division on the bilateral and multilateral levels, where she is member of the Management Team. One of the founders of the IR Division at MCIT, Nevine has represented the ministry in numerous international platforms and organizations since then. Nevine is vice chair of SG5 on “The Environment, climate change and circular economy”, vice chair of WP2, vice chair of the African and Arab Regional groups and co- rapporteur of question 7 on Circular economy including e-waste. Nevine was actively involved in the Green ICT program at MCIT and the Sustainable Recycling Industries project implemented in Egypt in cooperation with the Swiss government. Nevine has recently earned a Certificate in Strategic Management and Innovation from the Copenhagen Business school within the Next Technology Leaders Initiative. Nevine is active in counselling and Child Online Protection among other things.