GANGTOK,: Sikkim’s Naresh Agarwal will be the recipient of the 2024 Watson Davis
Award for Service, awarded by the Association for Information Science &
Technology (ASIS&T).
Naresh
joins the list of 63 leaders of the field and luminaries who have received this
award since 1976. He will receive the award during the 2024 ASIS&T annual
meeting which will be held 25-29 October in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a press
release informs.
Naresh
is a Professor and Director of the Information Science & Technology
Concentration at Simmons University, Boston, USA and a past president of
ASIS&T. Born and brought up in Gangtok, he is the son of Durga Devi Agarwal
and Late Marulal Agarwal and 1994 school captain of Tashi Namgyal Academy.
Naresh
completed his computer engineering on full scholarship at the Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore, and received his PhD from the National
University of Singapore after spending six years in the industry.
For
87 years since 1937, and headquartered in USA, ASIS&T is the pre-eminent
international association for thousands of researchers and practitioners from
over 50 countries innovating theories and technologies and studying how people
interact with information and technology. The Watson Davis award recognizes an
individual ASIS&T member who has shown continuous dedicated leadership and
service and made substantial and lasting contributions to ASIS&T
governance, chapters, special interest groups, committees, and publications,
the release mentions.
Naresh
was the president of ASIS&T in 2021-2022. Since 2008, he has served the
organisation in several capacities, including as Board member, conference
co-chair and founder of the South Asia chapter. He was awarded the James
Cretsos Leadership Award in 2012 and was recognized as a Distinguished Member
in 2021 and a Lifetime Member in 2024. As president, he made it his endeavor to
listen to members, advancing the Strategic Plan, getting the ‘About ASIS&T’
page translated to 28 languages, and launching a mentorship program.
His
research area is information behavior and knowledge management. His first book
‘Exploring Context in Information Behavior’ was published by Morgan &
Claypool in 2018. His second book was published in 2021 as 'Engineering to
Ikigai’ in South Asia and 'You know the glory, not the story' internationally.
He is currently co-authoring a book on Knowledge Management in Libraries, the
release mentions.
He
has been a keynote/invited speaker in several countries, including India,
Bangladesh, China, France, Iran, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, South Africa, UK, and
US. In 2018, he started projectonenessworld.com to gather human stories through
interviews.
One
can learn more about Naresh at nareshagarwal.com.
