Samer M. Taha

CICTR
Department of Electrical Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University

 


Dr. Samer Taha

CEO & Chairman of the Board

Waseela for Integrated Telecommunications Solutions

Samer Taha received his Ph.D. degree from the Pennsylvania State University in Electrical Engineering in 2001 with distinguished performance. Between 1999 and 2001 he was a member of the Center for Information and Communication Technology Research, Pennsylvania, USA where his research work focused on QoS issues in next generation wireless networks. In 2001 he joined Intel Corporation R&D department (www.intel.com) in Oregon, USA and he stayed with Intel till beginning of 2006. While at Intel he was involved in architecting solutions for advanced telecommunications R&D initiatives including wireless mesh, high-throughput WiFi, cross-layer optimization over wireless systems, and QoS enhancements for Mobile WiMAX. He was also involved in the WiMAX Industry Enabling Program that included driving the WiMAX certification specifications at the WiMAX Forum, joint research collaboration with other WiMAX vendors, and supporting WiMAX trials with leading operators. At the beginning of 2006 he joined the startup team of du (Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, www.du.ae) in Dubai-UAE to establish the Broadband Wireless department and lead du’s broadband wireless strategy and roadmap. While heading the broadband wireless department at du he designed and managed the implementation of du’s Public WiFi Network (most feature-rich in the region), du’s Pre-WiMAX Network, and three WiMAX Trial Networks. In addition, he designed du’s planned Nationwide WiMAX Network and architected its broadband wireless strategy. In October 2007, he was elected by the board members of Waseela for Integrated Telecommunications Company to take the position of the CEO; Waseela (www.waseela-net.com) is a regional system integrator specialized in advanced wireless technologies based in AmmanJordan. As the CEO of Waseela, Dr. Taha was able to expand the operations of the company to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. In about 3-year period, Waseela under Dr. Taha’s leadership established itself as a leading system integrator and managed services provider specialized in advanced broadband wireless solutions in the Middle East region. The turnover of the company in 2010 exceeded USD 10 million; during the last few years the company’s operations included major achievements like providing end-to-end managed engineering services for the operation of Mobily’s WiMAX network (KSA) which is one of the largest mobile-WiMAX deployments in the world, operating Dubai’s Metro wireless solution (UAE) which received a global award from Cisco for being one of the most advanced seamless broadband mobility solutions as it combined mobile-WiMAX and WiFi solutions to provide seamless connectivity above the ground and underground for the Dubai-metro passengers, mobile-WiMAX and 3G optimization projects for several operators in the ME region, turnkey network services to operators mainly in Jordan and Iraq in addition to various advanced engineering services to global vendors in the field of broadband wireless deployments. Waseela has also succeeded in securing important strategic partnerships, it is currently the exclusive regional partner of Accuver (www.accuver.com) the leading international supplier of advanced 3G and 4G optimization and benchmarking tools, the exclusive regional distributor of RedLine Communications (www.rdlcom.com) the leading supplier of OFDM-based broadband wireless solutions, the regional partner of Dragon Wave (www.dragonwaveinc.com) the leading supplier of native-IP based Microwave solutions. In addition Waseela has become one of the officially recommended service provider partners of Samsung, Motorola, Nokia Siemens, Huawei, Cisco and Ericsson. Waseela currently (in 2011) has more than 220 employees and is continuing to grow and expand its operations in the Middle East region. At the beginning of 2011 and under the management of Dr. Taha, Waseela started its first R&D efforts in the field of Real-Time-Location-Services based on wireless technologies with the ambition of introducing first practical products in middle of 2012 targeting the sectors of health industry, shopping malls and logistics facilities. In addition to his position as the CEO of Waseela, Dr. Taha currently also provides consultation services to several telecom operators and suppliers in the Middle East region. So far, Dr. Taha has four published patents by the US Patents Office and five patent applications pending approval by the US Patents Office.

 

Education:

 

·         Graduated from The Pennsylvania-State University with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, May 2002.

·         Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering,  Jordan University Of Science and Technology (J.U.S.T) , May 1998.