Who is Amr Salem?
As I noted here, Amr Nazir Salem is Syria's Minister of Communication. Since I expect (hope?) to hear a lot more from him in the future, I figured it would be worth doing a bit of research on him.
His name is also transliterated Amro Salem; Amr Salim. He should not be confused with Amr Salem, the HP Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean general manager. He was born in 1958 in Syria, and is married with three children. He holds a Ph.D in Computer Engineering from a university in Switzerland.
In addition to being Minister of Communication, he's the Advisor at Presidency for ICT Affairs, and Advisor at Presidency for Economic Affairs. Looks like he's done that since February 2006, although an advisory role may go back to 2005..
He's a founding member of the Syrian Computer Society, allegedly a quasi-governmental ISP. Their website appears to be nothing more than a search engine passthrough, but Arab Decision has a bit more on them, including a lightweight bio of Mr. Salem.
In 1999, in Middle East Insight(link courtesy HRW:
Amr Salim sympathetically explained Syria’s “cautious” approach to the Internet:In order for President [Hafez] al-Asad to feel comfortable promoting a particular technology, it must meet the following criteria:
1. It should benefit the majority of the Syrian people. Technology geared toward the elite is not favored because such people have the resources and means to get what they want without government assistance.
2. It should not disrupt the social structure or adversely affect the middle class, and should be within the means of the masses.
3. It should have a direct impact on Syria’s overall social and economic development.
4. It should not jeopardize Syrian independence or security concerns.
On 22-23 November, 2004, he attended the SECOND REGIONAL PREPARATORY CONFERENCE FOR WSIS,
DAMASCUS, 22-23 November 2004
Partnership for Building the Arab Information Society. On the attendance list, he is "Program Manager, Advanced Strategies and Policy, Microsoft. He appears to have worked for Microsoft as late as 2005.
On 12-13 June, 2006, he sponsored the Second IT Security Conference in Damascus.
