5th Mena Spectrum Management Conference

Mr. Tariq Al-Awadhi is the Executive Director Spectrum Affairs in the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority.

Mr. Al Awadhi has 17 years of experience in spectrum management. He is the Chairman of the Arab Spectrum Management Group and has been the head of the delegations of the UAE to various international meetings and conferences and in 2012 he had been elected to chair the World Radiocommunication Conference 2012 (WRC-12).

His achievements in the field of spectrum management have earned him accolades from his contemporaries and the TRA. His professional acumen has further been groomed through leadership and excellence programs.

Mr. Mario Maniewicz was elected Director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He took office on 1 January 2019.

Mario Maniewicz is an electronic engineer specialized in telecommunications. He has been with the ITU for over 30 years, where he has held various positions of responsibility in the Radiocommunication and Development Bureaux as well as in ITU Regional Offices.

As Director, Mr. Maniewicz is responsible for the management of the Radiocommunication Bureau, which organizes and co-ordinates the work of the Radiocommunication Sector whose aim is to ensure the rational, equitable, efficient and economical use of the radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits.

H. E. Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Medal for Distinguished Director-General in the Fifth Cycle of Mohammed bin Rashid Government Excellence Award. This honor is the culmination of a journey full of awards, achievements and responsibilities on many national levels.

Currently, H.E. Al Mansoori is the Director General of the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), mandated by Federal Law by Decree No. 3 of 2003 and its amendments to regulate the telecommunications sector in the UAE and to ensure fair competitiveness environment in the UAE’s market. Al Mansoori is holding this position since the beginning of 2015, as per the Federal Law by Decree No. 14. Moreover, he is a member of the high-level Broadband Commission for Digital Development, which is one of the joint committees between the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the UNESCO and is concerned with the worldwide achievement of goals related to digital development.

Since July 2015, Al Mansoori has been the Chairman of Board of Directors of Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center, the first of its kind in the region, established to achieve the UAE’s leading position among major countries in space science by 2021. H.E.’s appointment for this position is another great addition to a career full of expertise, achievements and outstanding contributions in the management of numerous strategic projects at local and national levels. His Excellency, and from this position, supervised the launch of the first Emirati astronaut, Hazza Al Mansouri, to the International Space Station, with close follow-up from the UAE leadership.

Moreover, H.E. Al Mansoori supervised the manufacturing and launching of the satellite (KhalifaSat), setting the foundation of a new era in the national space sector, as KhalifaSat is the first satellite built entirely by Emirati engineers in the UAE. H.E. headed the team that launched the satellite from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan in 29 October 2018. H.E Hamad Al Mansoori is also Vice Chairman of the Emirates Space Agency.

Previously, Al Mansoori held the position of Director General of the UAE mGovernment since April 2014, in addition to being the Deputy Director General for Information and eGovernment Sector at TRA from May 2013 to 2015. He contributed towards the management and implementation of several important national projects and initiatives, which played a major role in the provision of various eServices to the customers of different government entities and enhancement of the UAE’s position locally and globally in this field.

Al Mansoori is amongst the eminent Emirati figures who is endowed with the trust of the wise leadership and which is illustrated in the nature of responsibilities entrusted to him.

Throughout his career, Al Mansoori has held several advisory positions with many government entities. He was Advisor to the General Commander of Dubai Police for IT Affairs, Technical Advisor to the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs, Advisor to the Awqaf and Minors Affairs Foundation for IT Affairs. He was also the Advisor to Dubai Government Public Prosecution for IT affairs from 2008 to 2010.

Moreover, Al Mansoori is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST), Board Member of Emaratech for Technology solutions, Member of the UAE Artificial Intelligence Council, Member of the UAE Fourth Industrial Revolution Council. He Held other prominent national positions such as Director General of Mohammed Bin Rashid Smart Learning Program Pilot Project and UAE Portals’ Programs Manager. In addition, he was a member of the Supreme Committee for Information Systems in the Ministry of Labour where he headed the eLinking project along with many other national projects.

Stefan Zehle, MBA, (CEO) Stefan is a co-founder of Coleago, was a Director Strategy, Marketing and Regulatory Affairs of a mobile operator. With 28 years telecoms experience, he is an expert in telecoms marketing strategy, spectrum valuation, and business planning. Stefan was responsible for many successful mobile licence bids and spectrum auctions and worked in 40 countries in developed and emerging markets. Stefan holds an MBA with distinction. Co-author of the Economist’s Guide to Business Planning.

Mohammad Aljnoobi is Senior Radiocommunication Engineer in Communication and information Technology Commission “CITC” in Saudi Arabia. He joined CITC in Aug 2011, since then he’s been working in the spectrum management department, and he contributes to many activities related to spectrum management in Saudi Arabia.

Mohammad is currently Chairing the Spectrum subcommittee in Saudi Arabia’s 5G National Taskforce. The committee goal is to facilitate all issues related to 5G spectrum for operators and vendors.

In matters related to WRC-19 , Mohammad is Chairing working group 4 in Arab Spectrum Management Group “ASMG”. The group is responsible of Agenda items and issues related to Land Mobile Service

Mohamed’s career experience in ICT spans 15 years. Before joining the GSMA as Public Policy Director – MENA in February 2017, Mohamed managed advisory and strategic consulting in the telecommunications regulation within PwC in all the African French speaking countries within MENA. Mohamed’s previous career experience included working as a senior manager Regulatory Affairs for Ooredoo Group in Qatar, between 2014 and 2016, where he provided support to the 11 Ooredoo operators worldwide and participated to several missions across Ooredoo’s footprint. Before that, Mohamed was the head of Regulatory Affairs and Wholesale Business Department at Ooredoo Tunisia for four years.
In addition to regulatory affairs and wholesale experience, Mohamed’s telecommunications experience also includes a role in 2003 as an engineer at the technical department of Ooredoo Tunisia where he ended in 2009 as Head of Rollout of the mobile network of Ooredoo Tunisia. Meanwhile, Mohamed was chosen by Orascom Holding in early 2009 to participate in the mission to restructure the newly acquired operator in Central African Republic (Telecel CAR) as a Head of Rollout.
Mohamed holds a Master’s degree in Engineering from Tunis School of Engineering (2001).

Bio to appear here shortly.

Marc Eschenburg has worked in the telecoms industry since 2008 advising fixed and mobile operators as well as regulators and other government bodies on a wide range of commercial, technical and regulatory issues. He has been very active in the area of radio spectrum policy, advising more than 30 operators worldwide on their spectrum strategy and assisting them to value spectrum ahead of spectrum auctions. In addition, he has worked with regulators and industry bodies on key spectrum management issues, including work on incentive pricing, forecasting future spectrum demand and identifying measures of efficient spectrum use. Further to his work on spectrum, Marc advises clients ahead of major market transactions and has carried out various projects on next-generation broadband as well as in the TV and media space. Marc holds a Masters in Infonomics from Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Fatima has recently joined Huawei Technologies as Technical Director on Spectrum & Regulation with a special focus on Middle East and Africa among other areas. Prior to joining Huawei, Fatima worked for almost 2 decades on wireless systems as senior technical manager, technology strategist and transversal projects’ leader.

Her most recent position has been Senior Radio Standardization Manager and strategist within Orange Group. She was leading Orange delegation in 3GPP RAN and in charge of elaborating, promoting and building large consensus for the adoption of relevant Radio standard strategies with interest to Orange affiliates in Europe, Africa and the Middle-East.

When holding that position, Fatima became one of the most influential operators’ experts in 3GPP RAN where she actively contributed to shaping the last 5 releases of 3GPP standard in particular on 5G New Radio use cases, requirements and technical studies, LTE evolutions, Spectrum standardisation, M2M/IoT, Cellular D2D, LTE Public safety, Small cells, Broadcast, LAA, Cellular V2X, A2G communications, HSPA+.

Before joining 3GPP RAN in 2007, Fatima successfully managed numerous R&D projects for Orange Labs and contributed to European collaborative projects.

From 1997 and 2002 Fatima worked for various mobile operators (Orange Sweden, BLU Italy, SFR France and Maroc Telecom) for which she successfully delivered projects involving design, engineering, roll-out and optimization of operational networks.

Hazem Moakkit is responsible for shaping Intelsat’s strategic long-term positioning in the marketplace. In his role, he works closely with the company’s product management and innovation service teams to analyze and identify emerging growth opportunities for Intelsat. In addition, he is responsible for managing efforts that protect, optimize and leverage the company’s spectrum assets in support of Intelsat’s broader long-term growth strategy.

Mr Moakkit is a veteran of the satellite industry. Prior to rejoining Intelsat in 2015, Mr Moakkit served as Vice President, Spectrum Development, at O3b Satellite Networks where he was responsible for managing and acquiring spectrum assets for the non-geostationary satellite operator, in addition to overseeing all of their regulatory activities at the ITU, CEPT and other regulatory bodies. Before that, he was the Director of Regulatory & Spectrum Affairs where he created and managed the spectrum strategy at Yahsat (UAE), and was a key member of the corporate strategy team where he was instrumental in formulating the expansion strategy for Yahsat in Africa and South America.

Prior to Yahsat, Mr Moakkit was a member of the spectrum & regulatory group at Intelsat (previously PanAmSat) in Washington D.C. During his tenure at PanAmSat, he also worked in various system and sales engineering capacities.

Early on in his career, Mr. Moakkit served as a systems engineer at ATCI, a nascent satellite systems integrator based in Tempe, Arizona. While at ATCI he designed and built RF systems for several Fortune 500 clients.

Mr Moakkit earned a Master of Business Administration Degree from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering at Arizona State University

Dr. El-Moghazi is the Spectrum Management Research and Studies Director at the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) of Egypt. At present, he is responsible of spectrum planning and pricing for new and current services.

He was the Chairman of Working Group 4B in WRC-15. He was also Egypt’s coordinator for WRC-15 A.I. 1.1 (additional spectrum allocations to the mobile service) and A.I. 1.2 (the use of the frequency band 694-790 MHz by the mobile).

Dr El-Moghazi is currently Egypt and ASMG coordinator for WRC-19 Agenda Item 1.13 (additional spectrum allocations to the mobile service and IMT identification above 6 GHz) at the ITU-R TG 5/1, which considers the identification of frequency bands for the future development of IMT in WRC-19.

Sultan is currently (Manager Spectrum Policy) at the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the United Arab Emirates with more than ten years of professional work experience in ICT sector counting works on radiocommunication strategies and spectrum policies. He has been putting various efforts to develop and review regulations and policies related to spectrum management by setting the review plans, working on their implementation, and conducting public consultations and associated workshops with ICT sector stakeholders in the UAE.

Holding Masters Degree in Public Administration (MPA) from Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government in UAE since 2015 and Bachelor Degree of Engineering (B.ENG) in Electronics (Honors) from Khalifa University in UAE obtained in 2008.

Dr. Abdulhadi has held various leadership roles in ETISALAT, UAE, since 2008. He is currently the head of Technology Standardization, Spectrum Management, IoT / Smart City development and Radio Access Transformation (e.g. NB-IoT, 5G). Before 2008, he joined three UAE universities and research centers. In addition, he has been leading several national and international projects including propagation modeling for the Gulf region, cost modeling of telecom services, analysis of business challenges/opportunities, and modeling/optimization of wireless systems/networks. With over 10 years of wide experience in the work of international organizations (e.g. ITU, 3GPP and GSMA), he has been chairing various technical groups such as ITU-T SG20/Q4 on IoT / Smart City and candidate for 3GPP RAN Vice chairman. Also, he is the Liaison Rapporteur of ITU-T SG20 with ITU-R and 3GPP on IoT and Smart City issues.

He is the coordinator of Arab Spectrum Management Group (ASMG) for ITU-R WRC-19 agenda on MTC / IoT (AI 9.1.8) and Mobile 5G/IMT2020 (AI 1.13, CPM Group), and he has been ASMG coordinator for relevant agenda in previous ITU-R WRC’s (e.g. 700 Band in Region 1).

Dr. Abdulhadi obtained his PhD degree in wireless and mobile communication from University of Bradford, UK, MSc degree in Engineering Systems Management, and BSc in Communication Engineering. He is the author and co-author of many journal and conference papers.

Bio to appear here shortly.

Mr. Mario Maniewicz was elected Director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He took office on 1 January 2019.

Mario Maniewicz is an electronic engineer specialized in telecommunications. He has been with the ITU for over 30 years, where he has held various positions of responsibility in the Radiocommunication and Development Bureaux as well as in ITU Regional Offices.

As Director, Mr. Maniewicz is responsible for the management of the Radiocommunication Bureau, which organizes and co-ordinates the work of the Radiocommunication Sector whose aim is to ensure the rational, equitable, efficient and economical use of the radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits.

Jean-Pierre Faisan is spectrum policy advisor for TDF, and has been a Board Member of the association Broadcast Networks Europe since 2013.
A graduate from Ecole Polytechnique and Telecom Paris-Tech, he has more than 29 years of experience in the telecommunications industry where he held a series of engineering then managing positions at Intelsat, CCETT (now Orange Labs), Sofratev and Gobé and TDF. He is also the founder and managing partner of Leader Wave, a consulting company specialized on spectrum policy.

Steven Doiron is the Head of Regulatory Affairs and Spectrum at Yahsat, the UAE based Satellite Communications Operator, a wholly owned company of Mubadala Development Company.

Steven joined Yahsat in 2015 to manage the Regulatory and Spectrum Affairs within the Strategy & Business Development Department.

Steven brings 24 years of experience in the Satellite and Spectrum field. He started his career as a Project manager in the Canadian Forces supervising the deployment of multiple military satellite networks. He then moved to Telesat Canada, Intelsat General, and later in 2003 worked in Hughes Network System (HNS).

His most recent position has been Senior Director-Regulatory Affairs at HNS. In that position Steven managed HNS’ orbital strategy in regards to its Ka-band satellites and earth stations.

Steven holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University and has continued his training in the Canadian Forces School of Communications and Electronics.