Biography
Saad Haj Bakry is Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he has been a member of the academic staff since 1980. He holds a PhD in computer controlled networks from the University of Aston in Birmingham, England; and he is a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK. His current interests include: planning, design and optimization of information networks; corporate IT governance and applications; and the knowledge society of the information age.
In the field of planning, design, and optimization of information networks, Professor Bakry contributed to two major applied research projects supported by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), the central government organization concerned with scientific research in Saudi Arabia. He worked as an investigator in the project concerned with “Planning the Future Expansion of the Saudi Telecommunications Network (1984-1989)”; and he worked as the principle investigator of the project concerned with “Planning the Future Expansion of GULFNET (1991-1996)”, the first information network connecting Saudi Arabia to the Gulf Countries, BITNET, and the Internet.
Professor Bakry contributed to a number projects concerned with science and technology planning for national development. He has been an investigator and consultant to KACST science and technology national planning projects since 1996; and he also contributed to UNDP projects in Saudi Arabia. In addition, he was a member of the Saudi Computer Society (SCS) team who produced the “Saudi National Computer Plan (2002-2004)”; and he was also a member of a team concerned with the development of the future "Saudi National Plan for Higher Education".
Professor Bakry supervised many academic research projects, both at the MSc and the PhD levels. His publications include eight books and over 200 papers. His most recent book was on "Transformation to the Knowledge Society", published in Arabic, in 2006, by King Abdulaziz Pubic Library, in its refereed books series. His recent papers were concerned with: e-readiness assessment; development of e-government, ERP systems as integral parts of business networks; information security policies and international standards for Intranets; design of Internet backbone networks; costs and benefits analysis of networks their replacement; development and application of IT governance requirements, in addition to various other issues. These publications are based on a common investigation approach, known as Bakry's STOPE, which provides a comprehensive base, for the factors involved in the addressed problems, structured into the five main domains of: Strategy, Technology, Organization, People, and Environment.
Professor Bakry is currently on the editorial board of four refereed journals: the International Journal of Network Management (Wiley Inter-Science), Asian Journal of Information Management (Academic Journals), Applied Computing and Informatics Journal (Saudi Computer Society), and the Business Process Management Journal (Emerald).