The world’s largest software and programme developer, the Microsoft Corporation, has confirmed its Senior Vice President in charge of Corporate Business, Ali Famamwy, will pay a day’s working visit to Ghana on March 4, 2013. Mr Famamwy’s visit will be at the invitation of rlg Communications Limited, the pioneer ICT devices assembler in Africa based in Ghana. While in the country, Mr Famamwy will be the Guest of Honour at the official Sod Cutting Ceremony for the multi-million dollar ICT Park to be known as the Hope City in Accra next month. He will also pay courtesy call on President John Mahama at the Flagstaff House. The Hope City Project is an integrated village with facilities for housing, ICT, recreation, business and much more and is expected to create jobs for about 50,000 people, directly and indirectly. In August last year, Microsoft and rlg signed an agreement which allows rlg phones and computers to run on Microsoft Windows. The influential business magazine Forbes described the rlg-Microsoft deal as a “partnership of the future.” The deal also granted rlg Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) status, making it one of the few such organizations in Africa. “This visit by a very senior official of Microsoft excites us because it reaffirms the growing trust and confidence the international community is reposing in us,” said Roland Agambire, Founder & Chief Executive of rlg Communications Ltd. Mr Famamwy, who is also the President for Microsoft Middle East & Africa (MEA), has a number of responsibilities spanning business strategy and operations. He is a key member of the international leadership team that is responsible for the company’s global strategy, with a particularly visible role amongst the company’s worldwide emerging markets community. He is directly responsible for Microsoft’s operations in MEA, one of thirteen areas that comprise Microsoft’s worldwide operations. The area represents one of Microsoft’s fastest growing and most dynamic markets and is certainly its most diverse. Microsoft MEA operates through 32 offices and covers 79 countries across three continents. Throughout his twenty-year career in the IT industry, Mr Famamwy has held different technical, sales and managerial roles in different parts of the Middle East and in Europe with companies including Dun & Bradstreet Software, NCR Corporation, Yokogawa Marex and finally Microsoft Corporation. Ali joined Microsoft in October 1997 as the General Manager of Microsoft Egypt. After four successful years in that role, he assumed additional responsibilities in the Eastern Mediterranean area, which encompasses Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus & Malta. In May 2002, Ali was named as the Regional Director for Sales, Marketing and Services for a newly consolidated Microsoft Middle East and Africa region. In this role, he led efforts to transform and grow the company’s regional presence with a newly established regional headquarters. In 2004, he was promoted to President of Microsoft Middle East and Africa and in 2011 to Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft Corporation. He graduated from the Faculty of Engineering at Alexandria University, majoring in Computer Science & Automatic Control and has a MBA in Strategic Marketing from the University of Hull in the UK. He is married and has two sons. He loves the IT industry and tendency to empower people and transform industries. He is passionate about the future of people in emerging markets. He also enjoys music, reading and the occasional round of golf.