Speakers

Patrick Samaha
Chief Operation Officer-ATN, Arab Media Group (AMG)

Patrick Samaha holds the position of Chief Operating Officer of the Arabian Television Network (ATN) at Arab Media Group (AMG) overseeing operations for MTV Arabia, which was successfully launched in November 17th, Nickelodeon Arabia, Shoof TV, Radio TV and more.

In his past mandate at AMG, Patrick was a key player and General Manager of MTV Arabia.

Patrick Samaha has developed his wide range of understanding in the communications industry throughout his 11 year career.

His career commenced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he spent over 5 years servicing FMCG and Automotive sector in agencies such as JWT and Intermarkets and the largest automotive dealer for Toyota, ALJ. He has worked on various blue chip brands Toyota, Porsche/Audi, Japan Tobacco, and Unilever.

In 2002, Patrick’s career took him to BBDO in Dubai where he took over, the Gulf Communications for Pepsi-Cola as an Account Director, working on various activities and campaigns supporting their Music and Football projects.

Following his successful initial mandate, Patrick both established and managed the day to day function of the Dubai Holding arm of Omnicom Media Group "OMD Ellipse," launching the Dubai Holding brand and all its subsidiaries in Dubai and across the world.

Largely due to his growth in the company and external relations at OMNICOM, Patrick quickly assumed the role of Regional Director MENA of OMNICOM’s International Department for both OMD and PHD, mainly responsible for promoting MENA brands internationally. During his experience, Patrick gained experience in various international markets including the US and Asia.

Stefan Schneiders
Business Development Mobile TV & Mobile Advertising
Nokia Siemens Networks

Stefan Schneiders is supporting the business development for Mobile TV & Mobile Advertising within the Consulting and System Integration Business at Nokia Siemens Networks. He is continuing his activities as Senior Vice President for Siemens Networks, where he was responsible for the business development of Mobile Broadcast since 2005.

Before his current assignment he was COO for the international consortium PayCircle and supported the Open Mobile Alliances M-Commerce Working Group as Vice Chairman.

Stefan has an experience of more than 20 years in telecommunication industry. During the last decade, Stefan was involved in innovations of the industry like Mobile Payment, Information Security and Biometrics.

Office address: Nokia Siemens Networks
Sankt-Martin-Strasse 76
81541 Munich, Germany email: stefan.schneiders@nsn.comtel : +49 89 63653606 mobile: +49 172 8555480

Hilal Halawi is a Principal with the Global Communications & Technology practice at Booz & Company, based in the Firm’s Riyadh and Beirut Offices. Hilal has 13 years of strategy and operations mobile telecom experience acquired through various projects in the Middle East. Hilal has extensive experience in large-scale transformation programs for telecom operators, primarily in the context of corporatization and market liberalization. In particular, he worked telecom strategic and business planning in the Middle East, covering strategy setting, organization, business planning, financial modeling, marketing, technology planning, product development, sales strategies and customer experience strategies. Hilal holds a Masters in Engineering Management (MEM) degree and a BE degree in Computer and Communications Engineering (CCE) from the American University of Beirut (AUB).
Mr. Halawi can be reached at +9661 249 7781 , by email : hilal.halaoui@booz.com

Mr. Collingwood joined Sling Media in June, 2006 and has responsibility for all of the company's European operations including partnerships, country and territory expansion and strategic planning. For the three years prior to joining Sling Media, Mr. Collingwood advised pay TV providers, digital media companies and technology start-ups on the launch of new digital platforms and technology. He also served as Vice President EMEA for Liberate and spent eight years at Fujitsu-ICL. Mr. Collingwood is based in London.

Fabien Gomez joined Qtel, the incumbent global telecom provider of the State of Qatar, in 2006 in order to launch the first DVB-H pilot in the Middle-East that was showcased during the 2006 Doha Asian Games. He also rolled out unicast video services to support the launch of Qtel's WAP portal.

He previously worked for Bouygues Telecom in France where he was in charge of defining the Imode services roadmap after working in the 3G core network and value added services areas. During this period he led many projects circuit switched and packet switched oriented such as the 3G pilot, positioning services as well as roaming services.

Prof. Dr. Claus Sattler studied Computer Sciences. He worked 17 years in a scientific institute developing OSI network software. From 1991 - 2003 he was with Eutelis Consult GmbH in Ratingen, a consultancy for telecommunications and value-added services, during the last years as a managing director. From May 2003 until September 2004 he worked as the Broadcast_Mobile_Convergence project manager in Berlin, managing the first worldwide DVB-H pilot over a public broadcast network. Now he is working as the Executive Director of the bmcoforum, an international industrial relations activity to accompany and support the development of an open market environment for mobile broadcast services.

Al Jazeera

Raul Abrill

Miguel Silva