Distinguished Speakers

Dr. Ahmed Ali Abdel-Hafez Ahmed is a distinguished expert in telecommunications and cybersecurity with over 32 years of experience in the field. He holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Military Technical College (MTC) in 1990 and 1997, respectively, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa, Canada, in 2003. Dr. Ahmed is a Certified Consultant in Information Security Systems (Engineering Syndicate of Egypt, 2013) and played a pivotal role in establishing and developing the Cryptography Research Center (CRC) under the Egyptian Ministry of Defense. As Head of the Center for eight years, he led the design and development of Egypt’s National Encryption Algorithm and the production of various cryptographic systems for defense and government sectors.

Dr. George Shaker is an internationally recognized expert in wireless sensing technologies, specializing in radar-based systems for healthcare, automotive, and industrial applications. With a PhD from the University of Waterloo, and 1 year research visit to Georgia Tech (United States), along with over 200 publications and 35+ patents, George has led groundbreaking projects with leading global multinationals and fortune 500 companies. He has spearheaded innovative technologies ranging from in-cabin automotive radars to non-invasive healthcare monitoring systems using AI-powered radar sensors.

As the Director of the Wireless Sensors and Devices Laboratory at the University of Waterloo, George led multi-disciplinary teams in the development of next-generation sensors and IoT solutions. His work has earned numerous awards, including multiple IEEE Best Paper Awards, placing him at the forefront of advancements in radar and wireless sensor technologies.

Diaa Khalil has over 40 years of experience in micro photonic systems. He is Professor of photonics since 2004 in ASU where he was also the Chairman of the ECE Dept., the vice dean of research and the acting dean and supervised more than 80 MSc and PhD thesis. From 2007 to 2020, he was the CTO of the Optical MEMS Division in Si-Ware Systems Company where he is currently a chief scientist. He is also a chief scientific Officer in the startup company Infinilink. He is inventor of more than 40 patents and patent applications, author and co-author of more than 370 publications, 5 book chapters and 1 ebook. He is senior member in IEEE, OSA, SPIE, URSI, an associate editor of the journal IEEE-PTL and an editor in the ASEJ produced by Elsevier. He is also a member in the editorial board of the journal, Light: Science and Applications, produced by Nature PG, where he received the outstanding contribution award for the period 2012-2022. He is holder of the State incentive prize 1998 and State Appreciation prize in 2021 in Egypt.  

Tamer ElBatt is currently a Professor at the CSE Dept., The American University in Cairo (AUC). He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in EECE from Cairo University, Egypt in 1993 and 1996, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA in 2000. From 2000 to 2009 he was with U.S. industry R&D labs, e.g., HRL Laboratories, LLC, Malibu, CA, USA and Lockheed Martin ATC, Palo Alto, CA, USA, at various positions. From 2009 to 2017, he served at the EECE Dept., Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, as an Assistant Professor and later as an Associate and Full Professor, currently on leave. He also held a joint appointment with Nile University, Egypt from 2009 to 2017 and has served as the Director of the Wireless Intelligent Networks Center (WINC) from 2012 to 2017. In July 2017, he joined the Dept. of CSE at the American University in Cairo as an Associate Professor, where he is currently a Professor. He served as the CSE Director of the Graduate Program and later as the Associate Chair, from 2019 to 2022. Dr. ElBatt research is currently, and has been, supported by the DAAD, NTRA, ITIDA, AUC, Qatar QNRF, EU FP7, H2020, General Motors, Microsoft, Google, Vodafone Egypt Foundation and the U.S. DARPA. He has published more than 135 papers in major journals and international conferences. Dr. ElBatt holds seven issued U.S. patents and one WIPO patent.

Ahmed Madian (SM’12) is currently a Professor and Director for Electronics and Computer Engineering Program, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, NILE University, Giza, Egypt on leave from the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority. He is the former Director of Microelectronics System Design Master Program from 2015 -2020. Also, He has been the Director of Nanoelectronics Integrated System Design Research Center (NISC) since 2016 -2023. He has published more than 200 papers in international conferences and journals, with an h-index 29. Also, he served on technical and organizing committees of many international conferences. He received many research grants as Principal Investigator (PI), CO-PI, or Consultant from different national/international organizations. Also, he is a member of the National Radio of Science Committee (NRSC), ASRT since 2018-now. He is a member of the Information Technology and Communication Council, ASRT from 2021 to now. Dr. Madian is a Senior member of the IEEE. He is currently the IEEE Egypt Section chair and served as the IEEE Egypt section secretary/conference coordinator and member of the ExCom from 2020 – 2023. He served as technical program co-chair of many IEEE international conferences and as organizing committee of many IEEE events and student’s competition. He is a member of the steering committee of many IEEE conferences. He served in the higher council of Communication and Information Technology, Egyptian Academy for Science, research, and Technology (ASRT). He has been elected as a voting member of IEEE CASS Standards Activities subdivision. He organized many awareness sessions for proposal writing and fundraising for different IEEE units. He organized the Agri-hackathon as an outreach activity from IEEE CASS.

Amr Wassal earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Cairo University in 1993 and 1996 respectively, and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in 2000. He is currently a professor and department chair at the Computer Engineering Department, Cairo University. He is a veteran of the semiconductors industry with over 32 years of experience. Over the years, he has mostly focused on digital VLSI design, DSP development, embedded FW development, EDA tools, sensor fusion, and machine learning for spectroscopy. He has taped out many SoCs targeting telecom and storage applications at PMC-Sierra, MEMS inertial and spectroscopy sensors at Si-Ware Systems, wireless applications at Goodix Technology, and most recently, wireless and IoT applications at Telink Semiconductors. In a previous life, he also worked on Arabic speech recognition at IBM Technology Group and on the development of telecom device drivers at ICCC Denmark.

Prof. Hesham M. El-Badawy (IEEE S’94, M’03, SM’14) has over 31 years of professional experience in mobile telecommunications and network infrastructure, and he has held various engineering and managerial positions, contributing significantly to the advancement of wireless communication technologies. His research interests span a wide range of topics in wireless communications and emerging technologies, including B5G/6G mobile communications, MIMO and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) antenna arrays, channel estimation, cloud computing, quantum computing, direction-of-arrival estimation, energy-efficient networks, femtocell radio, artificial intelligence for wireless systems, mobile computing, optimization techniques, power-aware computing, quality of service (QoS), radiofrequency interference, radio resource allocation, telecommunication traffic engineering, advanced modulation and access techniques, mobile radio planning, carrier and symbol synchronization, spectrum-efficient modulation and coding, cognitive radio, energy-efficient heterogeneous networks (HetNets), positioning, and visible light communication (VLC).

He has published extensively in leading international journals and conference proceedings, with over 120 scientific papers to his credit. His work has been recognized with several best paper awards. Additionally, he has served as a reviewer for prestigious journals and conferences.

Prof. Hesham is the Chair and Founder of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) Chapter of the IEEE Egypt Section, established in December 2022. He is also the elected Vice Chair of the IEEE Egypt Section for the 2024–2025 term.

Islam Tharwat Abdel Halim received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees and his Ph.D. degree in computer and systems engineering from the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. His Ph.D. thesis was granted the best thesis award. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Technology and Computer Science, Nile University (NU), Giza, Egypt. He has authored many research articles in various refereed conferences and journals, including IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine, Computer Networks (Elsevier), and Wireless Networks (Springer). His current research interests include IoT, Fog/Edge computing, mobile and wireless networks, with emphasis on security and performance evaluation in vehicular communication, and 5G networks. He is a senior member of the IEEE and is currently appointed as IEEE Computer Society Coordinator for Region 8 (Europe, Africa, and the Middle East) as well as the chair of the awareness and customer advocacy committee in the Distinguished Visitor Program (DVP). Also, he is the founder and currently recorded as the chair of the IEEE Egypt Section Consultants Network and the vice-chair of ACM Cairo Chapter Besides, he has over 20 years of experience in the field of information technology and digital transformation. He is a member of the Digital Transformation Committee at Nile University and participated in the development of the digital transformation training plan for the Egyptian government. He has also participated in numerous national projects in the Ministry of Finance, the Tax and Customs authorities, and the government certificate authority. Furthermore, he has obtained several accredited certifications from major global IT companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, VMware, and IBM. He contributed to the establishment and organization of several local and international conferences in the field of computer engineering and sciences, serving as a session chair, invited speaker, program committee member, and editor for various international conferences and journals. In addition, he is a member of several specialized technical committees, including the IEEE computer Society special technical community on Blockchain.

Motaz Mannaa is an accomplished Enterprise Marketing Product Manager at Vodafone Business, where he leads the agile product development and go-to-market (GTM) strategies for cutting-edge IoT solutions. With a deep understanding of the digital transformation landscape, Motaz plays a pivotal role in crafting solutions that help enterprises grow and thrive in the digital era. He is also responsible for setting the digital transformation strategy for Vodafone’s business customers, enabling them to leverage emerging technologies to stay ahead in a fast-evolving market.

With extensive experience in the telecommunications industry, Motaz has worked across various core network functions, including Core Network Engineering, OSS, and Service Management. He has led key initiatives such as the LTE deployment in Vodafone’s network operations and was instrumental in the design, deployment, and testing of Vodafone’s IMS Core Network, which enabled key services like VoLTE, VoWiFi, and Fixed Voice.

Beyond his technical expertise, Motaz is passionate about youth and talent development. He has delivered training in both technical and non-technical domains, while also mentoring start-ups through his knowledge of entrepreneurship and innovation. His diverse experience spans across several functions, making him a well-rounded leader in the telecom space and a driving force behind the next generation of digital solutions.

Eng. Bassem Boshra is the CEO & Founder of SpimeSenseLabs, a company specializing in IoT applications development through its MasterOfThings IoT AEP. He is also a telecom and IoT consultant for ITI (Information Technology Institute) and a steering committee member in the Egypt-IoT Forum.

With 29 years of experience in the software industry, Eng. Bassem has worked in multinational telecom and banking sectors, holding leadership positions and earning global certifications and awards. He graduated from the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in 1995, receiving early recognition for his software development skills, including multiple prizes from PC World magazine. He later earned a postgraduate diploma from ITI (Intake 8, 1996), where he co-developed Haneen, the first social media portal for Egyptians abroad, which won multiple international awards. Eng. Bassem Boshra remains a pioneer in IoT and telecom innovation, dedicated to advancing smart cities and empowering future generations in the tech industry.

Mohamed Ramadan received his B.Sc. degree in Communication and Electronic Engineering from Cairo University in 2007. He worked for both Systel-Motorola and Alcatel Lucent for 1 year then joined the NTRA in May 2009. He worked for 3 years for the quality assurance department till Nov. 2012, then he joined the technical and strategic planning team at the NTRA. The team was mainly responsible for providing both technical and strategic plans for future technologies and services as well as focusing on 5G, IoT. M2M, LORA, SIGFOX, Smart Cities, ITS, …etc. Also, radio network planning unit was under his supervision to address the detailed network planning for those technologies. He has a previous experience for the ITU-T activities based on his active participation to both focus groups on smart water management and IMT-2020. He is participating in ITU-T SG 13 to address the future networks technical aspects including 5G. He was previously representing Egypt in many international activities either by providing a talk or by active participation. He was engaged as a speaker in many international events such as 5G world, LTE voice summit and 5G MENA covering the regulatory, technical and standardization perspectives for NTRA Egypt. In early 2020, he has been assigned into a new role of being a manager for Artificial Intelligence and modern applications department in the newly created sector of strategic planning that is mainly focusing on developing the strategic plans for the latest technology trends in Egypt. In October 2021, he was assigned into a new role of being a manager for digital strategies department in the strategic planning sector to focus on setting the relevant strategies for future technologies. Early 2022, he has completed his MBA degree in strategic planning Major.

Ahmed is the Global Tech Program Manager for Dell NativeEdge, where he leads innovative initiatives and oversees the integration of cutting-edge technologies.

With extensive expertise in design thinking, Ahmed excels as a coach and instructor, facilitating transformative workshops that foster creative problem-solving and user-centric solutions.

As a certified trainer, Ahmed specializes in delivering soft skills trainings, enhancing the interpersonal and communication abilities of professionals across various industries. His comprehensive approach ensures that teams are well-equipped to navigate and thrive in today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Through his role, experience, and dedication to education and training, Ahmed is committed to fostering a sustainable and technologically advanced future. His work seamlessly integrates the latest technological advancements with sustainable practices.