Speaker Profiles for e-Development Thematic Group Event on
April 1, 2008
Philippe Dongier, Sector Manager, CITPO, GICT
Philippe Dongier is Sector Manager for ICT in the Global ICT Department. Philippe joined the World Bank
Group in 1998 and has worked in the infrastructure and sustainable development sectors, in the anchors
and in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He was manager for Afghanistan reconstruction (2001-2004), and
recently authored a World Bank report entitled ‘Infrastructure: Lessons from the Last Two Decades of
World Bank Engagement’
Prior to joining the Bank, Philippe was with McKinsey & Company (1993-1998), advising companies and
governments on issues of strategy and organizational restructuring. From 1986 to 1992, he worked in
Nepal and Vietnam on decentralized and community-based infrastructure. Philippe holds an MBA from
INSEAD and a BA in economics from McGill University.
Samia Melhem, Senior Operations Officer, CITPO, GICT & Chair, e-Development
Thematic Group, World Bank
Samia Melhem is a member of the e-Government practice group in the Global ICT department at the
World Bank. Her current responsibilities include technical assistance and advisory services on ICT
Policies. She is focused on ICT4D in a wide variety of sectors from telecoms policy and regulation to
public sector reform, taxes, customs, trade, education, knowledge Economy and private sector
development. In her last 20 years in the World Bank Group, Samia has held several positions in Africa,
Middle East and Europe and Central Asia regions, Information Solutions Group and infoDev. Her
expertise is mostly in planning, developing and implementing large scale information systems for
governments, and on using ICT as a tool to support public administration reform. Samia also manages
GICT's learning and training program and chairs the e-development Thematic Group. She holds degrees
in Electrical Engineering (BS), Computer Sciences (MS)and Finance (MBA).
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Randeep Sudan, Senior ICT Specialist, CITPO, GICT, World Bank
Randeep Sudan, is a Senior ICT Policy Specialist with the Global ICT Department (GICT) of the World
Bank. He leads GICT's practices on e-Government and IT industry development. He is currently working
on ICT projects in Africa, Central Asia, East Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Asia. Prior to
joining the World Bank in 2005, he held senior government positions in India, as a member of the Indian
Administrative Service. He was Special Secretary to the Chief Minister and ex-officio Secretary
Information Technology in the state of Andhra Pradesh and was closely associated with policies and
strategies for leveraging ICT for development. He has been the Chief Executive of APFIRST an
organization focused on promoting investments in the ICT sector, and also of AP Technology Services, a
company specializing in the use of ICTs in government. His areas of expertise include ICT policy, egovernment, investment promotion, infrastructure development and public-private partnerships. He has
a MSc in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and a MA in Economics from
the Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has taught as a visiting faculty at the Department of Informatics at
the University of Oslo.
Adjunct Faculty, Indian Institute of Technology Center for e-Governance
Country Director, Government Strategy, Sun Microsystems,
Vice President, Institute of Open Technology and Applications,
Government of West Bengal
Jaijit Bhattacharya is Adjunct Faculty at IIT Delhi, Vice President of IOTA, Government of West Bengal
and Country Director, Government Strategy at Sun Microsystems. He is responsible for the creation of
the next generation of solutions for governments, based on open standards. Dr. Bhattacharya advises
governments on e-governance strategies. He is an e-Governance advisor to Government of Sri Lanka and
has been conducting training for ADB institute in Tokyo on Public Expenditure Management and has
helped World Bank develop curriculum for their e-Leadership program. He is also a visiting faculty at
INSEAD Singapore campus, IIT Roorkee and at IIM Calcutta. Dr. Bhattacharya has developed business
models and strategies for leading companies in the IT, media and computer hardware industries. He has
numerous research papers to his credit in leading journals and conferences. He is the author/co-author
of three books on e-Governance including the first book on e-Governance in India, ‘Government On-line
– Opportunities and Challenges’, published by McGraw Hill and released by the Honourable President of
India, Shri Abdul Kalam. Dr. Bhattacharya did his PhD from Department of Computer Science and
Engineering IIT Delhi, MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and B.,Tech in Electrical
Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
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Prof. Reinhard Posch, CIO for Government of Austria
CAREER
Since 2001, Reinhard Posch has been the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Government of Austria.
The role of the CIO for the federal government is primarily the strategic coordination of activities in the
field of information and communications technology. As such the CIO heads the Austrian eGovernment
platform “DIGITAL AUSTRIA”. 2007 he became elected chairmen of the management board of the
European Network and Information Security Agency ENISA. Educated at the Graz University of
Technology, where he earned a diploma in engineering and a PhD, Reinhard was appointed as an
assistant professor and later as full professor. He is head of the Institute for Applied Information
Processing and Communications at the Graz University of Technology. Since 1999, he has been scientific
director of the Austrian Security Information Technology Centre (A-SIT). He has a Dipl.-Ing. and Dr.
techn. from Graz University of Technology.
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