Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi (Persian: محمدجواد آذری جهرمی‎; born 16 September 1982) is an Iranian politician and the Minister of Information and Communications Technology in the administration of President Hassan Rouhani. He is currently the youngest member of the cabinet of Iran, as well as the first Iranian minister born after the Iranian Revolution. Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi was born in city of Jahrom^[1], southern province of Fars in Iran and was raised in a poor family. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, his 16-year-old brother was martyred. He’s got BSc in Electrical Engineering from Water & Power Industry University in Tehran where he met his future wife. He’s got three sons, Sina, Mohammad and Ali.

He is in constant and direct contact with Iranian social media users and active in sharing the photos of his private life, the uncommon thing among Iranian politicians.^[2] He is currently the youngest member of the cabinet of Iran, as well as the first Iranian minister born after the Iranian Revolution.^[3]

For Azari Jahromi, Instagram and the banned Twitter are two Platforms to reach out to local and global audiences. He has clearly stated that he does not believe in putting limitation on social media and he is the one that trying to starts initiatives for unblocking social media like twitter and websites such as Youtube.^[4]

Career

Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, worked at technical department of intelligence and security ministry from 2002 to 2009. His main job was in cybersecurity field and protecting digital infrastructures. Since 2009 to 2014, he was the general manager of security department at the communication regulatory authority.^[5] He then became vice minister of information and communication technology from 2016 to 2017. He has appointed as non-executive member of the board of director at RighTel Company between 2014 and 2016. Azari Jahromi also, is head of two joint ICT commissions of I.R. Iran and Russian Federation and Iraq. He is active partner in initiating regional ICT market with his Russian, Turkish and Azerbaijani counterparts.^[6]

Since the time that he became Minister of ICT, he was active in supporting startups, and entrepreneurs and was criticizing filtering, specially filtering of social media. Within Iranian social media, he is famous as “Minister of Startups”. During his early ministry, many startups, i.e., Snapp and Tap30, and other players of digital ecosystems started their business and with his support, they flourished very quickly.^[7]

Without any doubts, Azari Jahromi was the minister that initiated the first paces of platform economy in Iran. Beside these activities, in the July 2018, Azari Jahromi was the first minister who disclosed the list of companies that were getting advantage of importing cell phones with economic rents and subsidies but selling phones in free market.^[8] This is the reason that he always is committed to transparency in economic transaction of his ministry that is why he oppose the value added business of telecom operators and content providers due to unclear transactions between people and them.^[9]

Due to those decisive actions, he was the regular target of Hard-liners, but he chose to have ties with people of the society rather than power camps. With distancing himself from both Reformist and Conservative camps, he is trying to be pragmatic and socially motivated.^[10]

Azari Jahromi, appointed several young vice ministers and general managers in ICT ministry and could transformed the whole ministry of ICT from merely being internet provider to driving force of technological, Social, economic and Aerospace progress.

References