Board of Directors

Executive members

Peter A. Bruck
Chairman, World Summit Award
General Manager, Research Studios Austria — Austrian Research Centers
AUSTRIA

Prof DDr Peter A Bruck studied law, economics, sociology and communications at the universities of Vienna, Iowa and McGill. He holds doctorates in law and communications and has taught at universities in Canada, the US and Western Europe plus Israel and Poland. He has more than 25 years experience in research, university teaching and information technologies in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Portugal, the US and Canada. Mr Bruck received numerous awards and fellowships in Europe, the US and Canada and is listed in the Canadian and Austrian Who's Who. He founded, built and headed research institutes at three universities, and he is a senior partner of the ICRA (International Communications Research Associates) in Ottawa, Canada.

Elizabeth Quat
Founder and Immediate Past President, Internet Professional Association (iProA)
CHINA

Dr. Elisabeth Quat is Vice President of Corporate Development of SC Fulfil Ltd, a company which specialises in IT logistics. She holds a BBA, MBA and PhD degree in Management and has 15 years of experience in Asia market entry, new business & product development and M&A. Dr. Quat is an active member of many HKSAR Government Advisory Committees and community servicing organisations such as the Logistics Development Council and the Research Grants Council. She was awarded one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons and Ten Outstanding Young Digi Persons in 2001.

Ahmed Yahia
Projects Manager, Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA)
EGYPT

As the senior projects manager of ITIDA, Ahmed is innovative, results-driven with a record of accomplishment of applying leadership skills to achieve dramatic, bottom-line results. Extensive expertise in directing the delivery of enterprise-wide national projects, encompassing application development, IT infrastructure, operations and customer support. Exceptional strengths in taking control of faltering, behind schedule projects and turning them into below-budget successes. Broad background includes Private and Government organizations are necessary. Develops and executes the information technology roadmap for ITIDA. Has overall responsibility for the management of the physical and personnel infrastructure including applications, technology deployment, network and systems management, integration testing, and the development of professional staff. Additional responsibilities include overseeing the development of corporate standards, enterprise architecture, technology evaluation, and transfer, and sponsoring the business technology planning process. Also has the responsibility for managing client relations to ensure that service objectives and expectations are developed and met, and that information technologies are aligned with the business model. Works to identify information technology investments needed to enhance and attract business and technology professionals in the future.

Alexander Felsenberg
Director Tradeshows New Media, online-marketing-dьsseldorf
GERMANY

Since 1979 different Jobs in film- and video production, production management for TV, later director of Corporate Videos and TV-Commercials. Feelance writer for TV-Programm, TV-Commercial, writer or special interest magazines on media development. 1990 — director and later producer at Putz und Partner GmbH Duesseldorf; 1993 — Business Devolper and Manager of the first Multimedia Department at MEDOX Medien GmbH. 1995 — Research Scientist at germans largest media research programm conducted by the German Research Society (DFG) at the University of Siegen. Assistent Professor at the University of Siegen in the media faculty; Managing Director of the German Multimedia Association (dmmv) e.V. 1998 — Managing Director dmmv-service GmbH, since 2004 called German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW) e.V. Currently — Conference Director of the ICT Africa and the 3rd African PrepCom for the UN-WSIS.

Osama Manzar
Founder & Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation
INDIA

Osama Manzar is the founder of and Editor-in-Chief for Inomy.com, India. As an ICT expert, he is an often-quoted IT entrepreneur, editor, columnist and new media specialist. He wrote “The Internet Economy of India”, and he was awarded a Young Indian IT Professional Programme 2002 Scholarship by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to study Advanced IT Management at Manchester Business School. He is an ICT4D Advisor for the Development Gateway Foundation and is co-founder and Board Member of 4Cplus, a software company based in New Delhi.

Alfredo Ronchi
General Secretary, MEDICI Framework
ITALY

Alfredo  M. Ronchi is the General Secretary of the European Commission-MEDICI Framework, Secretary of the European Working Group on “EU Directives and Cultural Heritage” and head of the representative of OCCAM NGO at UNO International Centre in Vienna.

He is appointed by ICNM as a member of the World Summit Award Grand Jury and President of eContent Award Italy the Italian pre-selection of the World Summit Award. He is the programme Chair of the Cultural Track of the IX International World Wide Web Conference, May 2000 Amsterdam (NL), Chair of panels “On culture in a world wide information society” WWW Conferences 2001-2004 Founding Chair of the International Conference Cultural Heritage Networks Hypermedia, September 96- 06 Milan, Co-Chair of Infopoverty Conferences 2001-07 Founding Chair of the panel “Business opportunities from cultural heritage” CeBIT 98-07 Hannover (D). He was and still is coordinator / manager of several different international projects. He had active roles in events promoted by The World Bank, Council of Europe, European Commission, IEEE. Alfredo  M. Ronchi is appointed as an expert c/o , rhe Norvegian Government, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, CNR and member of the Scientific Committee c/o Infopoverty, Fondazione Italiana Nuove Comunicazioni, Global Forum, Sacred World Foundation.

He is actually member of the Italian delegation for cultural heritage in the Italy China cooperation framework (2005-2007). Mr. Ronchi is a professor at Politecnico di Milano (Engineering, Architecture & Industrial Design Faculties)

Manar Al-Hashash
General Manager, Dot Design
KUWAIT

Manar Al-Hashash is a Computer Engineer from Kuwait, holding a master degree (MBA) with focus on Management of Information Technology. Based on that academic technical background, Manar works in two parallel lines, technical and social. She is the co-founder of DotDesign, a software development company. On the other hand, she multi-tasks several activities with her main goal “Promote ICT in society”. Since 1999, Manar has been involved in media and public work in many ways to achieve that goal. She prepares and presents the weekly IT program “Compunet World” on Kuwait Satellite Channel in Arabic as well as preparing and presenting another weekly IT program on KTV2 in English called “Zero Ones”. In 2004 Ms. Al-Hashash launched and Manage a Local e-Content Annual Contest under the name of “Ghiras electro Contest” which aims at youths in Kuwait (14-22yrs) competing for Best website design, Best Presentation, Best Graphic design and Best mobile e-greeting card, all focus on local content. Manar also has rich experience in the press media publishing for IT, as she wrote a weekly IT page for the an official daily newspaper in Kuwait from 2000 till 2005, where she concluded that experience by launching the IT magazine “Dot” of which she was owner and Chief Editor. As a student Manar was awarded an IEEE for her outstanding Internet and e-Commerce projects in 2000. In addition to being a member in WSA board of directors, Manar is a member of High-Level Panel of Advisers of Gaid — United Nations.

Latif Ladid
President, IPv6 Forum
LUXEMBOURG

Chair, European IPv6 Task Force President, IPv6 Forum
Trustee, Internet Society — ISOC
Independent Consultant
Researcher on multiple European Commission Next Generation Technologies IST
Projects: 6INIT, 6WINIT, Euro6IX, Eurov6, NGNi

Project initiator of the first IPv6 Security & Privacy project called Security Expert Initiative (SEINIT) see www.seinit.org

Member of 3GPP PCG
Member of 3GPP2 PCG

Vice Chair, SuperComm EntNET 2005
Member of UN ICT Task Force Policy WG
Member of IEC Executive Committee
Member of the ITU-T Informal Forum Summit

Jak Boumans
Managing Director, Electronic Media Reporting
NETHERLANDS

Principal Consultant with Electronic Media Reporting, a consultancy specialised in content strategy. Previously Senior Consultant with the TNO Centre for Technology and Policy Studies; active in publishing since 1970, started to specialise in electronic publishing in 1980; got the first daily newsletter in Europe online for the computer industry on behalf of VNU BPL in London in 1984; initiated the first independent market research on CD-i in the Netherlands; in 1996 produced a business plan for the Dutch counterpart of the Belgian electronic clipping service Central Station on behalf of 9 Dutch newspaper publishers; author of the first Dutch language online manual, Online Handboek, and a manual on CD-ROM production; currently involved in research on publishing for mobility and electronic books; Editor-in-Chief of the Dutch trade newsletter Telecombrief; board member of the Dutch Multimedia Branch Organisation (MMBOI), member of the Editorial Board of the magazine Interactive Media International. Jury Member of the EUROPRIX (1998, 99, 00), the Dutch Z Awards (2000) and the EPPY Awards (1999 — 2001); Secretary of the European Academy of Digital Media since 2001.

Anya Sverdlov
Managing Director, Actis Systems
RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Anya Sverdlov is the Managing Director of Actis Systems, Russia's premier web design and development company, with over 650 projects completed in 26 countries worldwide. More than 30 projects created by Actis Systems under her guidance have been awarded top prizes by a number of international advertising and web design festivals and contests. Prior to joining the Actis Systems team, Ms. Sverdlov's professional experience included three years on Wall Street at Kemper Securities, Inc. and more than three years in strategy management consulting with A. T. Kearney (working in the US, Russia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Denmark), where she managed large projects in the financial services and consumer goods sectors. Ms. Sverdlov holds a BA degree in Economics and Political Science (magna cum laude) from Yale University and an MBA degree in Finance and Multinational Management (with Distinction) from Wharton Business School.

Christine Maxwell
Senior Partner, Institute of Scientific Simulation & Trustee Emeritus, Internet Society
USA / FRENCH REPUBLIC

Christine Maxwell is a 35 year veteran of the publishing, research, and online information retrieval industries. She founded two successful search engine companies: Magellan (one of the first successful Internet Directories in the early 90's) and Chiliad, a software company involved in on-demand, intelligent mining of unstructured data through the use of natural language search technologies.

Christine is a former trustee of the Internet Society and The Santa Fe Institute. She serves on the Advisory Board of Leonardo, working to encourage and document the collaboration of artists and scientists in the application of contemporary science and technology to the arts.

Non-Executive members

H. E. Ali Mammad oglu Abbasov
Minister of Communication and Information Technologies
AZERBAIJAN

H.E. YB Dato’ Sri Dr Jamaludin Jarjis
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation
MALAYSIA

H.E. Adama Samassekou
President of the African Academy of Languages
President of WSIS Preparatory Committee for Geneva Phase
Former Minister of Education of Mali (1993-2000)
MALI

Mr. Ramon Garza
President & CEO, indigomedia
MEXICO

Mr. Vinton  G. Cerf
Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist
Google Inc.
USA

Ms. Lynn St. Amour
President/CEO, Internet Society (ISOC)
USA/SWITZERLAND