Tarek Kamel

Country:	Egypt

Tarek Kamel is the Senior Advisor for Government Affairs at ICANN. He was one of the top four candidates for the CEO position. Prior to joining ICANN, Kamel was the National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt from April 2011 until July 2012.

Career History

From July 2004 to February 2011, Kamel served as the Minister of Communication and Information Technology in the cabinet of Egyptian Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif. He was responsible for the reform of the ICT sector and the development of telecoms and the Internet industry in Egypt. He is widely regarded as the father of the Internet in Egypt. Before his appointment to Minister, Kamel served as the Senior Advisor to his predecessor, a role which he began at the inception of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in October 1999. From 2000 until 2004, he was also a Board Member of Telecom Egypt, and from 2002 until 2004 he was a Board Member of Egypt's Private-Public Technology Development Fund (TDF), which supports ICT start-ups.

Kamel has served as a member of the Internet Society (ISOC) Board of Trustees in Virginia, was a Co-Founder and Secretary of ISOC-Egypt, and was the ISOC Vice President for Chapters from 1999 until 2002. He is a Founding Member and former Board Member of AfriNIC. From 2004 to 2008, he was the Chairman of the Executive Bureau of the Arab Telecommunications and Information Council of Ministers, and from 2006 to 2008, he was the Chairman of the Ministerial Conference on Communication and Information Technologies of the African Union. He has also been the Chairman of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA), the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), the National Telecommunication Institute (NTI) and the Information Technology Institute's (ITI) Boards of Trustees.

Tarek began his career as a Networks Support Engineer at the Academy of Technology and Scientific Research after receiving his Bachelors degree in 1985. He also served as an Assistant Researcher at the Electronics Research Institute before entering into doctoral studies. After receiving his PhD in 1992, he was appointed Manager of the Communications and Networking Department at the Egyptian Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC/RITSEC). In the period between 1992 and 1999, when he assumed the role as Senior Advisor to the Minister, he was an Associate Professor at the ERI, established Egypt's first connection to the Internet, guided the introduction of commercial Internet services in Egypt, and founded ISOC-Egypt. Over the years, he has been involved with organizinf INET, IGF, ICANN and ITU regional and international events and conferences hosted in Egypt.

Education

Kamel received a degree in Engineering from Cairo University in 1985. From 1989 until 1992, he was granted a fellowship for PhD studies from the German Academic Exchange (DAAD), and received his Doctorate in Computer Networking from Munich Technical University in 1992.

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