Speakers:

Mr. Rich Fuchs
Co-Founder & CEO of Futureworks Consulting Inc.
Vice-Chair of the Telecentre.org Foundation

Mr. Rich is a Regional Director of, Southeast and East Asia (Singapore Office), International Development Research Centre (IDRC). He has led many new development start-ups.

His 10 years at IDRC saw him lead the establishment of many major ICT4D, not-for-profit, start-ups valued at over $100 million in new external resources. Some of the start-ups include:

• The creation of the Enterprise Network, North America first system of rural Telecentre and online services (1988)
• The Institute for Connectivity in the Americas (2001)
• Connectivity Africa and (2002)
• Telecentre Foundation (2005)

Mr. Rich is the also the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Telecentre Leader’s Forum in Santiago, Chile, 2011.

Ms. Seema Al Kabi
Team Leader - Community IT Training

Seema is one of the leading women in the field of IT capacity building in the Sultanate of Oman. Over the last 11 years, Seema has worked in various capacities in the field of IT in public and
private sectors. She has had the opportunity to develop a very unique expertise, knowledge and a wide ranging creativity.

Currently, she is working as a team leader managing and spearheading the Community IT Training (CITT) Program, among other organization-wide initiatives. Working towards empowering Omani women in particular and society in general, Seema is contributing towards improving digital literacy and enhanced the development of the community in order to bridge the digital divide, making sure that citizens are equipped with the necessary digital literacy skills.

 Recognized for her efforts in community development, she has been the recipient of two major awards: “the Most Outstanding Telecentre Women Manager in2011” & “Al Mar’a Excellence Awards in 2011”.

Mr. Miguel Raimilla
Executive Director of the Telecentre.org Foundation

Miguel Raimilla is the Executive Director of the Telecentre.org Foundation. He is also a social entrepreneur, and founder of several international and multicultural initiatives linked with youth, social development, and social enterprises throughout Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the United States – all of which encompass different local expressions of ICT4D worldwide.

Mr. Raimilla brings to the Telecentre.org Foundation more than 18 years of international experience developing non-profit organizations and private companies in the field of ICT4D and telecentres. He has promoted the concept of telecentres in places (and with people and organizations) where it had never been heard of before.

Creating, running, and managing telecentre units in several countries, Mr. Raimilla has established a unique perspective of the realities, challenges, and opportunities that telecentres experience on a daily basis, during which he has developed local teams, and training content and methodologies, while collaborating with non-profit and governmental programs in many countries.

Mr. Karim Ahmed Kasim
ICT Trust for Development Director of TCF in MENA Region

Mr. Karim is currently working as a Development Practitioner in the field of ICT4D. He is also an expert in Telecentres and is a Regional Coordinator for the Telecentre.org Foundation, Middle East and North Africa. He is also a researcher in Political Sciences and Development for which he received his MA this year.

Mr. Karim is the co-founder of “Mesaha” (The Space) Foundation, which aims at providing a space for young people to innovate their own youth, community development projects and initiatives. He has worked on issues related to Human Development, ICT for Development (ICT4D). Moreover, he is an advocate, trainer/facilitator and speaker who actively promotes democracy, volunteerism, youth empowerment, human rights, youth participation, social entrepreneurship, improving access to information and knowledge using ICT, and the empowerment of underprivileged communities, especially shanty towns.

Mr. Ahmed Eisa
Chairman of Gedaref Digital City Organization (GDCO), Sudan
Mr. Ahmed Eisa is the Chairman of Gedaref Digital City Organization in Sudan and a member of the Steering Committee of UN-ESCWA. He is the founder of the first Telecentre Academy in Africa and the Middle East, and a strategic partner for iwrite4WSIS.
Previously, Mr. Ahmed was a Parliament member from 1986 to 1989, a State Minister of Agriculture in Sudan in 1988, and a former council member of the farmers, commercial and agriculture bank. He holds a Bachelor in Agriculture from Khartoum University and an MSc in Agriculture from Manhattan Kansas, USA.


Mr. Satyan Mishra
Managing Director & Co-Founder of Drishtee

Mr. Satyan is the founder of Drishtee, which is a social enterprise working to create sustainable communities or model villages. His enterprise operates in more than 10 states of India where the focus is on improving community's access to services and products, through a large number of, local micro-entrepreneurs, serviced by Drishtee at the back-end.

Mr. Satyan holds an MBA in International Business from the Delhi School of Economics, has 11 years of entrepreneurial experience and has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as Technology Pioneer.


Ms. Maria Teresa M. Camba
Director, Operations, telecentre.org Foundation
Maria Teresa M. Camba is the Director for Operations of the telecentre.org Foundation. She also leads the global Telecentre Women’s Digital Literacy Campaign, a joint initiative of the Foundation and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Ms. Camba has played a major role in the organization of the Philippine Community eCenter Network and in the development, management and implementation of the Philippine CeC Program. She also led the Philippine team in the successful transition of telecentre.org to its current host country, the Philippines.

Previously, Ms. Camba served as Director for Field Operations of the National Computer Center prior to joining Telecentre.org. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration.


Mr. Georges Younes
ICT Division in UN-ESCWA, Lebanon

Mr. Georges Younes is currently working with UN-ESCWA as a First ICT Officer. In this position he’s involved in a variety of projects covering, among others, knowledge networks, digital Arabic content, cyber legislation and the formulation of ICT policies and strategies.

Georges started his career at the United Nations in New York in 1987, where he worked as a “systems integrator” for the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund. Before joining UN-ESCWA in 2006, Georges worked as an ICT Project Manager with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)/The Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR), conceiving and implementing ICT projects in more than sixty public administration entities.

In his spare time, Georges teaches graduate courses, which are based on his project management experience, at the “Institut de gestion des enterprises”, St-Joseph University.


Mr. Nabil Eid
Executive Secretary of Knowledge Hubs for Disadvantaged Communities in UN-ESCWA Region.
Community Learning Coordinator at Telecentre.org Foundation in MENA Region

Mr. Nabil is working in the Salamieh Telecentre, Rural Knowledge Networking, and is a Regional Community Coordinator (RCC), Middle East and North Africa Network at the Telecentre.org Foundation. He is the founder and chairman of the Studies Centre for Handicapped Research organization (SCHR), which assists people with special needs to use ICT.

Mr. Nabil gained his Master in engineering from University of Aleppo, Syria. He has also completed in-depth studies in ICT for people with special needs, besides writing many books & articles in the Telecentre Magazine, newsletters and programs in ICT development for people with special needs in disadvantaged communities.


Dr. Mohamed Jemni
General Director of the Computing Center El Khawarizmi

Professor of ICT and Educational Technologies, University of Tunis, Tunisia.

Dr. Jemni is currently the Head of the Laboratory Research of Technologies of Information and Communication (UTIC) of the University of Tunis. Since August 2008, he has been the General Chair of the Computing Center, El Khawarizmi, which is the Internet services’ provider for Higher Education and Scientific Research Sector in Tunisia.

Before being the president of the Tunisian Association of e-accessibility, Dr. Jemni launched many initiatives to promote ICT accessibility in the Arab region, such as the project of WCAG2.0 translation to Arabic and the 2009 initiative for using ICT to develop Arab Sign language.

Dr. Jemni is currently conducting many projects in his laboratory which includes development of an e-learning environment for students with disabilities and improving accessibility of deaf community by the use of ICT and sign language.


Ms. Susan Carroll Schorr
Head of Special Initiatives Division
International telecommunication union (ITU)

Ms. Schorr joined the ITU in March 2000, working with ITU Member States through 2008 to promote effective ICT regulation. In early 2009, Ms. Schorr joined the ITU Telecommunications Development Bureau (BDT) Special Initiatives Division (SIS), promoting the digital inclusion of people with special needs, including indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, women and girls and youth and children.

Ms. Schorr recently led the 2012 international Girls Day in ICT celebrations, which saw over 30,000 girls, empowered in events in nearly 90 countries. In addition, she has contributed to the development of the joint ITU-G3ict e-Accessibility Toolkit, promoting the ICT accessibility agenda of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Prior to her work with the ITU, Ms. Schorr practiced antitrust law as an associate in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Howrey & Simon, LLP. She graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1987 cum laude and is a member of the California and D.C. bars.