Professor Jyoti Choudrie was a finalist for the 2020 Brunel Alumni of the Year Award.Her studies at Brunel began with a BSc in Economics & Business Finance (class of 1992) and was followed in later years with a PhD in Information Systems & Computing Research (class of 2000) and finally an MSc in Learning & Teaching in Higher Education (class of 2002).
Career journey
Jypti is currently a Professor of Information Systems with the University of Hertfordshire Business School, a Visiting Professor at Periyar University, Melbourne University, Auckland University of Technology, and Strathmore Business School.
A Women in Technology award winner in 2019, Jyoti has been researching information and communication technologies for over a decade, where her emphasis has been on the digital divide and development. To address these issues, she has been identifying, exploring and understanding how socially excluded individuals; namely older adults are interacting with government, or organizations using the new technologies in developed or developing countries. For this she has utilised management and policymaking theories for her understanding and exploration. When appointed as Professor of Information Systems, she was informed that she is the first Sikh female Professor of Information Systems.
Supporting the community
She has ensured that not only does she read about, or publish this work, but that she informs people, which is why she also volunteers her time with a local Indian radio station. She has also worked with Age (UK) Hertfordshire to understand how, what, when, where and why older adults will accept and use new technologies. To ensure her contribution to local communities, she is also a Board member of Healthwatch Hillingdon where she assists herself and them to be familiar with and know of local, health related matters.
Additionally, she supervises doctoral students to study social sciences related topics by interacting with members of the public. This has not been limited to doctoral students in the UK, but also to other countries such as, Austria, Kenya and India. This is possible by seeking individuals to complete questionnaires. She trained some older adults at the radio station and became a source of support to them for almost 6 months. She has links with Hertfordshire County Council where she assisted them to identify some freely available apps. She is also presently trying to affiliate with Age (UK) Hertfordshire to identify the impacts of theirs and her initiatives of training older adults on the local economies.
In 2018 she used chatbots to understand and explore how they can be used for the management of early stage Dementia patients and their carers. She is a forward-thinking individual who seeks not only to inform herself of novel technologies but is enthusiastic and keen to promote the benefits and drawbacks of new technologies in students, societies, organisations and policymakers. She has an international profile that has resulted from her invitations to Melbourne University and RMIT universities in Australia, as well as Auckland University of Technology and Auckland Business School in New Zealand and a visiting, esteemed scholar to Periyar University, India and doctoral supervisor in Strathmore University Business School, Kenya.
Academic contributions
Not forgetting her academic community contribution, Jyoti is an Editor in Chief for the journal, Information, Technology and People, manages tracks in international conferences, collaborates with her peers of Brunel University for research projects and publications, mentors early career researchers and regularly reviews for other established journals. To explain the impact of new technologies she is regularly invited as a keynote speaker to industry, health and academic conferences, and comments in industry-led trade journals.
She has been extremely successful in her research with over 100 publications, 13 doctoral student completions and funding research worth approximately half a million pounds. She has consulted with renowned organisations such as, BT and Xerox with her research being cited in trade magazine journals such as, Computer Weekly, Computing and newspapers such as, Guardian and Times online. Her research has been emphasised in BBC Radio 4 and BBC 3 counties radio programmes, the Conversation and has been an invited speaker to media events and international conferences such as EU-China Information Society Project.
She is tireless in her search for research project funding and opportunities to work with community groups with innovative ideas. She works with a plethora of charities and international organisations to promote better practice and policies. She is passionate about her research which is focused on investigating the digital divide where she specialises in researching social inclusion, loneliness and adoption of information and communications technologies on society’s ‘marginal groups’; namely, older adults. Her research area is a testament to her kind and caring nature.
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