Phantom Ex Machina Digital Disruption’s Role in Business Model Transformation

Anshuman Khare is Professor in Operations Management at Athabasca University, Canada. He joined Athabasca University in January 2000. He is a MBA and PhD from Allahabad University, India. He is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and has completed two post-doctoral terms at Johannes Gutenberg Universität in Mainz, Germany. He is also a former Monbusho Scholar, having completed a postdoctoral assignment at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan. He has published a number of books and research papers on a wide range of topics. His research focuses on environmental regulation impacts on industry, just-in-time manufacturing, supply chain management, sustainability, cities and climate change, etc. Anshuman serves on Athabasca University General Faculties Council representing Faculty of Business Faculty Council as a full-time academic faculty member. As his commitment to community Anshuman also serves on the Board of Directors of Northern Alberta Business Incubator (NABI) and is the ViceChair of Smart Cities Masterplan Steering Committee for the City of St. Albert. He is on the Steering Committee of Alexander von Humboldt Cities and Climate Change Network of research scientists and on the executive of Humboldt Association of Canada. Anshuman has recently agreed to serve as Associate Editor of "International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education" published by Emerald.

Rod Schatz is a senior technology executive and entrepreneur with an extreme focus on digital disruption through Information Systems by delivering business value to organizations through the use of systems in unique and creative ways. Rod holds a Master of Science degree in geospatial technologies from the University of Alberta. During his graduate studies, he focused on the application of location-allocation studies with geospatial technologies (GIS). Rod has presented over 20 conference presentations dealing with the applied use of geospatial technologies to Municipalities for infrastructure asset management, sustainable development and land management. More recently, Rod has specialized in implementing cloud technologies, dealing with large data management problems, service oriented architecture (SOA), Business Process Management (BPM) solutions to organizations to assist them with their journey into truly digital businesses.

Brian Stewart is the Executive Program Director of the Campus Alberta Unified Services initiative at the University of Alberta, he was formerly the Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Athabasca University, where his role was to provide strategic leadership to the application of Information and communications technology (ICT) to the activities of the University. Throughout his career Brian has successfully applied technology to improve organizational performance, strategic and marketing position, and operational and administrative effectiveness. He has many industry affiliations and is currently a Director and advisor to several innovative and IT related initiatives. Brian has also published and presented on cloud computing, Green ICT and the use of ICT in printing and education, and holds an MBA form Athabasca University and an MA in Economics from the University College Cork. Brian is currently completing a PhD at the School of Computing, University of Eastern Finland.