STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
In Cambodia, a lower middle-income country (LMIC) in South-East Asia, I was a co-founder of an MSc program, two university departments, and a software house. Alongside several internal leadership positions in OMF Cambodia, I chaired the board of a development NGO and was first vice-chair and then acting chair of an international school. For OMF UK, I coordinated the development of a national volunteer program, and carried out regional administrative reviews and chaired a pivotal working group driving organisational change.
NPIC Telecoms
One of my key roles in rejoining NPIC (National Polytechnic Institute of Cambodia) in 2015, alongside my appointment as Professor of Computer Science, was as Adviser co-founding the new Dept of Telecommunications. As well as teaching and mentoring the Head of Dept and other academics as they prepared to teach on their new BSc in Telecoms, I made significant contributions to the curriculum development and lab provisioning. Moreover, to further develop the academics and enhance student recruitment, I co-founded the NPIC Radio Club with Mike Adams of FEBC.
NPIC Computer Science & SIL
As Professor of Computer Science at NPIC, an important strategic contribution was brokering the relationship between NPIC and SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) that led to first the embedding of an SIL Language Software Development Unit (LSDU) in NPIC CS, and subsequently the country leadership of SIL moving their whole operation into newly refurbished offices at NPIC. The LSDU is primarly focused on the Keyman app and keyboarding standards for the Unicode Consortium, but has also taught NPIC academics and engaged in joint research and publication.
IPS Service Centre
In 2006, OMF International, with headquarters in Singapore, was seeking an appropriate location for the software development department of its emerging International Personnel System (IPS) project. My existing pool of former students and mentees was a key factor in the selection of Cambodia, and I was appointed as Resource Manager for the IPS Service Centre. I recruited and contributed significantly to the training of the first six Cambodian software developers, as well as the provisioning of the initial office space. Before my return to the UK in 2010, I was also briefly Development Manager for the Service Centre, which has subsequently been successfully spun off as an independent company with 25 staff, called Khalibre.
NPIC Information Technology
I was appointed Professor of Information Technology in the second year of NPIC (2006), co-founding the Dept through teaching and mentoring the academics from IT and allied departments. As NPIC added a year's teaching at a time, the goal was to better prepare the academics to teach the third and, subsequently, the fourth year of the BSc IT programme, as well as to mentor those academic staff seeking overseas scholarships for advanced degrees. Alongside this, I was Chief Adviser to the Education Quality Office, shaping the future teaching inspection regime and associated policy.
RUPP Computer Science
I joined the Dept of Computer Science at the Royal University of Phnom Penh in 2002. With some 2,000 BSc students and most of the academic staff only qualified to bachelor's level themselves, the need for an MSc, both to upgrade academic staff and for recent graduates, was clear. I developed (with the Head of Computer Science), led and taught the new MSc, teaching a third of the modules whilst Master's qualified colleagues taught the rest. Some twenty academics joined the course of nearly fifty students. As none of my colleagues had supervision experience, I supervised the research projects of the top six students, whilst the rest undertook additional modules and a literature review. I was appointed Professor of Computer Science in March 2005 and then, after two years' weekend-focused teaching, eighteen students passed before I returned to the UK in mid 2005.