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Under the patronage of His Excellency Prof. Abdelhamid Djekoun / President of Mentouri University of Constantine (UMC)  and chaired by Prof. Mohamed-Khireddine Kholladi / Conference Program Chair and Chairman of the Computer Science Department at UMC, the opening session for the International Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT’2004) was inaugurated at 09:30 AM on December 12, 2004. The attendance included Dr. Emad Abuelrub / ACIT Secretary General, Prof. Mohammed Helmi Mahran / Secretary General of the Colleges of Computers and Information Society (CCIS), and over 300 participants including guests, specialists, and researchers.

Prof. Abdelhamid Djekoun / President of UMC delivered his speech, where he welcomed all participants, wishing them a pleasant and a happy stay in Algeria. Then he talked about the importance of information technology and how it differs from previous technologies in affecting every body all over the world. He also stressed the importance of information technology and how it deals with all elements of the human society by producing new eras of science. He also pointed out that the good use of this technology will lead toward an information development movement and will shrink the digital gap all over the world.

After that, Dr. Emad Abuelrub / ACIT Secretary General clarified in his talk the idea of this conference since it started five years ago until this meeting. He pointed out that ACIT is an international, scientific, refereed, and specialized conference in information technology that is held annually in one of the Arab universities. Then he added that ACIT is the official conference of CCIS, stemming from the Association of Arab Universities. It is supervised by an international steering committee and has a General Secretariat that is hosted by Zarqa Private University, Jordan. He concluded his talk by thanking Mentouri University of Constantine (the host of ACIT’2004), its President Prof. Abdelhamid Djekoun, Prof. Mohamed-Khireddine Kholladi / Conference Program Chair, and all the team at UMC who worked hard to make ACIT’2004 a successful conference. 

Then, Prof. Mohammed Helmi Mahran / CCIS Secretary General talked about the role and importance of CCIS. Also, he talked about the activities of this society. Finally, he concluded by thanking UMC for all the efforts they spent in preparing for the conference and for the nice hospitality. 

Prof. Mohamed-Khireddine Kholladi / ACIT'2004 Program Chair concluded the opening session with a speech in which he welcomed conference participants and guests. He briefed the participants with the main areas of the conference and with the percentage of accepted and rejected papers. He concluded his speech thanking UMC for its role in providing all the means for the success of this conference and wishing participants a pleasant stay in Algeria.

Participants

The number of papers accepted was 92 papers from 22 different countries out of 242 papers submitted. The acceptance rate was 38% and number of accepted posters was 18.

At the end of the conference, Al-Isra Private University in Jordan was declared as the host for the sixth meeting of the conference (ACIT’2005) that will be held in the first week of December 2005. Other universities who submitted applications to host ACIT’2005 are the Islamic University of Gaza in Palestine, April 7 University in Libya, Assiut University in Egypt, Bahrain University in Bahrain, and Zarqa Private University in Jordan.

The conference participants concluded the closing session by sending a thank you cable to His Excellency Prof. Abdelhamid Djekoun / President of Mentouri University of Constantine, expressing all their thanks and appreciation for all the support that made this conference a successful one. The participants are also pleased to express their thanks to Prof. Mohamed-Khireddine Kholladi / Conference Program Chair and the Chairman of the Computer Science Department at UMC, and all members of organizing committees who worked hard to make this conference a reality. The participants also thank the General Secretariat at Zarqa Private University in Jordan and hope that it will continue to hold this scientific conference annually, wishing Mentouri University of Constantine continues progress and prosperity.