Speaker Biographies

Karim Kawar presented his credentials to U.S. President George Bush at the White House on September 25, 2002 and a copy to the Department of State on July 24, 2002. He was appointed Ambassador of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the United States of America and the Republic of Mexico on July 1st, 2002.

Mr. Kawar is one of the youngest of Jordan’s Ambassadors, who has a well established reputation as a prominent leader in developing Jordan’s Information and Communications Technology sector. Mr. Kawar contributed significantly to the economic development of the country and participated in developing "Jordan Vision 2020", an ambitious initiative that aims to achieve a clearly stated private sector-driven economic strategy to aggressively guide Jordan into the 21st Century. Mr. Kawar’s vision for developing Jordan’s productive capacity and human resources in the age of information technology has offered an important model and endless opportunities for Jordanian youth and businessmen.

Mr. Kawar grew up in Amman, Jordan. He graduated from Boston College, MA, in 1987 with a B.Sc. in management, finance and computer science. At the age of twenty, Mr. Kawar established his first company and headed an umbrella group that encompassed ten information systems and software companies.

Mr. Kawar was appointed in 1999 as a member of the Economic Consultative Council, by His Majesty King Abdullah II. The Economic Consultative Council was the first 21 member body that included public and private sector leaders established to advise the Monarch on economic issues. Mr. Kawar served as a member of several Consultative Council task forces on Investment, eGovernment, Public Sector Reform as well as Computer and English Education.

As a pioneer in Jordan’s technology and business sector, Mr. Kawar contributed largely to the development of Information Technology (IT) in the Kingdom. In 1999, Mr. Kawar applied his experience and savoir-faire to lead a team of 40 Jordanian IT professionals under the REACH Initiative. The team worked to develop a strategy to launch the IT industry in Jordan. Mr. Kawar also served as Chairman of the Information Technology Association of Jordan (INTAJ).

Mr. Kawar was selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum and was also selected as an Eisenhower Fellow for the year 2000. He is a founding member of several business associations and NGO’s among which are the Jordan American Business Association (JABA), the Young Entrepreneurs Association (YEA) and the Jordanian Intellectual Property Association (JIPA). He is also a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). He served as Vice Chair of the Jordan River Foundation, chaired by Her Majesty Queen Rania. The foundation empowers women through its income-generating projects, business development services for micro-entrepreneurs as well as preventing child abuse. Mr. Kawar also served as the Network Coordinator of the UN ICT Task Force – Arab Regional Network.

Mr. Kawar is dedicated to advancing US-Jordanian relations through enhanced economic and cultural exchanges. Mr. Kawar aims to promote Jordan as a high-tech center in the Middle East and an investment hub by sharing his vision of Jordan’s potential and the capacity of its people with business leaders and public officials in the United States of America. Mr. Kawar believes in the importance of the strong relationship of partnership between the United States and Jordan in the pursuit of this vision.

Moreover, Mr. Kawar is committed to work closely and intensively with U.S. officials on issues of regional concerns, particularly in advancing the peace process in the region. This can only be done by working towards bringing an end to current violence and at the same time, advancing the political process necessary for the establishment of a Palestinian state and the achievement of a comprehensive peace settlement within the framework of the Arab Peace Initiative adapted on the Beirut Summit in March 2002.

Mr. Kawar is married to Luma and has one son, Faisal, and two daughters, Abla and Alia.

Catherine Novelli
Assistant U. S. Trade Representative for Europe & the Mediterranean

Catherine A. Novelli coordinates U.S. trade policy for Western Europe, Central Europe, Russia, the NIS, the Middle East and Northern Africa. One of USTR's most senior trade negotiators, Ms. Novelli manages the Trans-Atlantic Economic Partnership (TEP) an ongoing program that has helped open up trade between the United States and the European Union.

Ms. Novelli is managing the initiative to create a U.S.- Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA). She led the free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with Jordan, Morocco and Bahrain. She chairs Trade and Investment Framework Councils with a number of countries in the region, including Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, United Arab Emerates, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria, and is working on other broad-based trade initiatives to help bring peace and prosperity to the region.

Ms. Novelli co-chairs the Russia Economic Policy Group within the Administration, which sets the U.S. government's policy agenda for our trade and investment relationship with Russia. She also secured agreements that allow U.S. goods to compete in Central Europe, as these countries move closer to enlargement with the European Union.

Prior to assuming her current position, Ms. Novelli was the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia where she played a key role in the formation of U.S. trade policy for Russia and Central Europe. She joined USTR in 1991 after serving in the Office of General Counsel at the Department of Commerce.

"I enjoy helping to lay the foundation for improving the lives of people in the countries that I oversee," says Ms. Novelli. "I believe that trade leads to greater economic development which gives people more choices and more opportunities."

Ms. Novelli is married and has two children.

Michael P. Ryan, Ph.D.
Senior Consultant, International Intellectual Property Institute
Associate Professor, Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Professor Michael P. Ryan began assisting the Jordanian economic reform effort in 1998 when he was asked by USAID to draft new patent and plant variety protection laws in support of its accession to the World Trade Organization. In the years since he has lectured frequently in Jordan regarding intellectual property and technology policy and management, e.g., at the invitation of the Higher Council for Science and Technology and the Royal Scientific Society at its technology entrepreneurship conference and at the invitation of the Young Entrepreneurs Association at its annual conference. In cooperation with USAID-AMIR, the US Patent and Trademark Office, and the International Intellectual Property Institute (Washington, DC) he established and has lectured at the annual King Abdullah II Intellectual Property Week conference. The IP Week conference involves the software, info tech, pharmaceutical, and bio-medical business communities, university researchers, government policymakers and public administrators, and judges who settle intellectual property-based commercial disputes. During 2003-4 Professor Ryan, funded by USAID-AMIR and the Washington-based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, is with a colleague assessing Jordan's pharmaceutical and bio-medical institutional infrastructure (law, regulation and public administration, business strategy, university research) in cooperation with the Jordan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and Jordan Intellectual Property Association. The report was released in August 2004 at a conference under the patronage of the His Majesty King Abdullah II. In 2003 he lectured members of the Ministry of Economics, Palestinian Authority, in Ramallah, West Bank, under auspices of USAID. He, USAID, and the local authorities have designed an intellectual property policy and economic reform program that will be carried out when security and diplomatic circumstances permit.

Professor Ryan, an associate research professor of policy and ethics at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, and Senior Consultant and member of the International Advisory Board of the International Intellectual Property Institute, is advising and lecturing Thailand's business, government, university, and judicial communities in order to assist with their national bio-medical strategy. He has lectured business and policy communities in Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Croatia, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, and Singapore. His Intellectual Property Rules! Trade Secrets, Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks in the World Economy will be published in fall 2004; his co-authored (with Paul Almeida) Knowledge Strategy: Technology, Intellectual Property, and Organization in the World Economy will be published in 2005 as will his Knowledge Ethics: Intellectual Property and Social Responsibilities in the World Economy. He is the author of Knowledge Diplomacy: Global Competition and the Politics of Intellectual Property (1998) and Playing by the Rules: American Trade Power and Diplomacy in the Pacific (1995). He holds a PhD in political science with concentrations in international political economy, organization, and law from the University of Michigan, holds a master's degree in philosophy from Ohio State University, and previously served on the faculty of the Michigan Business School.