Prof. Subhash Bhatnagar

Honorary Professor of Information Systems

Consulting

Professional Recognition

Publications

Presentations

Teaching and Academic Administration at IIMA

Contact details

Subhash Bhatnagar is an alumnus of Mayo College, Ajmer (1963), Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (B. Tech in 1968) and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (MBA in 1970 and Doctoral Programme in 1975).

Currently he divides his time between an adjunct Professorship at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) and as an Advisor to National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG), Hyderabad.

Prof. Bhatnagar worked for 30 years at IIM Ahmedabad before taking an early retirement in September 2003. He started his career as a Systems Analyst (May 1970 to Jan. 1972 at the IIMA Computer Centre). During this period he worked in two units of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) for one year, supervising the implementation of a materials provisioning system for overhaul spares. He was a part of the team that set up IIMA's first Computer Centre. He completed the doctoral program at IIMA in 1975. From May 1975 onward he was a member of the faculty of Computers and Information Systems Group at IIMA (1975-Assistant Professor, 1978-Associate Professor and from 1981 July onwards as Professor). He held the CMC Chair Professorship in Information Technology at IIMA for 6 years. 

He was also a member of the governing board of IIMA. He chaired many academic committees at IIMA and served as the Dean of IIMA for two years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute, Tanzania in 1982-83. During 1988-89 he was a visiting professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey and Adjunct Faculty at New York University. He has been a Visiting Fellow (summer 1989) at East West Centre, Hawaii and an adjunct faculty with School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapell Hill in 1998-99.

Prof. Bhatnagar spent two full years and four half years at the World Bank in Washington DC (October 2000 to June 2006) to mainstream e-Government into activities of the World Bank. He represented the Bank in various conferences, conducted training programs for the Bank staff, advised client countries on eGovernment strategies and supervised the creation of a new web site on eGovernment. He authored six papers in Bank sponsored publications and authored two dozen case studies on e-Government applications in developing countries which are featured on the World Bank e-Government website.

Prof. Bhatnagar’s academic research, teaching and consulting work has covered National IT Policy, Corporate IT strategy, IT for development, E-Government and E-Commerce. He has more than 70 research papers and 7 books to his credit. He has scripted and directed 7 video films on computers and has written a large number of cases and technical notes. His recent publications include ‘Information and Communication Technology in Development: Cases from India’ published by Sage Publications in 2000 and ‘e-Government: From Vision to Implementation’ published by Sage Publications in 2004. Some significant research activities include: Associate Coordinator of UNDP-CAM Project (1985-87), Coordinator of UNDP CAM Project (1987-88). He also coordinated the activities of a CIDA sponsored Centre for Telecom Policy Studies established at IIMA in collaboration with McGill University. He was the first coordinator of the Centre for Electronic Governance set up at IIMA with the sponsorship of Oracle (India), Caldera (formerly SCO) and Compaq. He is currently on the board of two IT companies.

He has served on many committees set up by Government of India and was associated with the advisory board of several educational institutions such as, State Bank Institute of Information and Communication Management (SBI ICM), Hyderabad, NIIT, and CMC Research and Development Centre, Hyderabad. He was a member of the ‘Computer Science Board’ set up by All India Council for Technical Education and a committee set up by planning commission to look into manpower needs of the Indian software industry. He was on the Advisory Committee of the Andhra Pradesh IT Initiative. He is currently a member of the National Advisory Council on eGovernment.

Prof Bhatnagar has been an active professional contributing to Computer Society of India (CSI) and International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) in many ways. He has delivered invited lectures in annual conventions of Computer Society of India, keynote/invited address in nearly forty international conferences and delivered the Platinum Jubilee Lecture in Indian Science Congress held in Goa in 1993. More recently he delivered the Pinkerton Memorial lecture in London for the UK IEEE. He is on the editorial board of seven international journals and was the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Information Technology for Development between 2000-2002. He has served on the programme committee of several international conferences including IFIP World Congress ’94. He served as Chairman CSI Ahmedabad Chapter in 1981-82.

He represented the CSI in International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) TC9 from 1985-1992. IFIP is a federation of national computer societies of 70 countries and works through a number of working groups which organise conferences and regular meetings. He founded a new Working Group in IFIP called ‘Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries’ which he chaired for 2 consecutive terms from 1989-95, during which four international conferences were organized in different parts of the world. He is also the editor of Information Technology in Developing Countries, a quarterly newsletter of the IFIP WG 9.4 with a readership of 800 professionals from all over the world. He is a recipient of IFIP Distinguished Service Award. He was on the advisory council of the Commonwealth Network of Information Technology, London during its formative years. He was selected to be a Fellow of the Computer Society of India in recognition of his contributions.

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