Dr. Ahmed Imran

National Canter for Information Systems Research (NCISR) College of Business and Economics Australian National University , Canberra Australia . Email: ahmed.imran@anu.edu.au

Ahmed Imran is an Information System (IS) researcher and practitioner whose research interest largely emerged from his personal experience. This includes ICT adoption in the public sector, E-Government and ICT in developing countries. His PhD research aims to gain an in-depth understanding of impediments and the associated issues related to ICT adoption in public sectors within a LDC environment.

Imran has come from a defence background and was commissioned in the Corps of Signals of the Bangladesh Army in Dec 1987. He has experience in command, management, and teaching faculty while in army. His special skill and interest in Information Technology has led to a range of challenging experiences which include serving as a Staff Officer in the Military Secretary's Branch at Army Headquarters and Staff Officer (Personnel) in UNIKOM HQs (United Nations Iraq Kuwait Observer Mission). He also spent 9 years in the IT field, including OIC (Officer in Charge)/ Instructor, Computer Wing of School of Signals and IT Administrator of Defence Services Command and Staff College , Mirpur. During these tenures, he made substantial contributions to the computerisation of the institution and the Bangladesh Army as a whole. Imran retired voluntarily from the Army in 2002 as a Major, to pursue higher studies and to develop his career in the IS field.

Imran obtained a Masters in Information Technology from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) with distinction and attended a number of professional courses at home and abroad. He also obtained a vacation research scholarship from Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) and actively participated on a number of national research projects like E-government Services Uptake for Market Segmentation, IT History of the Australian Government, AJIS Special Issue Study: The State of IS in Australasia, Value from ICT: Key Management Strategies for Australian Organizations, Department of Communications, Commonwealth of Australia etc at the Australian National University (ANU).

Imran is currently working as a Research Associate / Project Administrator of the National Centre of Information System Research ( NCISR ) at ANU. He is also a member of several professional bodies in the IS/ IT field including Australian Computer Society (ACS), Association of Information Systems (AIS) and was elected as Director of Information Management at Association of Pacific Rim Universities Doctoral Students Network (APRU DSN) executive committee. Imran has published his research in the Journal of Business Systems, Governance and Ethics (JBSGE) and presented papers at a number of International conferences including the ICIS DC, the top and prestigious conference in Information Systems. His paper was nominated for best paper award in Australasian Conference for Information Systems (ACIS, 2006).

Very recently part of Imran's research has been accepted for an applied research project by competitive Ausaid Pubic Sector Linkage Program (PSLP) to be implemented in Bangladesh by the Australian National University. This is likely to be a significant contribution for the Bangladesh Public service in terms of capacity building in the eGovernment area.

Imran often writes in various papers on IT and different issues.