Akbar Kara
Biography
Akbar Kara is a seasoned and self-driven professional with eleven years of experience in Information Technology. At the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (UT-MDACC), he was invited to advise the CIO’s team in developing and delivering a comprehensive communication plan including network and IT infrastructure strategy. Mr. Kara is currently serving as the Director of Network Services Department at UT-MDACC. As a presenter and an educator, he is active in optical network deployment within the research and education communities. List of credentials include the highly coveted CCIE certification from Cisco Systems.Akbar Kara has served as a technical director to Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH), a major healthcare provider serving the greater New York area. He engaged senior management to identify new opportunities for leveraging investment in technology, aligned business and IT strategies, appropriately apportioned resources amongst the dual institution’s six locations, managed multiple budgets and projects, and provided leadership to a team of thirty IT professionals. NYPH have been challenged by an annual 20% rise in bandwidth costs for the last five years. Mr. Kara broke that cycle by developing, engineering, planning, and implementing a state-ofthe- art, 14-node Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical network for the enterprise. The solution effectively future-proofs the network for foreseeable demand, while also providing $140,000 in immediate, annual operational savings. Mr. Kara developed the RFP and evaluated multiple responses from vendors, played a central role in contract negotiations, and in facilitating buy-in from several levels of management.
Mr. Kara was with CUMC/NYPH in IT roles of increasing responsibility since 1998; major accomplishments include campus wide network design and upgrades, datacenter and firewall/VPN design, and enterprise-class wireless LAN deployment. His decade of IT experience includes serving as Architect, Network and Systems for NumeriX LLC, consulting in various engineering roles to CitiBank, and NYNEX/Bell Atlantic. He also was employed by OmniCell Technologies, Inc. and Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc. in engineering capacities. Columbia University School of Continuing Education awarded Mr. Kara with a certificate in Executive Information Technology Management in 2003 and he graduated with honors in Electrical Engineering from The City College of the City University of New York in 1993.