Samer Yamak
DBA Researcher
Samer holds a masters degree in Computer Engineering and dual MBA degrees from University of Leicester and University of Liverpool. He is currently working towards his DBA degree from Heriot-Watt University, hoping to crown his academic achievements with a DBA title.
Academically Samer's target is to get his DBA degree. He is pleased to be at Heriot-Watt University supported by Dr. Kenny Crossan. His research topic is “Developing a comprehensive smart city benchmarking tools for Saudi Arabia”. The objective is not only to review and analyse existing obsolete benchmarking tools and develop a new one but also to make sure the tool fits the current landscape of smart cities development in KSA.
Areas of interest
- Smart Cities, Digital Transformation, Web 3.0, urban development
Background
Samer has more than 23 years of professional experience. He joined the mandatory 1-year military service as a lieutenant his country then started his professional career in Saudi Arabia as a communication solution product manager. After 2 years, he travelled to United States to work for Microsoft as a software test engineer dealing with international software solutions. After 1 year he returned to Saudi Arabia and his previous role. In 2005, he decided to change his life and registered his first MBA with University of Leicester which upgraded his professional standing in community by qualifying his profile to Cisco.
He worked as Business Development Manager in 2008, focusing on smart cities and urban development - where is passion started. Samer then joined Orange Business, then Honeywell and Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) working in the same domain but looking at smart cities from different angles (telco, integrator, solution provider, consultancy).
Samer then went for a DBA at University of Liverpool in 2012. He left PwC just 5 months ago to focus on his DBA studies.