Dr. Maher Hakim

Dr. Maher Hakim is a sought-out expert and educator in technology innovation and entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship financing, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions in the tech industry.

He has been recently appointed as Managing Director of Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), Qatar’s primary accelerator and incubator for technology development, also part of Qatar Foundation Research and Development (QF R&D). Before assuming his most recent role, Dr. Hakim was an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University Qatar and head of CMUQ-Al Faisal Innovation Entrepreneurship Center. He also serves on the Council of the European Innovation Academy- a non-profit educational institution recognized globally for excellence in tech entrepreneurship education.

Dr. Hakim has about 20 years of experience as a high-tech entrepreneur and a corporate executive in the information technology industry. Between 1994 and 2012, Dr. Hakim lived in the Silicon Valley, founded five technology startup companies, and served in various management and leadership roles at large software companies such as Infor and Autodesk. He was involved in many mergers and acquisitions tech transactions on both sides and participated in taking one company public on the Nasdaq stock market. Dr. Maher Hakim is also a board member, advisor and mentor to several tech start-up companies and is an active angel investor, in addition to being a prolific blog writer on the subjects of innovation and entrepreneurship.

He holds a Ph.D. in Computer-Aided Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University (1993), an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1990), and a BS in Civil Engineering from Damascus University (1987).