Graduated from Cairo University, Faculty of Engineering (Electronics and Communication) in 1976, he got his Masters and Ph.D. Degrees, Microelectronics specialization in 1982 and 1987 respectively from National Polytechnic Institute, Grenoble France. Dr. El Tahawy was a co-founder of ANACAD (The first startup company in Electronics Design Automation for Analog). Mentor Graphics acquired ANACAD in 1994, where he became the WW AMS Engineering Director as well as ANACAD General Manager. In 1998 he returned to Egypt and got the overall responsibility of Mentor Graphics Egypt as a headquarters to Arab countries and North Africa.
He is currently a Mena Region VP of Siemens EDA (Siemens acquired Mentor Graphics in 2017) under his responsibility include today (plus the Egypt site) a development site in Morocco and Tunisia.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hazem-el-tahawy-976165/

Why we nominate him:
• Electronics Business Guru
In 1995 Egypt operation start with 3 engineers and today after 25 years the overall MENA region is:

• 700 Engineers working in developing advanced technology.
• More than 400 Technical papers and 40 Patents
• The outcome value is worth more than $170 M for the company.

• Youth Education & Talent Development
Starting from 1995 Mentor supported first Egypt University (10 universities) by its tools and technology to empower Electronics design education (Each University bundle worth $2M at that time), this extended to most of university and technical institutes in the MENA region as well as some of African countries, today we have more than 120 university logos.
• Post Graduate Studies
In 1998 first Electronics Design Diploma supporting industry need for capacity of talent engineers to be hired by (Mentor, newly born companies, Governmental Industry bodies) which was the key step towards ITI (Information Technology Institute) success story in empowering capacity building in Electronics Design as well as Embedded Design needs.
• Electronics Market Growth
Mentor under the leadership of Dr. Hazem played crucial role model inspiring entrepreneurs (spinning out form Mentor directly or from the companies already went out from Mentor) to establish their companies and growing the Electronics design companies. From one single company in 1995 to more than 80 companies including the Embedded Design Applications. Examples of success Si-Ware System, Silicon Vision, MemsVision, brightskies and Valeo. Over 3000 engineers are now working in this industry.
• Public – Private Partnership
Driving cooperation with the different Government organization such as Ministry of Communication and Information (ITI, ITIDA, NTI, TIEC and SEEC), Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific research (Universities in different governorates as well as Scientific Research Academy), Ministry of Military Production and Ministry of Education (Vocational training organizations). Dr. Hazem was the
• Regional Activities
Dr. Hazem Extended the cooperation in MENA region with key Industry and governmental partners such as:

• UAE (Dubai Silicon Oasis, Mubadala, Masdar City and Ben Rashid Space Technology Center, Arab Science and Technology Foundation, ICT Fund),
• Saudi Arabia (King Abdelaziz City for Scientific Technology, TAQNIA, PSATRI),
• Qatar (Qatar Technology Foundation),
• Jordan (iPark, JUST, PUST),
• Tunisia (Smart Tunisia, FIPA, FUPA, TELNET),
• Algeria (CTDA, DACTA, Bomare) and
• Morocco (Morocco Electronics Cluster, MED Sourcing, AMICA).

• Social & Voluntary Society work
Being a technology Eco System development partner, Dr. Hazem gave valuable time to work in different civil society associations in Egypt and MENA region such as EITESAL, Morocco Electronics Cluster (MMC), Arab Foundation for Technology Foundation (ASTF), Tunisia Cluster for Microelectronics, Jordan ICT Association (Int@g) and Arab ICT Technology Union.
As entrepreneurship fan he used to lead capacity building of young engineers when participated in establishing EBNI, the incubation arm of EITESAL NGO for Electronics Design and Embedded Development applications.
• Strategy
Dr. Hazem, in his capacity as EITESAL Chairman, lead a team of 27 industry experts & faculty members to draft the first full scale strategy document to develop the Electronics Industry in Egypt targeting the creation of 100 design companies & contributing 6% to Egypt’s GDP. in 2016 the strategy was adopted by the President as a national program which is currently in progress.
• Testimonials

• Without the role of Dr. Hazem, EiTESAL couldn’t have reached its current status as the unique effective ICT industry representative (Dr. M. Shedeed)
• Valeo is currently hiring 1600 Development engineer. The Work done by Dr. Hazem in implementing the extensive academic programs allowed Valeo to find the needed calibers (Eng. Hicham Arafa)
• I have been working with Dr. Hazem for years & my company was spined off Mentor Graphics. Thanks to Mentor school (Dr. Hisham Haddara)

Ntuthuko Shezi, founder and CEO of Livestock Wealth, pioneered the concept of 'crowd-farming' when he launched Livestock Wealth in October 2015.

Livestock Wealth, is a simple method of investing in farming. It presents new investment opportunities for the South African market where you invest your money in agricultural assets as they grow on a farm rather than unit trusts and shares. Through a web and mobile application, potential investors can buy vegetable tunnel gardens, macadamia trees in orchards such as well as cows online. Livestock Wealth has pioneered investment in cows since October 2015 and currently assets valued at over R70 million on behalf of 3000+ local and international investors.

As per Dr Stanley the vision is to build an ICT department that is relevant and agile, deals with issues with urgency with an aim of contributing to a university that is in a ˜digital state, competing internationally". The COVID-19 lockdown forced the Dr and his team to move swiftly in scaling their capacity to provide students with access to the Learning Management System.

The Dr has also established the current ICT operations and the environment has established a Digital Program with clearly identified deliverables. His team has by using AWS has successfully migrated its LMS platform to the cloud, Wits can also ensure that its Sakai LMS environment has high availability and fault-tolerant. This means that even at peak demand, students and lecturers can access Sakai, whereas the previous on-premise solution could not handle peak demands.

The technology under my leadership creates significant value for IoT.nxt. We compete with many local and global IoT providers and our technology is consistently proving to be the key differentiator, which enables us to win local and global business. The technology was also key in the Vodacom acquisition, which led to a significant cash injection of over four hundred million rands from Vodacom, which in turn allows us to build out our technology, establish global offices, and take on bigger projects.

IoT.nxt was established 5 years ago towards the end of 2015, and the company is already valued at several billion rands, which has created a significant return on investment for its shareholders.
In terms of our clients, the IoT.nxt technology enables businesses to implement IoT solutions at a much lower cost than would be possible through using IoT platforms provided from the large cloud hyperscalers (Microsoft, AWS, etc.) since our technology provided a well-integrated, end-to-end IoT platform, that provides a no-code /low-code solution. We are able to, through our patented SDDI technology, integrate with existing equipment which prevents a rip-and-replace approach â€" which is a key differentatior and delivers significant benefit to our clients.

The leadership team at IoT.nxt, myself included, are big supporters of South Africa, believing that we have the people, the talent, and the resilience to compete with the best in the world. We are proud to keep the technology development teams in South Africa and exporting our technology all over the world, which brings capital into South Africa, which we reinvest in our South African business; a win for IoT.nxt is a win for South Africa.

Since its inception in 2006, the director of Siyafunda Community Technology Centre, Mr. Ahmed Ismael, has been an advocate for Digital Skills training in South Africa. Together with his team, he has been at the forefront of ICT skills development training in peri-urban and rural communities of South Africa training thousands of youth, women, and children in various skills and technologies. He has managed to transform the digital landscape in South Africa by establishing numerous community Knowledge Centres (CKC) throughout South Africa enabling him to reach the most remote communities. With the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution, Mr. Ahmed saw the opportunity to develop the first STEM & 4IR centres in peri-urban communities where the core focus was 4IR demystification programs for South Africans. These programs provided communities the opportunity to have the touch and feel of these newer technologies and linking them with opportunities. I believe that Mr. Ahmed has impacted countless lives and continues to do so.

To find out more about him and his organization, feel free to download the organization profile and skills reports from https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq-JiuVB866-i1yy-243cwqEtQN7?e=uN8sm

Tinyiko Simbine, Co-Founder and CFO of GirlCode, and a Mail and Guardian Top 200 South Africans 2020 awardee. Tinyiko has been part of GirlCode's Executive team for 7 years now. An initiative that started off as a hackathon to get more girls excited about tech and has grown to be the largest women in ICT lead organisation in South Africa. GirlCode has grown into a national non-profit organization impacting hundreds of young girls through various initiatives.

Tinyiko has spent the past 7 years managing and growing these initiatives into nationwide, free, volunteer-led, weekend coding clubs designed for females of various ages. Initiatives that aim to equip the girls with a strong foundation in digital literacy and programming skills.

Tinyiko is passionate about empowering young females to pursue careers in ICT and is providing them with the skills to innovate the country's tech industry. She is about fostering a culture of learning among the girls as well as bridging the gender gap in the ICT industry. Her aim is to ensure that the less fortunate aren't left behind in this technologically advanced world.

As a young girl or woman, it is important for you to have role models who look just like you to give you that extra push. When you have people who look just like you, to look up to. Your ability to thrive and succeed increases. Our vision is to create a network of women who are highly skilled in software development and leadership skills who will contribute towards an inclusive and innovative technology industry. We have created a community, a safe space for young girls and women to thrive and survive as well as learn from each other and pay it forward from one generation to another.

One of my proudest moments was when GirlCode partnered with a British tech giant in 2019 and hosted a hackathon, which led to eight participants being offered permanent jobs in the United Kingdom.

I am about creating a legacy that is focused on equipping the youth with the most powerful tool out there, Education. When you educate a woman, you educate a nation. When girls are educated, their countries become more strong and prosperous.

Stanley is the founder of Maxim Nyansa IT Solution an NGO dedicated to create career opportunities for young Africans using information technology. Its programmes have impacted many thousands of school children and young IT professionals from underprivileged families getting them a career in ICT, first in Ghana now in 5 West-African countries. Its new online digital library brings quality study materials to youth all over Africa free of charge. www.maximnyansa.com