The workshop will have speakers from different parts of the world, working for different prestigious organizations, in the field of innovation, intellectual property management and technology licensing.

Dr. M. A. Hawwa has been with Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering departments at KFUPM, since 2003. He received his Ph.D. degree in Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics in 1990, from the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH. During 1996-02, he gained industrial experience with Seagate Technology and Read-Rite (now, within Western Digital Corporation), where he conducted R&D work in the areas of disk drive mechanics and control, piezoelectric and micro-electromechanical actuation. From 1991 to 1996, he worked with the University of Jordan, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA. During the above period, he carried out research in the areas of vibration, acoustics control, and wave propagation interactions. Dr. Hawwa is the author or coauthor of around 30 publications and received more than 20 US patents.

Dr. Mohammed Al-Ansari is the director of Engineering Services Technology Program and the administrator of Intellectual Assets Management, Saudi Aramco. Dr. Al-Ansari holds a PhD in Intellectual Asset Management. Dr. Al-Ansari also assumes different positions including the Vice-President of ‘Licensing Executives Society - Arab Countries (LES-AC)’ and the Chairman of Chemistry, Environment & Energy Committee with the Licensing Executives Society International (CEE-LESI).  Dr. Al-Ansari also holds a Board membership within Saudi Aramco Corporate Innovation Committee. He has published and presented hundreds of articles, papers and presentations at various national & international events.

Professor Kamal Youcef-Toumi joined the MIT Mechanical Engineering Department faculty in January 1986 as an Assistant Professor. He earned his advanced degrees (M.S. 1981 and Sc.D. 1985) in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. Professor Youcef-Toumi's research has focused primarily on design, control theory and its applications to dynamic systems. He has served as a consultant for several companies including AT&T Bell Laboratories, EDO Corporation, Varian Radiation Division, Gillette Corp., Delta Search Laboratories, Jentek Sensors and Mitsubishi Electric. He is the author of over 150 publications, and holds nine patents. Youcef-Toumi has been an invited lecturer at over 120 seminars at companies and universities throughout the world.

Mr. Bart Huthwaite, Sr. is a world renowned expert in innovation leadership.   He is a powerful, creative speaker who champions Innovation Leadership at management meetings worldwide.  Huthwaite is the founder of the Huthwaite Innovation Institute and the thought leader in the emerging business process known as “Systematic Innovation.” He is also the developer of the “Innovation CUBE®”, a “hands on” protocol for making the day-to-day practice of innovation understandable, repeatable and very importantly, measurable. Huthwaite has mentored managers and teams in enterprise innovation worldwide at more than 1000 companies over the past 25 years. Huthwaite’s corporate innovation tools and techniques are now being used to develop products & processes as well as transactional systems and business models. His latest book is the “Rules of Innovation”, published in 2007.

Dr. William M. Sackinger received his PhD from Cornell University, U.S., 1969 (Major in Electrical Engineering). He is currently involved in University of Alaska, as emeritus faculty in Geophysics and Electrical Engineering (1996-present), affiliate professor of Petroleum Engineering (2007-present), and visiting lecturer on Intellectual Property (1995-present). He was the Director of Intellectual Property and Licensing, at University of Alaska during 1989-1995. During 1970-1995, he was a faculty member in Geophysics and Electrical Engineering, at University of Alaska. In 1973, he was named "Engineer of the Year - Electrical" in Alaska. Dr. William has been a consultant to over thirty organizations. He has more than 210 publications and papers to his credit. He has been granted eight patents.

Mr. Jack Turner a graduate from M.I.T. (Electrical Engineering) is currently the Associate Director at M.I.T Technology Licensing Office (TLO). He joined TLO in February of 1993 after working for more than twenty-five years in engineering and senior management positions. The TLO manages the intellectual property belonging to M.I.T. Jack is member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Society of Automotive Engineers, the Licensing Executive Society, and the Association of University Technology Managers.

Dr. David Myers is Vice President of RTI International's Engineering and Technology Unit, which provides research, engineering, and technology development services to government and commercial clients in the areas of energy, electronics, and biomedical engineering.  The group is also responsible for technology commercialization at RTI.  Previously, Dr. Myers spent 16 years with W. R. Grace & Company where he was focused on new product development and building external research collaborations. Dr. Myers has SB and SM degrees in chemical engineering from MIT and a PhD in chemical engineering from Princeton University.  He holds 16 US patents. 

Professor Professor David Wallace joined the MIT Mechanical Engineering faculty in 1994 and is the director of the MIT Computer-aided Design Laboratory. He has a background in both industrial design and mechanical engineering. He teaches graduate and undergraduate product design courses that centre around designing and prototyping innovative products. Professor Wallace has over 10 years of experience teaching innovative product development and executing product development projects. His research has developed new computational design tools for predicting the integrated behavior of large-scale systems using heterogeneous simulations. His current research focuses on understanding creative processes and developing idea generation techniques.

He has received several teaching awards and is a MacVicar faculty fellow, the highest teaching honour at MIT.  He has also been the content director, design challenge director, and animation designer for an award-winning  television program, called Design Squad, that was intended to motivate and inspire youths to pursue technical innovation career paths.