Producing the Public in Arab Societies: Participation Working Group

Ahmad Gharbeia: Digital Empowerment: Mapping for Localities

Ahmad Gharbeia graduated with a BA in Business Administration, then obtained a MSc. in Business Information Technology in 2003. He occupied ICT-management roles in corporations before deciding to return to innocence, concentrating on grassroot initiatives, and has since been helping anyone with a cause to make the best out of information technology and the Internet. He likes to think that his work has contributed to the inciting of a revolution.

Ahmad is concerned with issues of archival preservation of digital artefacts, and digitization of knowledge products in traditional media, and interested in generative art; all the time advocating free licensing of content, FOSS, and open formats and standards. All of which are the issues that keep him busy in the Arab Digital Expression Foundation,which he joined since its establishment in 2011. 

On his blog, which he's kept since 2003, Ahmad contemplates the subjects of technical writing in Arabic, and the technicalities of using Arabic in the modern age, as well as an assortment of seemingly chaotic interests and occupations; among which are the environment, political and civil liberties, openness and governance of the Internet, and issues of privacy and security in the digital realm, on which he sometimes provides training for activists, journalists and whomever is interested.

A hobbyist-linguist with a passion for maps, he originally wanted to be an anthropologist, and still maintains a childhood dream of becoming an astronaut.

More about what's keeping him busy at the moment can be found at http://ahmad.gharbeia.org.