ISIS Board Members
Chairman
Dr. Ismail Serageldin
Dr. Serageldin is the Director of the newly established Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, and chairs the Boards of Directors for each of the seven research institutes and three museums affiliated to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Previously he served as Vice President of the World Bank (1992-2000), Chairman of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR, 1994-2000), Chairman of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), a micro-finance program (1995-2000), Chairman of the Global Water Partnership (GWP, 1996-2000), and Chairman of the World Commission for Water in the 21st Century (1998-2000). Dr. Serageldin worked in a number of capacities at the World Bank (1972-2000) and has published and lectured widely. He holds a Bachelor of Science in engineering degree from Cairo University, and a Masters' degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University and has received 15 honorary doctorates. Dr. Serageldin currently serves as Distinguished Professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and as chair and member of a number of advisory committees for academic, research, scientific, and international institutions and civil-society efforts. He has written more than 50 books and monographs (edited or authored) and 200 articles, book chapters, and technical papers on various topics.
Board Members
Dr. Ahmed M. Darwish
Dr. Darwish is Minister of State for Administrative Development, and Professor of Computer Engineering at Cairo University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1988. During the last 3 years prior to becoming the Minister of State for Administrative Development he acted as the E-government Program Director at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. During the academic year 1988/89, Dr. Darwish was a lecturer and post-doctoral researcher with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at California University, Davis. He also joined Cairo University in 1989 as an assistant professor, where later he became an associate professor then a professor with the Computer Engineering Department in 1994 and 1999 respectively. During the year 1996/97; on sabbatical leave with the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Virginia Tech; Dr. Darwish cooperated on several research projects with the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group.
Dr. Darwish was a consultant to a number of international organizations (UNESCO, FAO, ESCWA, European Union and World Bank), government organizations and companies both in the United States and Egypt. He led the team to prepare the National Project Document on e-government and coordinate the implementation efforts.
Dr. Darwish received the Egyptian National Engineering Award for the year 1999. As being a member of few scientific and professional societies and a reviewer for a number of publications, he shared in the design and development of two wireless simulation tools. Dr. Darwish has over 56 publications in journals and scientific conferences, co-authored in 2 books, contributed to talks and several sponsored research programs.
Dr. Fathi Saleh
Dr. Saleh is a Professor of Computer Engineering at Cairo University and is the Director of the Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CultNat), which is part of Bibliotheca Alexandrina with the support of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. He is also a Member of the Supreme Council of Culture. From 1995 to 1997 he occupied the position of Cultural Councilor at the Embassy of Egypt in Paris, and from 1997-1999, he was the Ambassador of Egypt to the UNESCO. Dr Saleh graduated from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University and obtained his Ph.D, Diplôme d’Études Approfondies and Certificat d’Études Supérieures from the University of Paris, France. His main interest is applying new technologies in the different fields of Cultural and Natural Heritage.
Dr. Mohamed A. Ismail
Dr. Mohamed Ismail is Professor of Computer Science & Engineering and former Dean of Engineering, University of Alexandria, Egypt. He obtained his B.Sc. with Honors and M.Sc. both from Alexandria University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
Areas of expertise include Intelligent Systems, Computer Vision, Data Engineering (structures, exploration & mining) and Medical Computer Science and Applications.
He published more than 70 scientific research papers in refereed specialized journals and conferences in his areas of research. Moreover, he supervised/co-supervised more than 50 Ph.D. and M.Sc. theses in the areas of Computer Science and Engineering, Information Technology and their Applications in Medicine and Dentistry. He is also a referee to several scientific journals and establishments.
Dr. Ismail held teaching and research positions at the University of Waterloo and the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada; the University of Michigan, USA; the UPM, Dhahran, KSA; and the University of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt. He is also a consultant to several firms in Canada, USA and Egypt.
Dr. Hisham El-Sherif
Dr. Hisham El Sherif received his Ph.D. from MIT in Business and Engineering. He is currently the Chairman of IT Investments; holding direct investment company with subsidiaries in networking and telecommunications, software development, IT system integration, media and e-business. His position as a Founder and Chairman of Nile Online, had a major role in driving the building of the Internet backbone in Egypt. Dr. El Sherif was also a Co-founder and Chair of the Advisory Board, for 14 years (1985-1999), of the Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre. Under his leadership, IDSC was selected as one of the top 100 IT organizations in the world.
Dr. El Sherif is a creative builder of institutions and organizations, among them RITSEC, a regionally recognized leader in software engineering, multimedia, education, training, culture-ware and the information highway.
Extending his message beyond national boundaries, Dr. El Sherif is a commissioner of the Washington-based Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC). He actively served and contributed to the global development agenda jointly with the World Bank (Info Dev), UNDP, WIPO, WTO, ITC, UNCTAD, ILO, etc.. In addition, he has initiated and helped implementing more than 700 programs and projects in Egypt, the Middle East, the US and Europe.
Dr. El Sherif has been appointed as the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the renowned Egyptian Museum, Chairman of the Egypt Internet Society, member of Council of the Motherhood and Childhood and Chair of Children with Special Needs Initiative. Also a member of the Opera Fund, Egypt Culture Fund, the National Board of Archaeology, as well as the board of the Future Generation Foundation (FGF). Moreover, he served as a member of the US-Egypt President's Council until 2002 and has been a professor at the American University in Cairo since 1983.
Globally recognized for his achievements, Dr. El Sherif has received several outstanding awards, among them the World First Prize in Information Systems from SIM in 1998, the Franz Edelman award for Management Achievements and its Application in 1989 and the IFORS Operation Research Third World Prize Award in 1987. In addition, Dr. El Sherif was awarded the First Order Medal of Merit by the president of Tunis in 2004; the President of France awarded him the French Knighthood in 1991.
Closer to home, H.E. the President of Egypt awarded Dr. El Sherif the First Order Medal of Science and Arts in 1999.
Head of the ICT Sector
Dr. Magdy H. Nagi
Dr. Nagi is a Professor in the Computer Science department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Karlsruhe, in 1974, where he served as Lecturer for two years and as a Consultant to its Computer Center from 1974-1990. During this period he also served as Consultant to many companies in Germany such as Dr. Otker, Bayer, SYDAT AG, and BEC.
On the national level he was a Consultant to many projects under the umbrella of either the University of Alexandria or the Faculty of Engineering for designing and/or implementing automation projects for governmental authorities or public sector companies, such as the Ministry of Interior, the Health Insurance Organization (HIO), the Social Insurance Organization (SIO), and the Customs Authorities.
Since 1995, Dr. Nagi has served as Consultant to Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Among his activities are the design and installation of Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s network and its information system as well as the design and implementation of the library information system, namely a trilingual information system that offers full library automation. He is currently serving as the Head of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Sector and the Director of the International School for Information Science (ISIS) at Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Dr. Nagi is a member of the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society as well as several other scientific organizations. His main research interests are in operating systems and database systems. He is author/co-author of more than 80 papers.
Deputy Head of the ICT Sector
Dr. Noha Adly
Dr. Adly is a Professor in the Computer and System Engineering department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Cambridge University, UK in 1995. She was a Research Associate at AT&T Cambridge Research Laboratory (1995-1997) and a Visiting Researcher (1997-2000).
Dr. Adly has served as Consultant for Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) for the design and installation of its network and its information system. She is currently the Deputy Head of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Sector and the Director of the International School of Information Science (ISIS) research center of BA.
Dr. Adly is a member of ACM and the IEEE Computer Society as well as several other scientific organizations. Dr. Adly is also author/co-author of more than 42 publications in peer reviewed journals and scientific conferences in the field of computer science and engineering.