Time

Sunday, October 10

Time

Monday, October 11

08:30 - 09:30

pre - MENA ICT Forum

08:30 - 09:00

Morning Coffee

09:30 - 10:15

Opening Session

09:00 - 10:15

The Chattering Classes; Turning Social Media into Money

Panel Speakers: Mr. Alex McNabb, Group Director, Spot On Public Relations; Mr. Majied Qasem, CEO, d1g.com; Mr. Mo Al Adham, Founder, Twitvid; Mr. Mostafa Kamel Attia, Chairman, Link Dot Net; Ms. Maria Mahdaly, Online Activist, KSA; Ms. Nadine Toukan, Activist; and Mr. Yousef Mansour, Activist and CEO, EnConsult.

10:15 - 11:15

MNCs in the Region; Sharing Experiences

10:15 - 11:30

Outsourcing: Opportunity or Burden?

11:30 - 12:00

Celebrating 10-10-10

11:30 - 12:00

Coffee Break

12:30 - 13:30

MENA Ecosystem, Entrepreneurship & Start-ups

12:00 - 13:15

On the Boil - Hot Future Trends in Technology

Panel Speakers: Mr. Ari Kesisoglu, Regional Manager MENA, Google; Mr. Terence P. McElwee, Director of Technology Transfer & Innovation, KAUST; Mr. Haitham Abul-Haija, Client Chipset Group, Intel; Mr. Mohammed A. Saleh, Health Market Development Director within Worldwide Public Sector Team, Microsoft; Mr. Imad Malhas, CEO, IrisGuard; and Mr. Lucio Rispo, Strategic Research Director, Qatar Science & Technology Park.

13:30 - 14:30

Lunch Break

13:15 - 14:15

Lunch Break

14:30 - 15:30

MENA ECO System: Education

14:15 - 15:15

On the Boil - Mobile Applications and Development

Panel Speakers: Mr. Kunal Hinduja, President, ARQ; Mr. Adnan Abu-Dayya, Executive Director, QU Wireless Innovations Center; Mr. Fadi Antaki, CEO, Arpu; and Yaseen Hamad; Symbian Association.

15:30 - 16:00

Coffee Break

15:15 - 16:15

Addressing the Arabic Content Crisis

16:00 - 18:00

Reality and the Cloud Computing Part I and II

Panel Speakers: Dr. Werner Vogels, CTO- Amazon; Mr. Walid Abu-Hadba, CVP of Developer & Platform- Microsoft; Mr. Robert Fogel, World Ahead Principal Architect- Intel; Mr. Sachin Duggal, CEO- Nivio; Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, CEO- Zensar; Mr. Anthony Vonsee, Managing Director- Cisco; Mr. Darshan Chandarana, Director- EMEA Cloud Group, Oracle; Mr. Mike Baldock, Executive IT Consultant- IBM Middle East; and Mr. Osama Ghoul, Founder and Managing Partner- Devoteam Middle East.

16:45 - 17:30

e-Government in the Arab World; Myth Vs. Reality

Panel Speakers: high-level decision makers of regional governments, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, and the UAE

17:30 - 18:15

Closing Session

19:00 - 19:30

Guided tour in King Hussein Business Park

20:00 - 21:00+

Dinner

Opening Session

• Welcomes attendees and sets the tone of the entire event
• Features the forum’s key note speaker and HM King Abdullah II
• Positions int@j as the owner of this bi-annual event

Plenary Session
This session serves the roles of the forum's executive summary. Each session chair-person will deliver a short presentation about the topics that will be discussed in his/her session, and mention the names, titles,
and companies of the most prominent speakers.

MENA – The New Online Boom
This session aims at reflecting the MENA region's key economic indicators and high growth rates to demonstrate the region's significance and excellent business opportunities.

• Numbers and statistics, growth rates
• Users and penetration rates
• Support of governments, advancement programs
• Support of governments, incentives
• Legislative environments
• Entrepreneurship

Projects in the Works
This session will discuss existing investments and ventures (beside those that will be implemented in the very near future).

• CISCO’s investment in Jordan
• Weight-watcher’s technical support center out of Jordan
• HP’s technical support center at the King Hussein Park
• HSBC’s call center in Dubai
• American Express’ call center in Bahrain

MNC’s in the Region; Sharing Experiences

Through featuring real-life cases, this session addresses current investment and business ventures that are being executed throughout the region by large multi-national corporations.

MENA ECO System

What underlying factors need to be aligned so as to anchor an efficient ICT ecosystem on a regional level? This session addresses the key pillars of a robust ICT ecosystem in the region.

Reality and the Cloud Computing

How "cloudy" is the MENA region, and what opportunities are companies missing out on? This informative session attends to the entire scope of the cloud computing spectrum in the region.

The Chattering Classes; Turning Social Media into Money

• How are social media networks affecting the region? How are they affecting freedom of speech, expression, and reach-out? How is it affecting the family, society, political thought, and more.
• What are Arabs today really doing on social media networks? To what extent are they engaged in activities that reach beyond socializing with friends and families?
• What are today’s most prominent Arab networks, and what content do they offer? What are their most critical challenges?
• Who are the most prominent bloggers? What are they saying to the public? Whom are they reaching out to? How have social media networks facilitated their out-reach activities?
• Privacy issues; do users in the region trust these portals and feel free to express their opinions?
• What legislative changes have been implemented to ensure a free online environment?

Global BPO companies are increasingly setting up regional presence but what are the outsourcing services available in the region today and is BPO an untapped regional opportunity or merely a burden the region should do without?

On the Boil - Hot Future Trends in Technology

This session elaborates on global trends and issues such as green IT and Energy/Water/Environment (EWE).

Mobile Applications & Development

This session specifically features case studies and discussions that address the opportunity of building Arabic and localized applications and tap on what needs to be done to open doors and offer these services to all MENA countries.

Addressing the Arabic Content Crisis

This interactive Arabic Content session demonstrates the existing valuable business opportunities and addresses the most pressing issues today such as the low volume, lack of variety, and quality of online Arabic content.

e-Government in the Arab World; Myth Vs. Reality

This session exploits the potential of e-Government in the Arab world and exhibits best approaches to make e-Governments in the Arab world a reality.

Closing
The objective of the closing session is to capture the most important high-lights of the previous two-days, and present them again in one memorable summary. Ideally, the session will be closed by a presentation that features an innovative technological trend that has been implemented in the region.

This event aims not only at sharing the collective knowledge and experience of global and regional experts and key industry players, but will also serve as an arena for discussions on the Industry’s current situation and the challenges it faces.  It will also provide a venue through which industry players can meet to work out productive partnerships that will lead to further growth, ensuring that the Region is in-line with strategic directions of the global ICT industry.  More importantly, the Forum will build on the already existing commitment of authorities in the Region to enable their citizens and establishments to compete in national and global markets, simply because productivity increases through better access to and use of information.