KFUPM wins Golden Medal Award from AIS Council in MENA

The MENACIS Conference

King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) received the “Golden Medal Award” from the Council of the Association for Information Systems in the MENA region, headed by Professor Antoine Harfouche at University Paris. The accolade was awarded by the association for the first time in recognition of KFUPM’s distinguished and unique contribution to the advancement of academic research in the MENA’s information system field. The award was presented to Dr. Hesham Merdad, Dean of KFUPM Business School (KBS) and Chairman of the committee organizing the MENA Conference on Information Systems (MENACIS).

The association granted “Leadership” awards to three outstanding researchers. One of these awards was presented to Dr. Mousa Albashrawi, Director, Interdisciplinary Research Center for Finance and Digital Economy at KFUPM. Meanwhile, Dr. Mohammed Marie, Indiana University and Dr. Denise Dennehy, Swansea University in the US, won the remaining two awards.

FUPM hosted MENACIS From Nov. 16-19.

The committee organizing the MENACIS at KFUPM selected the three most prominent research papers, which were submitted to panelists to choose the "Best Academic Paper" in the conference. This paper was entitled "Virtual Self-Education: Opinions and Recommendations" and was presented by some staff members from different universities around the world. The committee granted several awards, namely the "Best Service Award", which was presented to Professor Taha Nasser from KFUPM, and the "Best Research Reviewer Award" to Professor Sanaa Iskandarani from Sweden's Karlstad University .

The development of information systems in Saudi Arabia was driven by the great interest paid by the Kingdom's wise leadership to this field, in addition to the growing needs by institutions, companies and countries. This field is part of Saudi Vision 2030. The academic community of information systems also plays an effective and advanced role in the Kingdom, which led to the formation of the Association for Information Systems (SaudiAIS) that in turn participated in the conference with research, review, organization, programs and workshops.

Research acceptance rate at the conference reached 48%, where 115 academic papers were submitted from 40 countries, of which 55 research papers were presented in intensive workshops for three consecutive days. In addition, 106 specialists from around the globe participated in the review of researches, including Professor Jason Thatcher from US-based Temple University, Professor Supratik Sarkar from the University of Virginia, Professor Raghav Rao from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Professor Yogesh Dwivedi from US-based Swansea University.