Meeting Arab Socio-Economic Development Needs Through Information and Communication Technologies

Fouad Mrad

Abstract

The Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) offer developing countries the chance to leapfrog into the knowledge-based economy. However, the pressure of catching up with the ICT fast track is confusing the decision making in the Arab countries and blurring priorities crucial for the suitable deployment of ICT in meeting the socio-economic development and integration needs of the region.

This presentation reports the findings of a team activity that attempted to utilize information and analytical models to suggest the suitable ICT solutions for the Arab countries. The team process is overviewed and findings are presented:

• the ranked derived characteristics of adequate ICT solutions for the region,
• the assessment and ranking of proposed ICT solution models,
• and the suitability evaluation of proposed ICT solutions for the various countries benchmarked against international country reference models.

Presentation slides

Ppt (968Kb)
UN Article

Speaker Biography

Fouad Mrad is a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon (1993-Present). He received his Ph. D. and M. S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. He earned his B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to the university career, he worked for IBM - Magnetic Storage Division in Rochester, Minnesota (1990-1993).

He published papers in international refereed journals (14) and conferences (19) in the areas of Manufacturing, Industrial Automation & Instrumentation, Adaptive & Intelligent Control, and Robotics. He is coauthoring a book "Applied Mechatronics," with Oxford University Press.

He has been a consultant with Industrial Development Corp (Indevco), Minister of Industry, Modern Electronics Industries Co. MEICO, Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research, UN-ESCWA Information and Communication Technologies Division, USAID - Amideast Lebanon, Public Housing Institute, Ministry of Technical and Vocational Education, and Team International.

 

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For appointments, please contact Ralph Hollis (rhollis@cs.cmu.edu).