Message from the AIS SIGED President Vasso Stylianou

Connect More, Achieve More!

Warm greetings to all current and prospective SIGED members!

Our first social get-together took place on October 13. During this SIGED Community|Connect: Member Online Meeting, we updated the attendees on the completed, present, and future activities that we organized as SIGED. We informed our members that, as a community, we are considering actions that will promote the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and, in particular, Goal 4: Quality Education. Given this direction, we had a very interesting exchange of viewpoints on the topic of sustainability and the role of education. You may retrieve the event slides from our website (www.ais-siged.org).

The peer reviews for the annual International Conference on Information Systems Education and Research (ICISER 2023) have been completed. We want to thank all of the authors for their submissions, congratulate those who will be presenting their work at our conference, and encourage the ones who did not make it to keep improving their work and re-submit it at one of our future organizations.

The SIGED Community Member Satisfaction Survey 2023 is still running and we hope you can spare a few minutes to complete this short survey and share some feedback which will help us organize more activities and services according to your needs and expectations.

Lastly, we are very excited to announce the AIS SIGED Career Mentoring Program. The program aims to support SIGED members in developing their skills to achieve their career goals. You may find below the details on how to participate in the program either as a mentor or as a mentee. 

Here at SIGED, there is always something interesting happening, so make sure you keep reading our monthly newsletter. Use our email, info@ais-siged.org, if you want to contact the SIGED board.

Be Healthy! Be Happy!

On behalf of the SIGED Board

Vasso Stylianou (President SIGED)

Meet Our Board:

Alan Megargel, Treasurer

Alan Megargel is an Associate Professor of Information Systems at Singapore Management University (SMU) where he serves as coordinator for their Financial Technology undergraduate major. His current areas of specialization are in the Banking and FinTech domains, where he has contributed practice-based and education-based research.  Before joining SMU in 2012, he had 30 years of industry experience, including CTO at TIBCO Software Asia, Vice President at OCBC Bank, and Senior Enterprise Architect at ANZ Bank.

Drawing from industry experience, Alan is the architect of SMU Teaching Bank (or “SMU tBank”), a full-featured cloud-based digital banking platform developed by students for teaching purposes. SMU tBank is used in the classroom to support course modules covering retail banking, corporate banking, and enterprise architecture-related courses.

Besides teaching and research, Alan is the founder of Narwhal Financial Systems (or “Narfin”), a spin-off from SMU incorporated to commercialize the SMU tBank prototype as an online platform to support digital banks, finance & leasing companies, supply chain finance providers, and remittance providers. Narfin is currently seeking Series-A funding.

What recent advancements should be influencing the future of IS/IT education?

Large language models have the potential to transform IS/IT education by providing easily accessible and personalized learning resources, assisting with programming and research, breaking down language barriers, and enhancing the overall quality and efficiency of education. They can offer real-time updates on rapidly evolving IS/IT fields, promote global collaboration, and simplify complex topics. However, their use must be approached with ethical considerations and a commitment to maintaining educational quality. [This paragraph was co-written with ChatGPT.]

What is your involvement in SIGED?

I first became a member of AIS in 2018 and presented my first full paper at SIGED Munich in 2019 entitled “SMU Teaching Bank: Case Study of a Multiyear Development Project Utilizing Student Resources,” which to my delight, won the best paper award. I was encouraged to join the SIGED board and have served as Treasurer for nearly two terms. My responsibilities are to process expense claims and to report on our SIGED financial statements and cash positions.

How can someone get involved with SIGED operations?

There are many ways to get involved. Get in touch with any one of the amazing people on the Board. We are all approachable, and we may suggest one of the following ways for you to get involved: consider publishing your research in one of the conferences or tracks/workshops we organize; sign up as a reviewer; participate in the different activities of the SIGED; give us your feedback and suggestions for new initiatives that SIGED can be involved with.

https://ais-siged.org/officers/