Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests

My current research interests are co-located computer supported collaborative learning, developing learning skills, and collaboration and interaction techniques on digital tabletops.

Education

  • 2007 – 2010, PhD Degree from the School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. Thesis entitled “Digital Tabletops and Collaborative Learning”. The research was supervised by Prof. Patrick Olivier and Prof. David Leat.
  • 1994 – 1997, MSc degree from the Electronics and Communication Department, College of Engineering, University of Baghdad
  • Thesis entitled “Communication Protocols for Remote Terminal Units”. Acquired a grade of 94 and ranked the first in the Electronics and Communication Department.
  • 1990 - 1994, BSc degree from the Electronics and Communication Department, College of Engineering, University of Baghdad. The Graduation Project was “Design and Implementation of a Microprocessor Training System Based on the 8085 Microprocessor” Four years average of 89.6 and ranked the first in the College of Engineering. Graduates for that year were more than 3600 students.
  • 1987-1990, High school degree from ‘Al-Quds high school for boys’. Baghdad, Iraq.

Professional experience

  • 2012-now, Chief Technical Officer of Reflective Thinking Ltd., a new company that I have co-founded with the aim of being pioneers in the market of technology-enhanced collaborative learning solutions.
  • 2012-now, Consultant for Diwan Software Ltd. especially on issues related to technology-enhanced learning.
  • 2005-2012, Senior development manager for Diwan Software Ltd. From 2005-2011 I was based in the company's Dubai-UAE office; at mid-2011 I have moved to Newcastle Upon tyne, UK. Diwan Software is a UK based software company with branches in Dubai, Jordan, and Iraq. In this period I have managed a number of projects in the fields of Desktop Publishing, Arabization, and Education.
  • 2011-now, A visiting member of staff at Newcastle University, UK. I am co-supervising 4 PhD students on digital tabletop related research and I am also actively involved in research carried out at Culture Lab in the areas of tabletop interaction and technology enhanced learning.
  • 1998-2005, Diwan-Raqueam Company. Baghdad-Iraq. From 1998-2003, known as Raqueam Company. After three years as a software developer, I became the technical director of the company which was specialized in advanced Arabic fonts development and Arabization. In 2003 Raqueam joined with Diwan software Ltd. to form Diwan-Raqueam. I worked as the technical director of the company, and on a number of projects mainly targeting the publishing industry, multi-tier applications, and on studying how to improve publishing software by introducing new concepts in collaboration and document representation.
  • 2000, A data base consultant for UNICEF - Iraq for a duration of three months starting at July 2000. During this period I was a member of the database team for the nutrition and water and sanitation sectors.
  • 1998, A lecturer for the subject of “Advanced Engineering Mathematics” for the third year class in the department of Electronics and Communication / College of Engineering / University of Baghdad.
  • 1997-2000, Working on a contract-basis with the Iraqi Electronics Systems Center. Started as a programmer in the project of rewriting the communication software for the Electrical Energy National Control Center. Then since 1999 as a consultant for the same project.
  • 1997, A supervisor for the C programming language Lab. in the department of Electronics and Communication / College of Engineering / University of Baghdad.
  • 1988 - 2000, A partner in the “Bureau of Contemporary Design”. Working mostly on part-time basis. Started in providing varieties of computer services. Then in computer training courses on a variety of computer software. Finally concentrating on giving courses in programming using C, C++, and Java.

Publications and patents

  • R. Martinez, K. Yacef, J. Kay, A. Kharrufa, and A. Al-Qaraghuli. Analysing frequent sequential patterns of collaborative learning activity around an interactive tabletop. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, EDM2011, 2011 (Best student paper award).
  • Kharrufa, A.,Leat, D., Olivier, P. (2011). Learning at interactive surfaces and designing for reflection. Child Computer Interaction, 2nd workshop on UI technologies and their impact on educational pedagogy. Workshop in conjunction with CHI 2011. (Vancouver, Canada May 2011).
  • Kharrufa, A (2011). Reflections on a reflection paper: The computer as a tool for learning through reflection. Interaction Design and Children Remixed. CHI 2011 Community Event. (Vancouver, Canada May 2011).
  • 2010 Kharrufa, A.S., Leat, D., Olivier, P. (2010). Digital Mysteries: Designing for Learning at the Tabletop. The Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces 2010. ( Saarbrücken, Germany, November 7-10, 2010). ITS'10
  • 2010 Kharrufa, Ahmed (2010) 'Digital Tabletops and Collaborative Learning'. PhD Thesis, Newcastle University, UK.
  • 2010 Kharrufa, A.S., Olivier, P., Leat, D (2010), ' Learning Through Reflection at the Tabletop: A Case Study with Digital Mysteries', In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (Toronto, Canada June 28-July 2, 2010) (Distinguished paper award).
  • 2010 Kharrufa, A.S. and Olivier, P. (2010) ‘Exploring the requirements of tabletop interfaces for education’, Int. J. Learning Technology, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.42–62.
  • 2010 Kharrufa, A.S., Olivier, P., Leat, D., Allawi, A. (2010), 'Collaborative Learning at Digital Tabletops'. In Proceedings of the Gulf Educational Forum, (Dubai, UAE, February 23-25 2010)
  • 2009 Sulaiman, A. N., Olivier, P., Heslop, P. TangiSoft: A Tangible Direct-Touch Tabletop Keyboard, In Proceedings of the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (Honolulu, HA, USA, June 22-26, 2009) 918-926. (You can download the paper from EdITlib Digital Library)
  • 2008 Sulaiman, A. N. and Olivier, P. (2008). Attribute gates. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology (Monterey, CA, USA, October 19 - 22, 2008). UIST '08. ACM, New York, NY, 57-66.
  • 1998 Ahmed Sulaiman and Sarkout Abdullah, “Communication Protocols for ASEA Remote Terminal Units” In a special publication by the College of Engineering-University of Baghdad.
  • 1987, At the age of 15 got a patent “Program for writing Arabic Kufi script using MSX personal computers”, from the Scientific Research Council in Iraq.

Other Activities

  • Served as Associate Chair for ACM’s flagship conference ‘Designing Interactive Systems’ (DIS) 2012, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
  • Served as a reviewer for a number of prestigious conferences and journals including UIST, CHI, ITS, Mobile HCI, HCI, and IJHCS.
  • Ran a workshop session entitled “Constructing knowledge and collaborating around the curriculum” as part of the Microsoft Learning Partners workshop organized during the Gulf Educational Forum in Dubai, 2010.
  • Participated in a number of workshops on learning and interactive surfaces.
  • Organized a number of training courses in C/C++ and Java programming languages and gave introductory courses on computers and operating systems for a number of organizations like the ‘Electrical Systems Center’ in Iraq, the University of Baghdad, and Bureau of Contemporary Design (Baghdad-Iraq).

Membership

  • A member of the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM) since 2009.
  • A member of The Iraqi Engineering union since 1994.

Languages

  • Arabic: Native language
  • English: Fluent in speaking, reading, and writing.