“The State of Digitalization in Saudi Arabia” with Dr. Khaled H. Biyari, Group CEO at Saudi Telecom Company
Wednesday, February 8
9:30 a.m.
Auditorium (bldg. 20)
About Dr. Biyari
Dr. Biyari is the CEO of Saudi Telecom Group (STC), the largest integrated telecom operator in the MENA region with investments in Turkey, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon and UAE. He joined the company in May 2013 as the senior vice president (SVP) for technology and operations and was then appointed as the chief operating officer in January 2015. In April 2015, he was appointed by the STC board of directors as a chief executive officer. Dr. Biyari currently is the chairman of the SAMENA Telecom Council, an association of telecom operators in South Asia, Middle East and North Africa. He is also involved with a number of STC subsidiaries and affiliates. He is the chairman of Sapphire, the chairman of Intigral, the vice chairman of VIVA Kuwait, and the vice chairman of Oger Telecom. He served previously as a board member of both Turk Telecom and Avea and a chairman of STC Solutions. Since joining STC, Dr. Biyari has been leading a major transformation program across STC different sectors aimed at making STC a world-class operator, including driving major digitization and innovation initiatives. Prior to joining STC, he served as SVP and GM at Advanced Electronics Company (AEC), a Saudi high-tech Offset Program company. From 1990 to 1995, Dr. Biyari was a professor of communication systems at the Electrical Engineering Department at King Fahad University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM).
Dr. Biyari is a member of a number of professional organizations, including being a senior member of the IEEE. He has lectured and published numerous papers on communication and information systems. He has also lectured on technology management and innovation, as well as ICT industry-related issues. He was twice-elected the chairman of the IEEE Saudi Section. Dr. Biyari also served as a member of the committee responsible for developing the Long Term National Plan for the ICT industry in Saudi Arabia. He was also a member of the Executive Committee responsible for KFUPM’s long-term strategic plan. In 2009, the Council of Ministers elected him to the board of directors of the Electricity and Cogeneration Regulatory Authority (ECRA) in Saudi Arabia, on which he served until 2015. Dr. Biyari holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering-communication systems from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1990 and his B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from KFUPM in 1983 and 1985, respectively.
More details can be found on the event website: https://itsummit.kaust.edu.sa/2017/
Please note, no pre-registration is required for KAUST colleagues and staff members. Just pick up a name tag at the info desk and attend the session(s) of interest.
“Beyond Moore’s Law—Entering the Neo-Digital Age” with Dr. Thomas Sterling, director and professor of informatics & computing, Indiana University
Thursday, February 9
9:00 a.m.
Auditorium (bldg. 20)
About Dr. Thomas Sterling
Dr. Thomas Sterling holds the position of professor of electrical engineering at the Indiana University (IU) School of Informatics and Computing Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering (ISE), and serves as director of the IU Center for Research in Extreme Scale Technologies (CREST). Since receiving his Ph.D. from MIT in 1984 as a Hertz Fellow, Dr. Sterling has engaged in applied research in parallel computing system structures, semantics, and operation in industry, government labs, and academia. Dr. Sterling is best known as the “father of Beowulf” for his pioneering research in commodity/Linux cluster computing for which he shared the Gordon Bell Prize in 1997. He led the HTMT Project sponsored by multiple agencies to explore advanced technologies and their implication for high-end computer system architectures.
Other research projects in which he contributed included the DARPA DIVA PIM architecture project with USC-ISI, the DARPA HPCS program, Cray-led Cascade Petaflops architecture and the Gilgamesh high-density computing project at NASA JPL. Sterling is currently involved in research associated with the innovative ParalleX execution model for extreme scale computing to establish the foundation principles guiding the development of future generation Exascale computing systems. ParalleX is currently the conceptual centerpiece of the XPRESS project as part of the DOE X-stack program and has been demonstrated via the proof-of-concept HPX-5 runtime system software. Dr. Sterling is the co-author of six books and holds six patents.
More details can be found on the event website: https://itsummit.kaust.edu.sa/2017/
Please note, no pre-registration is required for KAUST colleagues and staff members. Just pick up a name tag at the info desk and attend the session(s) of interest.
“Thriving in a Digitally Disrupted World” with Charles Araujo, principal analyst at Intellyx and founder of the Institute for Digital Transformation
Thursday, February 9
1:15 p.m.
Auditorium (bldg. 20)
About Charles Araujo
The world is being turned upside down. Digital technology is disrupting virtually every aspect of society. The uniqueness of the university-based educational experience has largely protected higher education—so far. However, it is clear that the broad impacts of digital transformation will be felt within universities and IT leaders must be ready to respond.
In a digitally disrupted world, student and faculty expectations are changing rapidly. The foundations of the educational process—and the systems that support it—are transforming to accommodate emerging approaches and modalities such as flipped classrooms and adaptive learning. More fundamental changes seem inevitable and the implications are significant for IT leaders who must guide their organizations through this uncharted territory. Based on his best-selling book “The Quantum Age of IT: Why Everything You Know About IT is About to Change” and his on-going research in the areas of IT and digital transformation, industry analyst Charles Araujo will examine the changes reshaping the fabric of higher education and how IT executives must adapt and lead their organizations into this future.
More details can be found on the event website: https://itsummit.kaust.edu.sa/2017/
Please note, no pre-registration is required for KAUST colleagues and staff members. Just pick up a name tag at the info desk and attend the session(s) of interest.