Founding Team

Dr. Hassan Sawaf

Founding Scientific Director

Chair, Advisory Council

Dr. Hassan Sawaf is an internationally recognized scientist and entrepreneur with over three decades of leadership in Artificial Intelligence, specializing in Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, and Speech Technologies. He has held senior scientific and executive roles at Meta (Facebook AI), Amazon Web Services, eBay, and Leidos (SAIC). He holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning from RWTH Aachen University and is an inventor and author with more than 60 patents and publications. At SAIF, he leads the foundation's scientific direction and chairs the Advisory Council, guiding applied AI research, evaluation, and long-term technical capability rooted in regional linguistic and cultural realities.

Samer Hamwi

Founding Executive Director

Samer Hamwi is a technology executive and institutional strategist with more than twenty years of leadership experience across financial services, fintech, healthcare interoperability, and enterprise digital transformation in the Levant, Arabic-speaking world, and the United States. He previously served as Group Chief Information Officer at SHUAA Capital, leading governance-aligned technology strategy across large-scale financial infrastructure. As Founder and Managing Director of Globatech (DIFC), he advises organizations on governance-aligned digital infrastructure and responsible AI integration. At SAIF, he leads institutional strategy and long-term systems positioning for applied AI capability in Syria, regionally relevant collaboration across the Levant, and open contribution to more representative Arabic and global AI.

Mohamad Sharara

Founding Infrastructure Lead

Mohamad Sharara leads infrastructure planning and cloud systems design across SAIF's technical programs. His work focuses on architecture reliability, deployment pathways, and operational continuity required for long-term national AI infrastructure. He supports technical execution models that connect engineering discipline with practical delivery constraints in Syria, practical interoperability across Levant contexts, and collaboration with more representative Arabic and global AI. Within SAIF's founding structure, he coordinates infrastructure decisions with data, evaluation, and governance requirements to ensure that core systems are maintainable, auditable, and aligned with institutional public-interest objectives.

Kamal Al Mounajed

Founding Strategy Lead

Kamal Al Mounajed leads strategic alignment across SAIF's institutional roadmap, helping connect long-term institutional priorities with executable program design. His role emphasizes policy coherence, implementation sequencing, and organizational coordination across technical and partnership tracks. He contributes to translating strategic objectives into governance-aware planning, ensuring that SAIF's work remains consistent with institutional accountability and public-interest outcomes. Within the founding team, he supports cross-functional decision frameworks that strengthen continuity, prioritization, and disciplined growth of the foundation's AI infrastructure agenda.

Abdallah Najjar

Founding Programs Lead

Abdallah Najjar leads program structuring and delivery coordination across SAIF initiatives. He focuses on translating institutional priorities into practical workstreams with clear milestones, accountability points, and documentation standards. His scope includes aligning contributor pathways, operational planning, and cross-team execution to maintain consistency between policy intent and technical delivery. Within the founding team, he supports program governance practices that enable measurable progress, transparent reporting, and stable long-term implementation capacity for Syria's AI infrastructure development agenda.

Roula Alajeh

Founding Institutional Partner

Roula Alajeh contributes to SAIF as a founding institutional partner through ecosystem integration pathways linked to Bareeq Foundation. Her role supports structured hosting capacity, beneficiary access channels, and training enablement that expand inclusive participation in SAIF programs. She also helps coordinate incubation pathways that connect community-facing implementation with institutional standards and measurable outcomes. Within the founding framework, her contribution strengthens the interface between technical program delivery and education-development infrastructure needed for long-term capability building.

Radwan Iskenderani

Treasurer

Finance Lead

Radwan Iskenderani leads SAIF's finance function, with responsibility for financial planning, budgeting, controls, reporting discipline, and operational sustainability. His work supports the governance structures needed for a serious institution operating across research, programs, partnerships, and long-term capability-building. At SAIF, Radwan helps build the foundation's financial operating model, aligning day-to-day resource management with transparency, accountability, and responsible institutional growth. His contribution strengthens SAIF's ability to sustain its work, support partner confidence, and manage resources in service of applied AI capability from Syria and the Levant.