Digital Transformation in Higher Education: A Holistic Strategy beyond the Digital Learning Nexus

BIOGRAPHY: Mahmoud holds BSc, MSc, and PhD in electrical, control and systems engineering, as well as, post-doctoral professional training in strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship. He completed his graduate studies in Germany, Sweden, and the UK. Mahmoud’s professional and scholarly expertise is in Innovation and Strategic Development, mainly in the higher education industry. His multidisciplinary publications spans over areas of engineering education, innovation, digital transformation, entrepreneurship, leadership, pedagogy, organizational development, knowledge based economy, and applied systems theory, with current 900+ google scholar citations.

Mahmoud expertise in exploiting innovation-based systems control and process engineering methods, into strategic development and education processes and organizational design (e.g. ENGINEERING the Education) is relatively unique, and he is among few globally experts in this area. These translational methods enable effective, accelerated, goal oriented, and systematic outputs. 

In scholarship, Mahmoud has ranked among top 50 scholars globally in the field of Engineering Education Research (EER) in terms of indexed publications number in Scopus (in the five years period 2012 till 2017).He published 4 Springer books (2 edited, and 2 authored of which one is upcoming), 5 book chapters, 60+ peer-reviewed conference and journal articles, and developed 40+ institutional report/framework or strategy. He attained several industry funds, academic recognitions/awards, and best papers distinctions from various organizations, as well as fellowships from University of Technology Sydney, University Science Malaysia, and from USA Department of State.

Mahmoud joined Qatar University in Fall 2011 as joint faculty between college of engineering and college of education, and progressed in innovation advisory and strategic development assignments with Engineering Dean’s Office, the Vice President and Chief Academic Officer Office, and the President Office, where he is currently Director of Strategic Initiatives Office and Associate Professor of Engineering. In his latest professional capacity, Mahmoud had a leading core technical role in QU 2022 transformation strategy development through refinement & integration of seven composing strategies, and technically shaping five of them (3 core, and 2 enabling). Mahmoud’s professional orientation is proactive, collaborative, systematic, and geared towards large-scale high impact sustainable developments.