Dr Ahmed Nazif served as Egypt’s first Minister of Communications and Information Technology from October 1999 to July 2004. During this period, he established a new regulatory framework to liberalize the ICT sector, promoted the use of ICT in all areas—particularly in government—and created a favorable environment for the development of a sector which has become one of the most fast growing ones of the Egyptian economy.
Nazif's expertise in Information Technology and Software Engineering extends back to more than 30 years, during which he held diverse, public, academic and private positions. His experience in government included working at the Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) in Cairo for 15 years as the Deputy Chairman of the Advisory Board (1996-1999), Executive Manager (1989-1996), Information Resource Manager (1988-1989) and Information Systems Consultant (1985-1988).
His achievements include leading the implementation of a country-wide civil information systems project (the National Number) among several other national and regional IT projects implemented by Information & Decision Support Center (IDSC) and its sister center the Regional Information Technology and Software Engineering Centre (RITSEC) where he worked as the Chairman of its Advisory Board.
Nazif held a number of consultancy positions in the private sector, most important of which are the Chief Executive Officer of the Legislation and Development Information Systems Company (LADIS) and the Chairman of the Data Bank Company (DBC). Nazif is also a co-founder of the Internet Society of Egypt (ISE), the Egyptian Information Management Association and the Egyptian Chapter of the Society of Information Management (SIM).
Nazif graduated from the Electronics and Communications Department at the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University in 1973. He received his Master’s degree in electrical engineering in 1976 from the same university. He received his Ph.D. in 1983 from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, for his research in the field of computer vision. Afterwards, he pursued further academic activities as an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor then Professor of Computer Engineering at Cairo University until 1999. He was granted the First Order Medal of Science and Art in Egypt for his academic achievements.
