Dr. Hisham El-Sherif is widely recognized as the architect of Egypt's entry into the Information Age. Holding a Ph.D. from MIT in Business and Engineering, he founded and chaired the Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) from 1985 to 1999, building over 1,500 information centers, creating 40,000 jobs in the information industry, and establishing the first national decision-support infrastructure in the region. Under his leadership, IDSC was named one of the top 100 IT organizations in the world.
He is the Chairman of IT Investments, a holding company spanning 42 subsidiaries in networking, telecommunications, software, systems integration, media, and e-business. As founder of Nile Online, he played a pivotal role in building Egypt's Internet backbone. He is also the founder of RITSEC, a regionally recognized leader in software engineering, multimedia, and IT education whose training institutes have graduated over 300,000 users and 1,200+ MBA holders.
Internationally, Dr. El-Sherif served as Commissioner of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission and chaired the task force that developed the Africa Information Society Initiative, adopted by all African nations. He has contributed to over 700 programs across Egypt, the Middle East, the US, and Europe, in partnership with the World Bank, UNDP, WIPO, WTO, and other global bodies.
His honors include the World First Prize in Information Systems (SIM, 1988), the Franz Edelman Award for Management Achievement (1989), the French Knighthood from the President of France (1991), the Tunisian First Order of Merit (2004), and Egypt's First Order Medal of Science and Arts (1999). A professor at the American University in Cairo since 1991, AUC dedicated an annual scholarship in his name in 2008.
