Abed Khooli

Abed is a physicist by education and an ICT specialist by practice. He is currently working in the data for development field (infrastructure, policies and regulations, ethics, digital transformation, research, and development). Over the past few years, he worked with the Palestinian national committee for open government data to draft the national open data policy and set up the open data platform (opendata.ps). Recently, he led the MENA research for the Global Data Barometer (released in May 2022). He also conducted a research study on mapping the data economy in the MENA region, covering the ecosystem and stakeholders in 12 countries. He was the lead researcher in the data for the development multi-partner project funded by IDRC through Birzeit University’s Center for Continuing Education. Abed was also a researcher and country reviewer for the Open Data Barometer – 2016 edition. Data journalism and data science are part of Abed’s current interests. He participated in local capacity-building programs and contributed to the body of knowledge as a community participant, especially in Arabic language modeling (NLP), data visualization, and data mapping. He is an active policy, education reform advocate, and ICT community member. During the private sector data actions mapping, Abed was assisted by Alaa Abu Ghoush, Qusai Suwan, Hashem Elasaad, Hatem Ben Yacoub, and Fatma Mosaad.