Shaikha May has more than 16 years of experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and computer operations. She is appointed as the Director of Geographical Information Systems. She began her career in 2006 as a computer specialist at the Computer Operations Directorate, she was promoted in 2013 to computer analyst at the GIS Directorate. In 2015, she was appointed Head of the data development group in the same directorate, becoming Chief of GIS Processes Analysis in 2019.
During her time at the iGA, Dr. Shaikha May supervised a range of corporate and national projects that involved innovative restructurings of operations at government entities and the development of geographical systems to support their services, most notably the Building Permit Portal, Benayat, Planning for urban planning services, Sijilat and the infrastructure permit system, Tasareeh.
Dr. Shaikha May participated in several committees and task forces such as CIO’s Corporate Excellence team, the Government Procedures Restructuring team under the umbrella of the National Committee for Geospatial Information Governance, and the National Biodiversity Clearing-House Mechanism Committee, which is part of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, in addition to several internal committees in iGA.
She represented iGA at various local and international events, including the annual GIS Day celebration, and represented the Kingdom of Bahrain at the meeting of the Arab Committee of United Nations Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM).
Dr. Shaikha May holds a PhD in Innovation Management from Arabian Gulf University (2021) and a Master’s in Information, Network, and Computer Security from the New York Institute of Technology (2013). She also holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from the University of Bahrain, an ITIL certificate in Information Technology Service Management (2018), and a certified Ethical Hacker degree CEH V6 (2010).