Abdul Hamid Sadka

Director

Aston Digital Futures Institute

Professor Sadka is a Chartered Computer & Communications Engineer (CEng) with 30 years of academic leadership and business engagement experience, and pioneering contributions to the area of AI-powered digital media technologies. His Career is underpinned by a commitment to business engagement, knowledge transfer and high-impact output. Currently, he is the founding Director of Aston Digital Futures Institute after having successfully served as the Director of the Institute of Digital Futures at Brunel University London 2020-23 and as the Lead Academic on the Brunel Fellowship Academy 2022-23. He also held several other senior research positions, including the founding Director of “Brunel Digital Science & Technology Hub” 2018-20. Director of the Centre for Media Communications Research 2012-18. He also served as Head of Electronic Engineering, Computing and Digital Media 2006-12 at Brunel.

During 2020-23, he chaired the Government-supported West London FE-HE partnership Group representing 7 Universities and 6 FE Colleges developing the post-COVID skill agenda for the UK digital and creative industries. He Served on the steering board of the NEM European technology platform which heavily influences the strategic research and innovation agenda of the European Commission DGCONNECT Horizon Europe work programs.

Thus far, he attracted over £16m worth of research grants and contracts as Principal Investigator, and supervised more than 50 Research Assistants and PhD students to full completion. He produced 300+ publications in refereed journals and conferences, 3 patents and several books including a seminal textbook titled "Compressed Video Communications" published by Wiley. He frequently serve on industry advisory boards and review panels, and provides consultancy services to the tech sector as well as corporate Law firms in the area of digital media, AI and data analytics. He has several entrepreneurial business engagements with a particular success in the health tech and real estate sectors and a current portfolio exceeding £3m. He is Fellow of HEA, IET and BCS.