Baher Esmat is part of the Global Stakeholder Engagement team of ICANN, serving as a Regional Vice President in the Middle East. In this role, Baher promotes and supports the development of the domain name industry and capacity‐building initiatives in the Middle East. He joined ICANN in 2006 after a four-year tenure at the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, where he played a role in the nation’s efforts to build an information society. He served in various positions at MCIT, most recently as Telecom Planning Manager, and he was responsible for communications infrastructure and service development projects. Between 1993 and 1999, Baher was part of the team at IDSC/RITSEC that built the first Internet point of presence in Egypt. In 1999 he joined Newbridge Networks as a Systems Consultant and served for three years.
Baher is a former member of the WSIS Working Group on Internet Governance, and served as Chair of the Egyptian IPv6 Task Force until he joined ICANN. He is also a Board member of Egypt ISOC Chapter. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Cairo University in June 1993, and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the American University in Cairo in June 1999.