Agenda

Preetam Maloor is the Head of the Emerging Technologies Division at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the specialized United Nations Agency for Information and Communication Technologies. 

An accomplished international civil servant with more than two decades of experience in Technology matters, he is an expert on Artificial Intelligence and international cyber-related public policy matters. A UN Staff member since 2008, he has been a key member of the ITU Secretariat at several major conferences including the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 ITU Plenipotentiary conferences, the 2009, 2013, and 2021 World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forums (WTPF), and the annual AI for Global Good Summit. He also leads the Secretariat of the ITU Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues and the Expert Group on the International Telecommunication Regulations. 

Prior to joining ITU, Preetam spent nearly 10 years in the private sector, working primarily at Artificial Intelligence research organizations such as Intelligent Automation Inc, a Rockville, Maryland-based research think-tank focusing on AI-based applications, and at AT&T Research Labs, Florham Park, New Jersey in its Speech & Natural Language Research Group. 

He holds Master’s degrees in Computer Science from Texas A&M University, College Station, and in Engineering and Public Policy from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Mumbai.

Graduated from The University of San Diego with a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and minors in Computer Science and Math, and from the University of Southern California with a master's in Engineering Management. He previously worked at Huawei as a Project Engineer. He then joined The National Digital Transformation Unit in 2018; as Digital Domain Lead focusing on Smart Cities and Engineering Technologies. Some of the projects Moath worked on at NDU include Digital Identity Framework, Smart Cities Guidelines, and various emerging tech PoC's. Currently, Moath is the Director of Emerging Technologies & Business Models at The Digital Government Authority; where his main role is to enable and accelerate the adoption of emerging technologies and its solutions in government entities.

Sulyna Abdullah the Chief, a.i. of the Digital Knowledge Hub Department in the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the ITU. Prior to this, she spent close to two decades at the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) during which she was actively involved in the activities of the ITU. She was formerly MCMC’s Chief Officer of Corporate Strategy and prior to leaving MCMC in 2019, she was the Chief Transformation Officer. After leaving MCMC, and immediately before joining the ITU, Sulyna had a short stint in the private sector during which she was the Director of Public Policy for Southeast Asia in Netflix. Sulyna has held various positions on the international front representing Malaysia. On the APEC front, she was the Chair of the APEC Ad Hoc Steering Group on the Internet Economy (2015 – 2017). She also Chaired the APT Preparatory Group for the ITU Plenipotentiary 2018 (PP-18) and went on to chair the Working Group of the Plenary at the ITU PP-18 itself. Sulyna was also the Founding Director of the ASEAN ICT Centre. Sulyna is a lawyer by training and is an Advocate and Solicitor of the Malaysian Bar.

Dr. Mazen Melibari is the Chief Technology Officer and Partner of TAM Digital Solutions. He previously worked as the Chief Research and Innovation Engineer, General Manager of Research and Innovation, and Artificial Intelligence Advisor at the Saudi Information Technology Company (SITE). Dr. Melibari also served as an Advisor and Lead Artificial Intelligence Researcher at MiSK Foundation, a Google Developer Expert in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and an Assistant Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. He co-founded Lucidya, a high-tech startup that helps businesses and decision-makers make smarter strategic decisions using AI and machine learning technologies. Dr. Melibari is the former Chairman of the Information Research Department at the Hajj Research Institute (HRI) and the founder of the Advance and Creative Technologies Research Unit at HRI. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science with a focus on Artificial Intelligence from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. His research interests revolve around developing machine learning algorithms for reasoning under uncertainty and applying AI techniques to tackle challenging real-world problems, especially in the area of Natural Language Processing. Dr. Melibari has published his research in top-tier academic journals and conferences, such as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), and the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS). He has actively participated in local and global software developer communities since he was seven years old.

Hani Eskandar is the Digital Services Senior Coordinator at the Digital Society Division of the Telecommunication Development Bureau of ITU. Mr. Eskandar is currently involved in providing assistance to several developing countries by advising on digital applications and services strategies and policies, assisting in implementing technical co-operation projects in areas of digital health, agriculture, governance and education.

Mr. Eskandar has more than 25 years of extensive on-the-ground experience in the field of ICT for development where he, through working with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent in Switzerland and, UNDP, Ministry of ICT and other NGOs in Egypt, was involved in several development projects in the fields of Health, Education, Illiteracy Eradication, Community Development, SME development and Micro Credits.

Muath Alduhishy is the General Manager of Research and Innovation at the Saudi Information Technology Company (SITE) - a Public Investment Fund (PIF) owned cybersecurity and digital leader in Saudi Arabia. He's also in the meantime advising startups in the Cybersecurity and FinTech industries. Before SITE, Muath was working with the Vice President for Business Development at the Saudi Telecommunication Company (STC) as an advisor to help the company navigate the Vision 2030 ecosystem as he was, prior to joining STC, one of the founding members of the National Digital Transformation Unit; the Vision 2030 digital center of excellence. Muath's career is remarkably diverse as it includes working as a Business Development Manager at a South African Education Technology company, a Medical Doctor in Australian hospitals, as well as founding an award-winning social startup in the MENA region.

Muath holds a Medical Doctorate degree from the University of Queensland, Bachelor degree from the school of science and engineering in Deakin university as well as Science Diploma from Monash university. In addition, Muath has extensive professional training in leadership, strategy and technology, which includes Executive Leadership Program from Saïd Business School at Oxford University and Strategic Management Program from Dartmouth College, and Digital Transformation Program from the University of Virginia, among others.

Hanan Alsalamah is the Emerging Technologies Labs Leader at the Digital Government Authority. She has an extensive experience in AI and data analytics. Throughout her career, she worked as a data scientist, business intelligence developer, and data engineer. She holds a Master's degree in Information Systems and Data Mining Engineering from Northeastern University, and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from King Saud University. Hanan won the best research paper award in the Computer Science field at King Saud University's second student Scientific Symposium. She also won the third-place prize for the best project in the 'Data+Narative with R" storytelling contest at Boston University, Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering.