SPEAKERS

Joseph LE, Senior Journalist (Super Scale) and Politician, was born on 19 March 1959, in Nkol-Mvolan, Abong-Mbang Sub-division, Haut Nyong Division of the Region of East.

A pure product of the Cameroonian educational system, he obtained his Baccalaureate certificate (series "B", Economics) in 1982, at the Technical and Commercial High School of Yaounde. He studied at the Higher School of Information Science and Techniques (ESSTI) in Yaoundé, from where he graduated with a Diploma in Journalism in 1985. Later, this son of Jean SEMBONG and Marcelline MBOUNG, in 1993, obtained another Diploma in journalism, this time around, specialising as Political Analyst, from the Higher School of Information Science and Techniques (ESSTIC). This solid training has been supplemented by several internships and post-graduate courses in Germany, Canada, the United States and France.

Professionally, this worthy son of the East Region began his career in 1985 at the Television Unit which a few months later became Cameroon Television (CTV). He served as Deputy Service Head of Provincial Programmes, Deputy Service Head of Documentation, Service Head of magazines and Service Head of the Special Reporting Brigade.

In 1997, he was promoted to the rank of Senior Reporter with rank and prerogatives of deputy director of the central administration. In 2000, he attained the prestigious rank of editorialist, and was appointed Head of the Presidential Coverage Unit at the Special Reporting Brigade, then Head of the Special Reporting Division (Director) in 2005.

His humility, devotion and loyalty to the President of the Republic, earned him the appointment on 6 March 2006, as Technical Adviser/ Head of the Communication Unit at the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency of the Republic. Then on 4 April 2007, he was promoted at the prestigious post of Deputy Director of the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency of the Republic; a position that he occupied until his entry into Government on 2 March 2018, as Minister of the Public Service and Administrative Reform.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Cameroon News and Publishing Corporation (SOPECAM), and alternate member of the Central Committee of the CPDM, the current MINFOPRA is Grand Officer of National Order of Valor (Cameroon) and Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Minister Joseph LE is married with four children.

Co-author of the National Digital Plan “Horizon 2025” of the DRC.

Mr. Syed Aminul Haque is a well-known politician of Pakistan. He served twice in National Assembly before winning the General Elections of 2018. He is part of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Party and a member of Rabta Committee MQM Pakistan. Mr. Syed Aminul Haque assumed charge of Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication on 22nd April 2020. He has been proactively developing the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) sector since joining this portfolio.

Mr. Syed Aminul Haque has brought Youth, Innovators, Industry and the relevant government entities for Ease of Doing Business through his wisdom and addressing issues and opportunities relating to ICT sector in Pakistan.

In enactment of the Prime Minister of Pakistan’s vision of “Digital Pakistan”, the Federal Minister has initiated developing projects proliferating growth of ICT sector and to improve bilateral relations with countries around the globe to expedite the realization of potential opportunities in hand.

Mr. Syed Aminul Haque has ensured efficient utilization of emerging technologies and creating a collaborative and research oriented environment with relevant stakeholders nationally and internationally, bringing the government one step closer to the sector and people adding to national socio-economic growth.

Mohamed Benomar is the Country General Manager of MENA West at Mastercard. Mohamed is responsible for overseeing Mastercard’s operations and managing a team that concentrates on marketing, commerce development, sales and operational activities for Mastercard in North, West and French Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mohamed joined MasterCard in 2006, prior to which he held positions in sales at Hightech Payment Systems, Meditel and Wincor Nixdorf. With more than 15 years of card industry experience, Mohamed has extensive knowledge of transaction processing, card industry regulations and compliance, project management, sales and business development.

Mohamed holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University in California, USA.

Backed by European Commission to advise on policies and programs in support of SMEs in Italy

Hicham El Habti is the President of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. With a combination of both corporate as well as education management and administration skills and leadership capabilities, he continues fostering organizational Development, leading formulation and implementation of the university’s strategic vision and transformation aspirations, promoting the implementation of effective procedures and institutional reforms and building impactful collaborations and linkages at the local and international levels.  

Hicham El Habti has extensive education, experience and background in Applied Mathematics and Economics, Hicham El Habti also holds an engineering degree from l’Ecole Normale des Pont et Chaussee, Paris in Economics, Management and Finance.  

He joined OCP in January 2013 where he has served in various positions before being appointed deputy general secretary. Prior to joining OCP he has undertaken several strategic and managerial positions including piloting strategic and operational projects, Financial Risk Management, managing investments and providing consultancy services and guidance to leading companies in Morocco and France.

Mr. Mohamed Benali, who holds an engineering degree from ENST, embarked on his professional journey in 1994 at SFR, where he started as a Team Manager. Over time, he progressed through various roles, including IP & Infrastructure Engineering Director, VAS Director, and Internet & Service Development Director. In 2011, he joined “Méditel” then, Orange now, as Web Director and afterwards broadened his responsibilities by overseeing New Services. In 2015, he assumed the position of Services and Information Systems Director. Finally, in December 2020, he took on the role of Chief Technology and Information Officer.

Fadwa Jouali, is a Head of Fintech and Payment Development Service within the department in charge of monitoring systems and means of payment and financial inclusion at Bank Al Maghrib .

She’s Ph.D. in Applied Economics and a graduate of Néoma Business School-France and ISCAE-Morocco, has more than 13 years of experience in the financial services and payments market.

She joined Bank Al Maghrib in early 2014 where she participate to the implementation of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy, the National Mobile Payment Solution and the development of its regulatory framework, the implementation of circulars and application texts related to payment institutions, contribution to studies and analysis of payment institution licensing files submitted to the Bank, as well as contribution to the operationalization of payment systems and their interoperability.  

Recently, she’s in charge of the one stop shop initiative to open the payments market to fintechs and worked to support the creation of a national ecosystem conducive to the development of electronic and innovative payments

Fintech advisor to the governor of Central Bank of Ghana

Sarah LAMRANI is a Computer Science engineer who graduated from ENSIAS and began her career as a project manager in the Information Systems Department of TMSA. She later joined the Ministry of Industry, Trade, Investment, and the Digital Economy, where she played a key role in the implementation of the Moroccan digital strategy "Maroc Numeric 2013" and the e-Government program. In 2015, Sarah assumed leadership positions as the Information Systems Director and Director of Studies, Communication, and Cooperation at the Ministry of Administration Reform. Since February 2023, she has been serving as the General Secretary of the Ministry of Digital Transition and Administration Reform.

Unicorn 2022 in gaming, launched brand partnerships in metaverse with Gordon Ramsay and other celebrities

Primarily responsible for Presight operations, Dr. Adel brings over 25 years of experience to Presight. His expertise and in-depth knowledge of AML, auditing, and anti-corruption are concentrated on developing and delivering technology-driven financial AI products and solutions, offering exceptional customer service.

Dr. Adel has previously worked in civil services and has a doctorate in business administration. He is passionate about using financial technology to create safer societies.

Vice Mayor of Senegal's largest city

Charlly, Joined Huawei in 2010 and has served as Marketing Director of Huawei Middle East EBG, Solution Director of Huawei Kuwait Representative Office,  General Manager of Huawei Gulf North Representative Office （Kuwait，Qatar ，Bahrain）and now he is VP of Huawei Northern Africa EBG. Expertise in Leading ICT technologies，Digital transformation of National and Vertical industry, he has worked more than 10+ with many project practices and rich experience in Huawei.

Chief Cybersecurity Officer at Huawei Morocco Youssef AIT KADDOUR is Huawei Morocco Office chief Cybersecurity Officer (CSO). He is specialized in cybersecurity Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Governance and resilience and risks management, with a strong experience in telecommunications and ICT industry.

Youssef obtained an engineering degree in Telecommunications from INPT (Institut National des postes et télécommunications) and an Executive MBA in International Business development from Toulouse Business School. He joined Huawei Technologies Morocco in 2008 and he began his career as a Transmission and Datacom engineer. He had been appointed to manage many strategic projects in the telecommunications and ICT Domains, and has been nominated on 2019 as Delivery and service Director of the Account of a Key telecoms’ operator in Morocco. From 2021, he is occupying the position of Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection Director.  

Hong-Eng has 30 years of government operations and ICT knowledge and experience, including the years with the Singapore Police and subsequently driving the Singapore national e-Government program. Before joining Huawei to lead the Global Government Industry Expert Office, he spent 16 years in Oracle holding various government business lead roles, including the global lead for public safety.

A globally recognized industry expert, he was voted by the US based Security.World as the world’s top 12 market influencers in security. He was a visiting researcher at the China Public Security University, and currently serving on the expert panel of the Geneva based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Over the years, he developed various government digital transformation concepts and architectures, such as collaborative e-Government in the age of the sharing economy, Social-Enabled Policing, and Collaborative Public Safety.

Profile of Aristotle Onumo PhD Aristotle Onumo is an experienced Information Systems Security professional with expertise in Strategy Formulation, Policy analysis and Planning, Information systems security Management, Project Management, Business analysis and ideation.

He holds a PhD in Computer Science (Behavioural Cybersecurity) and has achieved the status of Associate Fellow of Higher Education Academy in UK Standard Education Framework in addition to ISO certifications on Information Security Management System (ISO/ISMS 27001 Lead Implementer and ISO/ISMS 27001 Lead Auditor including Balance Score Card Professional.

Aristotle has about 20 years’ experience in the public sector, which was devoted to the deployment and management of public sector information technology infrastructure, digital service entrepreneurship, Information Security Management, strategy formulation and policy development. Among the high points in his career especially in the field of digital service entrepreneurship was the establishment of the first Government led technology incubation hub for tech start-ups and entrepreneurs.

He also co-initiated the Graduate Internship Scheme for Information Technology with the objective to create a platform for young IT graduate acquire practical digital skills that will enable them to become successful digital entrepreneurs.A

ristotle is currently playing a leading role in the digital transformation process as the Acting Director Corporate Planning and Strategy at National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) where he is presently leading a strategy implementation team for Organisational cultural reorientation toward a sustainable digital economy. His present role is critical to elevating digital innovation and platform entrepreneurship as a potent tool for wealth distribution and poverty alleviation.

He has his research interest in the field of Organisational Culture and Information Security where he has also published several papers indexing Behavioural Information Security in reputable international journal.

For over 25 years, Dr. Petersen as been a cooperation and leadership leader with credited work in research, advocacy, programme implementation and senior management in public and private sector organisations.

Dr. Petersen holds a master degree in Agricultural Science and a Phd in Environmental Economics.

He held several senior leadership positions as head of Climate program in GIZ HQ, Germany from 2006 to 2011, Country Director in GIZ Mozambique from 2011 to 2014, Director of Water, Energy and Transport Division in GIZ HQ from 2014 to 2018. Since 2018, he is the Country Director at GIZ Morocco.

Holds a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Studies from the Hebrew University. A farmer’s son, born and raised in a kibbutz in the south arid parts of Israel he has a background farming in the extreme conditions of the Arava desert. Prior to taking a position with Netafim he spent a year in Brazil managing nurseries for Del Monte and six years as Agronomist for one of Israel’s leading food companies. In his first six years at Netafim he was part of the operation division taking part of the establishment of a global procurement unit. Eight years ago, he took the position of Asia-Pacific chief agronomist supporting Netafim local teams and clients in its fastest growing division. In the last two years Ram is managing Netafim's global Agronomy department. 

Dr. Ebtesam Almazrouei is the Director and Co-Founder of the Al-Cross Center Unit at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII). Her work focuses on delivering AI and advanced tech solutions across multiple industries from healthcare, telecommunication, education, energy, security, etc.     

Dr. Ebtesam Almazrouei plays a pivotal role to build LLMs and step up the UAE’s capability in this space, led the team behind building Falcon LLM which significantly outperform models like BLOOM and GPT-3. Additionally, she led the development of Noor, the world’s largest Arabic large language model (LLM) model to date (like ChatGPT model but using Arabic content.    She leads the big data working group in the expert subcommittee of the UAE Council for AI and Blockchain and is a member of the worldwide steering board of the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF). She has extensive experience in professional activities, including being the general chair of Abu Dhabi AI Connect and TPC chair of many IEEE international conferences.    Dr. Ebtesam plays an instrumental role in leading her team to achieve multiple global awards and reinforcing U.A.E.’s contributions in Advanced technologies. Dr. Almazrouei is known for her contributions in building the knowledge economy across academia, and the public and private sectors with a focus on high-impact projects for UAE and customers.    

Dr. Ebtesam is the first Emirati woman to hold a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence for wireless communication engineering and computer science.   

Dr. Ebtesam is a scientific author, patent inventor, entrepreneur, and public speaker, known for her keynote speeches at prestigious summits such as the AI Summit in London, World AI Cannes Festival, AI Everything Summit, Global GITEX, IEEE conferences, AI for Good, and Tech summits. She obtained her Ph.D. and MSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Khalifa University of Science and Technology and earned a BSc in Communication and Electrical Engineering from the United Arab Emirates University. 

Dr. James Grieve is Director of Quantum Communications at the Quantum Research Center at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a cutting-edge UAE-based research center. In this capacity, he works on building and testing quantum networking technologies, with applications in ultra-secure communications.   Prior to joining TII, Dr. Grieve worked at the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT), a Research Centre of Excellence (RCE) in Singapore, where he led a team developing integrated quantum photonic devices. His research interests include single photon techniques, quantum technologies, nonlinear optics and nanophotonics, and quantum networks. He completed his Ph.D. in 2012 at the University of Bristol (UK).

Pr. Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni est titulaire d’un doctorat en informatique de l’Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6) et d’une Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches (HDR) dans le domaine de l’Intelligence Artificielle (Sorbonne Paris Nord).

Experte mondiale de l’Intelligence Artificielle Distribuée et des Systèmes Multi-Agents, elle est reconnue internationalement pour ses travaux dans ce domaine, et a été élue General Chair de la meilleure conférence internationale du domaine (AAMAS 2020, Auckland – Nouvelle Zélande). Elle a été à l’initiative de nombreux projets de recherche et d’événements scientifiques dans ce domaine et a développé des collaborations internationales très soutenues avec le NII à Tokyo au Japon, le LANIA et l’Université de Veracruz au Mexique, PUC RIO et l’Université de São Paulo au Brésil, l’Université Politehnica à Bucarest en Roumanie, et plusieurs autres universités et laboratoires en Europe (l’Italie, Allemagne, Pays Bas, etc.). Ses collaborations industrielles sont très soutenues et elle est Experte à Thales Systèmes Aéroportés depuis 2000.

Membre de trois écoles doctorales, elle a dirigé 34 Doctorats d’Universités soutenues avec succès à l’Université Paris Dauphine, à Sorbonne Université et à Sorbonne Paris Nord. Elle a publié 17 ouvrages incluant des actes de conférences internationales, plus de 200 articles dans les conférences majeures d’IA et des SMA, ainsi que de nombreux chapitres de livres et des articles de journaux internationaux.

Au sein du LIP6 – UMR CNRS 7606, elle a fondé l’équipe SMA et l’a dirigée de 2006 à 2021. Elle a co-animé l’axe de recherche Intelligence Artificielle et Sciences des Données depuis sa création au LIP6 jusqu’à fin 2021. Cet axe fédère toujours 14 équipes de recherches et plus de 120 permanents.

Elle assume par ailleurs de nombreuses responsabilités scientifiques comme la présidence de comités de programmes, l’évaluation de projets internationaux  et la coordination d’études prospectives pour des organismes prestigieux ; elle siège à de nombreux conseils internationaux comme le conseil des directeurs IFAAMAS board ; elle a été éditrice associée de la prestigieuse revue IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, TAI , etc.

Enfin, elle est passionnée par les sujets de société relatifs aux problèmes d’éthique, du genre, de l’inclusion et de la justice sociale et été nominée pour les Berkeley World Business Analytics Awards, dans la catégorie "Femme de l'année".

Natalya Makarochkina is Senior Vice President (SVP) of the Secure Power Division at Schneider Electric, leading more than 1000 seasoned professionals in delivering innovative solutions to empower channel partners and support customers with successful digital transformation projects and achieving sustainability goals.

Schneider Electric Secure Power Division provides complete physical infrastructure solutions for data centers, distributed IT environments, and industrial applications. As SVP, Natalya is responsible for business success within multiple geographies - Asia Pacific, India, Middle East, Africa and South America.

Natalya is a passionate and charismatic executive with strong expertise within the IT and Energy Management industries. Her previous leadership roles include senior management and sales positions within major international technology companies including HPE, Philips, Oracle, 3COM and others. She holds an Executive MBA from the University of Antwerp, and Masters degree from the Higher School of Economics.

Natalya is a confident, credible and knowledgeable speaker, able to address a broad range of topics from the digitalisation of sectors to emerging technologies such as edge computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the decarbonisation of data centers and IT services.

Her international experience together with her time invested face-to-face with customers and end-users in some of the fastest growing global economies, means she can speak insightfully and at first hand to the challenges and successes of delivering world-class digital infrastructure to meet the needs for speed, efficiency and sustainability in the current age.

Laurent Roussel is President of the Francophone Africa & Islands at Schneider Electric, leading more than 500 professionals in delivering Schneider Electric solutions for energy management and next generation automation in support of customers with successful digital transformation projects and achieving sustainability goals. Schneider Electric is present in the region for more than 50 years and provides a comprehensive portfolio of solutions for Data Centers, Buildings, Infrastructure and Industries. With 11 offices around the cluster covering 65 countries, 1 plant, 2 distribution centers and more than 300 partners, Laurent leads the deployment of innovative solutions aimed at accompanying the regions key challenges around electrification, cloudification and industrialization.

Laurent Roussel has spent part of his career in the consumer electronics retail business and has evolved for 15 years in Japanese tech companies: 5 years at Pioneer and 10 years at Panasonic. He joined the latter in 2003 as Sales Director then Division Director in 2006. Appointed CEO of Panasonic France in 2009, he defined a new marketing and commercial policy for the french subsidiary and managed to maintain the group's leading position against stark competition. Under his leadership, turnover increased from 165M€ to 430M€, with remarkable success stories such as Lumix, launched from scratch, that became market leader in France with 35% of market share value.

In 2013 he joined Schneider Electric where he held the position of Vice President Retail and Distribution in France. He moved to Morocco in late 2019 following his appointment as President of the Francophone Africa and Islands region where he is positioning Schneider Electric as the local expert advisor, bringing services, expertise and digitization closer to customers.

He benefits from an extensive international experience with governments and public authorities, fellow business leaders as well as customer in both developed markets and developing ones. That gives him the ability to speak insightfully and at first hand to the challenges and opportunities of an ever-transforming world.

A true leader, Laurent is an expert in business development and human resources management to support the creation and execution of brand strategy, while relying on collaboration as a core value. He holds an MBA in Marketing Management from Matshushita University Osaka and in International business from ACI Negocia.

Laurent has a deep passion for generating long term and sustainable development partnerships in growing economies. An impactful communicator, he is able to address a broad range of topics from ecological and energy transition of african economies to the impact of digitization on efficiency and profitability gains.