SOBACO

SOBACO Directors: Ravi Bapna and Joseph Konstan

Ravi BapnaDr. Ravi Bapna is the Board of Overseers Professor in the Information and Decision Sciences Department at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. He teaches graduate students, executives, CIOs, and CMOs how to leverage the digital revolution for competitive advantage. His professional interests have resulted in research, consulting, and executive education engagements with a variety of leading US and Indian companies.

As Co-Executive Director of the Srini Raju Centre for Information Technology and the Networked Economy (SRITNE) at the Indian School of Business, Bapna heads the CIO Academy as well as co-directs the Identity Initiative, an inter-disciplinary research initiative aimed at assessing the socio-economic impact of India’s Unique Identity (UID) project.

Prior to joining Carlson, Professor Bapna was an Associate Professor and Ackerman Scholar in the Operations and Information Management Department at the School of Business, University of Connecticut. His research interests are in the areas of economics of information systems, online auctions, e-market design, Grid computing, and the design of the IT organization. His research has been published in an array of journals such as Management Science, Informs Journal on Computing, Statistical Science, Information Systems Research, Journal of Retailing, MIS Quarterly, Decision Sciences, CACM, Naval Research Logistics, DSS, EJOR, and ITM. In addition, his views have been featured in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, LiveMint, India Knowledge @ Wharton, The Economic Times, and Business Today.

Bapna has been invited to present his research at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Federal Trade Commission, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Google Inc., Bangalore, The Wharton School, Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Maryland, IIM-Calcutta, National Chengchi University, Taiwan, University of Washington, National University of Singapore, and University of Connecticut among others. He was recently invited to give the keynote address for the 13th International Conference on Electronic Commerce 2011, Liverpool, UK.

Bapna serves as a senior editor for MIS Quarterly and as an associate editor for Information Systems Research. He has served as the co-chair of the prestigious Workshop on Information Systems Economics (WISE) 2010, and the Conference on IS and Technology (CIST) 2009. He is one of the three founders of the Statistical Challenges in E-Commerce (SCECR) workshop. He regularly serves on program committees of major international IS conferences and workshops, and was the co-chair of the First International Symposium of Information Systems held at ISB. He is a member of the Nasscomm Innovation Institute, a think-tank to foster innovation in the Indian IT/ITeS industry.

Professor Bapna completed his Bachelors in Commerce from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta, Bachelors in Computer Engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology and received his doctorate degree from the University of Connecticut, where his thesis was in the area of Information Systems.

 

Joe Konstan

Dr. Joseph Konstan is Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Distinguished University Teaching Professor, and AssociateDepartment Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering. His research addresses a variety of human-computer interaction issues, including personalization (particularly through recommender systems), eliciting on-line participation, and designing computer systems to improve public health. He is probably best known for his work in collaborative filtering recommenders (the GroupLens project), and for his work in online HIV prevention. Konstan received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993.

Konstan teaches students at all levels, from freshman introductions to computer science through advanced courses on user interface design, social computing, and human-computer interaction. He was one of the founding faculty members of the University's MS in Software Engineering graduate program--a program that he led at one time--where he has worked to ensure that all graduate software engineers have experience in user-centered design. He also served for three years as director of the graduate program in Computer Science, and has remained active in the governance of graduate education universitywide. Konstan won the University's award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate Education.

Konstan is active in professional service. He is currently serving his third term on the ACM Council, and also serves on its Publications Board. He served as President of ACM's 4500-member Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction, and as general chair of several conferences, including the CHI 2012, the premier conference in the field of HCI. He currently serves on the editorial board of ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction, ACM Transactions on the Web, and User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, and was recently the Program Committee co-chair of User Modeling 2011. He served a term as vice-Chair of the Federal Demonstration Partnership (working to document and relieve administrative burden in grants administration) and recently was appointed to serve on the National Children's Study Federal Advisory Committee.

Konstan has also been active in industry and commercialization. He co-founded Net Perceptions, Inc. in 1996. NetP licensed the University's recommender systems technology and became the largest provider of recommendation engine software, serving leading retailers and information providers. He is still an active consultant, working with a variety of businesses, large and small.

Konstan has been elected a Fellow of the ACM and of the AAAS, is a member of the CHI Academy, and is recipient of the 2010 ACM Software System Award for the GroupLens Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems.

Konstan grew up in New York City. He graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in Computer Science. He earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 1992.



 

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