Professor Steven Miller, Vice Provost (Research) and Dean of SMU School of Information Systems, has been conferred a fellowship by the Singapore Computer Society (SCS).

The SCS is Singapore’s largest professional association for practitioners, leaders, students, and enthusiasts of the infocomm industry. The SCS Fellow is bestowed on selected individuals who hold senior IT positions, have an established reputation of eminence or authority in the field of IT, and who have played a pivotal role in advancing the infocomm industry in Singapore.

Said Professor Miller, “I would like to share this honour with the faculty and staff of the SMU School of Information Systems (SIS).  Their talent, dedication and commitment have contributed immensely to the growth of SIS into a school recognised internationally for its innovative research and education focused on Information Systems Technology, Information Systems Management, as well as problems and issues at the intersection of IS related technology and management.”

On why he was conferred a SCS Fellowship, Professor Miller noted three reasons. First would be the output of SIS. On the education side of output, SMU’s BSc (Information Systems Management) undergraduate programme, and the Master of IT in Business post-graduate masters programme have become reliable and important sources of manpower, producing people who are quite adept at integrating infocomm capabilities with business needs. Also, a number of SIS bachelors graduates have become involved in the local start up scene, either through starting their own company, or through joining a local start up.

On  the R&D side of output, the work of SIS in i) analytics for business, consumer and social insight; ii) information security; iii) mobile systems; iv) intelligent systems for decision support in urban management and supply chain; and v) business and economic impact analysis of infocomm have stimulated a lot of new ideas locally, as well as internationally. The R&D efforts by SIS have contributed in various ways to motivating and enabling the industry to accelerate its scope and rate of activities in these areas.

Second, the public outreach efforts by SIS which includes the big role it plays each year in events such as CodeExtreme, InnovateIT, and the Apex Business IT Case Competition. It hosts many interesting talks that are open to the community. SIS students undertake various projects for the business community, the government, as well as for the non-profit sector. SIS staff and faculty give their time to a number of infocomm community related outreach and volunteer efforts.

Third, the “national service” which Professor Miller performs in the form of serving on review panels and committees for IDA, MDA, EDB, ASTAR, MND, and NRF.

“In short, I was conferred as an SCS Fellow because of the work of our SMU School of Information Systems. The school has added richness, diversity, and even a touch of originality to the infocomm scene in Singapore. SIS has been a great example of the power of integrating IT and Business, and of integrating academic work with practical efforts and outreach,” he added.

[Photo: Professor Miller (second from left) can often be seen interacting with faculty, students and staff at SIS]

Professor Miller is the founding dean of SIS, and considers the establishment and growth of the school as the most important milestone in his career so far. “Starting from scratch at the very beginning of 2003, our team has succeeded in building a community that has created very good opportunities for many students, over 1600 alumni and counting. SIS frequently helps organisations in both the public and private sectors, and generates and demonstrates really good ideas through academic scholarship, R&D projects, educational projects, and many types of real-world engagement. Through these various dimensions of SIS, we have made a big difference to the lives of many people. We have been able to substantially contribute to the vitality and diversity of the infocomm community in Singapore,” he enthused.

Professor Miller began his career as an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, before joining the commercial sector, taking on a variety of consulting and management positions with firms such as Fujitsu and IBM. He returned to academia when he joined SMU in November 2002 to lead the effort to start up SIS.