Mahmoud Abdulwahed

Director of Strategic Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Economic Development
Qatar University
abdulwahed

Mahmoud Abdulwahed

Director of Strategic Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Economic Development
Qatar University

Biography

Dr Mahmoud Abdulwahed: Mahmoud holds BSc, MSc, and PhD in electrical, control and systems engineering with interdisciplinary Doctoral thesis focused on Higher Education Systems Innovation; he followed several post-doctoral professional trainings in strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship. Mahmoud completed his graduate studies in Germany, Sweden, and the UK and pursued professional and R&D profile is in Innovation and Strategic Development in the Higher Education Industry since then. His multidisciplinary publications spans over areas of education, innovation, digital transformation, entrepreneurship, leadership, pedagogy, organizational development, knowledge based economy, and applied systems theory, with current 1500+ google scholar citations. Mahmoud’s expertise in exploiting innovation-based systems control and process engineering methods, into strategic development, organizational, educational, and ecosystems design (e.g., ENGINEERING the Strategy and Strategic Execution, ENGINEERING the Education, or Ecosystems ENGINEERING) is relatively internationally unique, and he is among few globally experts in this area. These translational methods enable effective, accelerated, goal oriented, and systematic outcomes.  In research, 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 3 books with “Springer”, one of the top ranked international scientific books publishers (2 edited, and 1 authored), he also published 5 book chapters, 60+ peer-reviewed conference and journal articles, and developed 40+ institutional framework or strategy. He attained several industry funds, academic recognitions/awards, and best papers distinctions from various organizations, as well as funded visiting fellowships from University of Technology Sydney, University Science Malaysia, and from USA Government 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 positions with Engineering Dean’s Office, the Vice President and Chief Academic Officer Office, and the President Office. In his first professional capacity with the President Office in 2016, Mahmoud had a leading technical role in QU 2023 transformation strategy and its seven strategies development. QU 2022 is an internationally unique model of a National University transformation aimed at maximizing the University’ socio-economic impact. Mahmoud played leading role in inception and co-development of several novel and impactful strategic initiatives, including but not limited to the first Metaverse Campus in South East Asia with USM University in Malaysia in 2010, and later on with QU the first Engineering Education Unit/Department in the Middle East with QU with College of Engineering, the first Office of Digital Learning & Online Education (DLOE) in Qatar with QU VP Academic Office, the first end to end University Economic Development ecosystem in Qatar (QU Holding Company & Office of Strategic Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Economic Development – SIEED) with QU President Office. In his first professional capacity with the President Office in 2016, Mahmoud had a leading technical role in QU 2022 transformation strategy, an internationally unique model of a National University transformation aimed at maximizing the University’ socio-economic impact. Mahmoud is currently Director of SIEED Office & Secretary of Board of Directors of QU Holding. Mahmoud’s professional orientation is agile, collaborative, and geared towards “large-scale high impact” sustainable developments.