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My Job in Afghanistan


Primarily based in Mazar-i-Sharif and working with Balkh University (thanks to the German Academic Exchange Service), there are a number of jobs I will have to start across Afghanistan's higher education institutions. In general - and given the somewhat difficult situation at present in Afghan higher education - the management of different Afghan universities and my Afghan colleagues will have to take the lead and support me in getting the priorities right.

The outline below will provide a rough idea of my activities in Afghanistan:
  • teaching at Balkh University
  • support other Afghan universities (partners of RUB Ruhr-University Bochum/Germany) by teaching additional courses in business information systems
  • helping the management of Balkh University and different other Afghan universities to fully utilize "good governance" practices
  • support the introduction of new curricula in economics and business administration at different Afghan universities (esp. in cooperation with alumni of RUB Ruhr-University Bochum/Germany and with IEE Institute of Development Research and Development Policy)
  • strengthening the utilization of Afghan talent from the university environment by initiating joint projects between universities and Afghan businesses and public administration organizations.

Because I will have to work across different locations in Asia and Europe with a large number of colleagues, university administrators, international donor organizations, and higher education government officials on a day-to-day basis, e-collaboration and information sharing seems to be in demand. Having extensively worked in the e-collaboration field in research environments and in industry, I hope to make a lasting contribution in this area. Because the required information systems are complex, I will have to rely heavily on the work and the products from colleagues, industry partners, and friends for the support of my personal work infrastructure.
  • Prof. Dr. Ludwig Nastansky will contribute his K-POOL information system, which was developed at the University of Paderborn - GCC Groupware Competence Center.
  • Felix Binsack of TIMETOACT Group allowed me to use his TIMETOWEB CMS product to support my work in Afghanistan.
  • Jürgen Zirke of PAVONE AG allowed me to use the PAVONE Enterprise Office systems and the organization and processes modeling tools developed by PAVONE AG.
  • Michael Gollmick, an acclaimed Notes/Domino systems specialist and application developer makes a significant! contribution to make things work - if they don't.
  • IBM/Lotus supports my work via the IBM Academic Initiative program. In fact, quite a number of my lectures (notably about electronic collaboration and database systems) would not be possible without the generous supply of cost-free licences for teaching and research by IBM.

Last-but-not-least I have to mention IBM. As a member of their Academic Initiative my students - and myself - benefit from their generous provision of their software for teaching and research use: For my teaching and research activities I rely heavily on IBM DB2 database and on the Lotus Notes/Domino e-collaboration environments.

Definitely, I rely on the support from additional people and institutions. The people and organizations named above are just the tip of the iceberg.