General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister, is expected to present the 'e-Achievement Leader' award to Jordan's King Abullah II on October 20.

Previous winners of the award, instituted by Arabian Business magazine, include Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and Jordan's Minister of ICT, Dr. Fawaz Zu'bi.

The other award categories include the 'e-Businessman of the Year', 'e-Entrepreneur of the Year', the -e-Initiative Award' for both the private and public sector and the 'Young e-Achiever Award'.

The panel of judges includes Gilbert Lacroix of Intel, Emre Berkin of Microsoft, Joseph Hanania of Hewlett Packard, Husam Dajani of Oracle, Mubarak bin Fahad of the Dubai World Trade Centre, Samer Shaar of IBM, Ali Baghdadi of Aptec, Steve Lockie of TechData, Ammar Alul of Canon, Michael Collins of Dell, Hani Harik of Emirates Computers and editors of Arabian Business magazine.

King Abdullah's visit to Dubai will also mark a heightened level of co-operation in field of IT.

According to Dr. Zu'bi, "Regional cooperation between Middle East countries is vital if we are to make the most of our ICT opportunities moving forwards.

One area where Jordan is primarily focusing its efforts is education where our need to help a new generation of young Jordanians capitalise on our potential strength in technology has brought forth a number of national ICT education initiatives.

"As a result of this work, Jordanian companies have successfully developed a dynamic e-learning platform and relevant content, which we are hoping to share with other regional governments as well as school boards around the world.

"Jordan would very much like to play a role in enhancing and integrating e-learning on a standard regional platform.

"His Majesty King Abdullah II and Sheikh Mohammed share a vision and share an abiding interest in combining the strengths that exist today in the Middle East so that we may move forwards in a collective rather than individual effort."