Welcome to Amjad Umar's Personal Web Site.

On this website you will find the following information:

- Research and development projects I am currently involved in

- My current, future, and past books.

- Course materials (course outlines, presentation slides, project assignments) based on university and industrial courses that have been taught from these books

- Information about other matters based on requests                                               

My Brief Background   

  • Current Industry Assignment: Founder/CEO of a startup company that specializes in business and technical aspects of next generation enterprises. Leading long-range projects with global corporations and industrial research in computer aided consulting.  
  • Current Academic Assignment: Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania (teaching graduate level courses in wireless communications, and Web technologies & architectures). 
  • Other Current Assignments: Fulbright Senior Specialist on ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) with the US Council of International Exchange of Scholars and a Senior Technical Advisor to the United Nations initiative on ‘ICT for Developing Countries’.
  • Previously: Director of  eBusiness and Distributed Systems at  Bellcore (part of the Bell Labs system, now known as Telcordia Technologies) for 10 years. Supervised large scale projects in enterprise architectures and integration, mobile computing, information security, and distributed systems.
  • Academic Assignments: University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, Fordham Graduate School of Business, Peking University
  • Industry Experience: Senior management/consulting assignments with  global telecom organizations, US Department of Navy, US Army Research Labs, Frost and Sullivan (England), Toyota Corp., Society of Manufacturing Engineers, manufacturing organizations, and professional services organizations in England, Singapore, China, Italy, and Canada.
  • Publications: Author of more than 60 research papers and six books on different aspects of distributed systems, ebusiness, security and wireless communications.
  • Awards: Faculty Award from IBM, Fulbright Senior Specialist Award from the US Council of International Exchange of Scholars, Distinguished Faculty Award from the University of Michigan, Best Adjunct Faculty Award from Fordham, and Outstanding Performance Awards from Bellcore.
  • Education: M.S. in Computer and Communication Engineering and Ph.D. in Information Systems Engineering, both from the University of Michigan.
  • Email: umar@amjadumar.com.

My Recent Research Projects

Next Generation Enterprises (NGEs): I am actively conducting research on the business and technical aspects of NGEs. My main focus is on IT planning, integration, security and administration of NGEs and what type of decision support models and patterns are needed for such enterprises. More …

Computer Aided Consulting. I am actively working on delivering consulting services by using Software as a Service (SaaS) model, especially for small to medium businesses (SMBs). Result of this work is the following two products (more are under development): 

§                   PISA (Planning, Integration, Security and Administration): The main purpose of this project, being collaborated through a startup, is to help the IT managers and planners make decisions regarding planning of new systems, integration of new systems with existing ones by using SOA, securing the IT assets, and administrating the resulting complex IT systems. This project was initiated based on the lessons learned from first hand experience of working on 50+ IT planning, integration and security assignments. The project has produced a working toolset (PISA Environment) that can be used by SMBs and as a  teaching tool by IS instructors.  More …

§                   GEZA (Global Enterprise Zone for All): Geza is a comprehensive portal to support entrepreneurship for developing and developed countries. It provides a set of integrated services (e.g., knowledge services, SMB Yellow Pages, IT Solutions,  outsourcing center, and discussion forum) for SMBs of developing plus developed countries.  More …  

§                   Pattern Repository for Industry Segments (PARIS): The main purpose of this recent project is to develop a comprehensive repository of industry patterns. This repository provides a system approach to learning about different industry segments and contains business process patterns and enterprise application patterns from 20 industry segments. PARIS currently supports PISA and GEZA but is now evolving as a standalone tools that can be used for corporate training, business games and business simulations.

 

My Books

Recent and Upcoming Books (click here for more details)

·   “Enterprise Architectures and Integration Using SOA”, NGE Slutions

·   “Mobile Computing and Wireless Communications”, NGE Solutions, 

·   “Information Security and Auditing in the Digital Age”, NGE Solutions, 

·   “Third Generation Distributed Computing Environments”, NGE Solutions

·   “e-Business and Distributed Systems Handbook”, NGE Solutions

 

Previous Books (Oldies but Goodies)

·   "Distributed Computing and Client/Server Systems", Prentice Hall, 1993.

·   "Object-Oriented Client/Server Internet Environments" Prentice Hall, February 1997.

·   "Application (Re)Engineering: Building Web-based Applications and Dealing with Legacies", Prentice Hall, May 1997.

 

Note: All these books are available through Amazon and other booksellers.

University Courses Taught (Recent and Frequent)

·        Web Technologies, Web Services, and SOA (Univ. of Pennsylvania). Every Fall since 2000  

·        Mobile computing and wireless communications  (Univ of Pennsylvania)- Every spring, since 2000

·        Information Security, Privacy and Controls for Managers (MBA Course, Fordham Grad School of Business) – 2003-2008

·        IT for Business (MBA Course, Fordham Grad School of Business) – 2003-2008

·        Enterprise Architectures & Integration (Fordham Grad School of Business) – 2003-2008

·        eBusiness Strategies & Technologies  (Fordham Schools of Business) – 2003-2008

·        Information Systems Analysis,  Design, and Management: Taught at Fordham Grad School of Business (since 2004-2007), Rutgers School of Business (1998-2003), University of Michigan- School of Engg and School of Business (1984-1989) 

·        Decision Support and Expert Systems, Data Mining: Fordham Grad School of Business (1996-2000), Rutgers School of Business (2000-2002)

·        Distributed computing/distributed systems: University of Michigan (School of Business plus Engineering), Stevens Institute of Technology (School of Management), Fordham (School of Business) – have taught variations of this course since 1984 at graduate level (almost 10 times)

·        Communication networks:  University of Michigan (school of Business plus Engineering), Stevens Institute of Technology (School of Management), Fordham (School of Business) – have taught variations of this course since 1984 at graduate level (almost 20 times)