DR MOHAMMED BAHJA
AI Associate Professor | AI Strategist & Government Advisor | Author & Speaker
University of Birmingham · London Gulf Nexus
The premise
Most organisations don’t have an AI problem.
They have a bridge problem.
My career has been spent on that bridge: an engineer who never left industry, a professor who brings rigour to the boardroom. The result — strategies that deploy, systems that ship, teams that keep the capability.
Dr Mohammed BahjaProfile · 1
At a glance
Twenty years, both sides of the bridge
20+
years across AI research, engineering and advisory
42+
peer-reviewed publications
6
EU-funded research programmes delivered
5
current PhD researchers under supervision
- Associate Professor in AI, University of Birmingham
- Advisor to government & enterprise, UK and Gulf
- Co-founder, London Gulf Nexus — 50+ UK academics
Dr Mohammed BahjaProfile · 2
Advisory & consultancy
Strategy that executives can act on
Digital transformation for government and enterprise — in the language of the board, measured in outcomes.
- AI strategy — readiness, priorities, roadmap
- Transformation programmes — design to delivery
- Governance & assurance — responsible AI, risk, compliance
- Independent evaluation — against international standards
Dr Mohammed BahjaAdvisory · 3
In practice
Where this has worked
- SDAIA — national AI adoption, deployable solutions
- NHS — AI-driven service delivery
- Saudi smart-city programme — Vision 2030 infrastructure
- Innovation Bridge (ERDF) — UK business innovation
Every engagement ends with a roadmap the leadership team owns — not a report on a shelf.
Dr Mohammed BahjaAdvisory · 4
AI solutions
Systems driven by large language models
Production-grade AI — designed, built, governed. Not a demo; a capability.
- Custom LLM systems — retrieval, reasoning, agents
- NLP — large-scale text analytics
- Computer vision — safety & monitoring
- Digital twins — simulation & predictive analytics
Dr Mohammed BahjaSolutions · 5
The architecture
Built on a transformation methodology
Every system follows NEXUS — technology as the middle of the story, never the whole of it.
NNAVIGATE — strategic assessment & roadmap
EESTABLISH — infrastructure & data foundations
XEXECUTE — solution build & deployment
UUPSKILL — capability transfer to your teams
SSUSTAIN — governance, monitoring & improvement
Dr Mohammed BahjaSolutions · 6
Executive education
Leadership & executive training
AI literacy for the people who sign the decisions.
- Executive briefings — one working session
- Leadership programmes — strategy & governance
- Workforce enablement — anxiety into capability
Dr Mohammed BahjaTraining · 7
Track record
Trained from the C-suite down
For Saudi Aramco: AI programmes for the Chief Executive and the wider workforce.
Built on the UPGRADE methodology — breaking the psychological barriers that stall adoption, leaving a future-ready workforce behind.
In person or hybrid · UK and the Gulf.
Dr Mohammed BahjaTraining · 8
Academic leadership
University of Birmingham
Associate Professor in Computer Science & AI — research in NLP and large language models.
- Head of Undergraduate Studies, Computer Science
- Teaching AI, Software Engineering, Data Storage & Management
- Five current PhD researchers in applied AI
- Previously UCL
Dr Mohammed BahjaAcademia · 9
Formation
Credentials
- PhD, AI & NLP — Royal Holloway, University of London
- MSc, Software Engineering — Kingston University
- FHEA · BCS · ACM · IEEE
The academic base keeps the advisory work honest.
Dr Mohammed BahjaAcademia · 10
Collaborations
Trusted by
NHS
Google DeepMind
Saudi Aramco
Dubai Police
SDAIA
West Midlands Police
Cowleys UK
Dr Mohammed BahjaPartners · 11
European research
EU-funded programmes
- GREENDC (H2020) — data-centre energy
- AEGLE (H2020) — healthcare big data
- CLOUD-VAS (H2020) — maritime logistics
- PolicyCompass (EC) — policy modelling
- MINI CHIP (FP7) — maritime decisions
- Innovation Bridge (ERDF) — UK innovation
Dr Mohammed BahjaPartners · 12
Research
Selected publications
Selected peer-reviewed work — ordered by citations. Full record on Google Scholar.
1. Characterizing visual programming approaches for end-user developers: A systematic review
IEEE Access 9, 14181-14202, 2021 · 2021 · 133 citations
2. Natural Language Processing Applications in Business
E-Business, 2020 · 2020 · 110 citations
3. Identifying patient experience from online resources via sentiment analysis and topic modelling
proceedings of the 3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on big data …, 2016 · 2016 · 60 citations
4. A user-centric framework for educational chatbots design and development
International conference on human-computer interaction, 32-43, 2020 · 2020 · 58 citations
5. Unlink the link between COVID-19 and 5G networks: an NLP and SNA based approach
Ieee Access 8, 209127-209137, 2020 · 2020 · 51 citations
6. Automating large-scale health care service feedback analysis: sentiment analysis and topic modeling study
JMIR Medical Informatics 10 (4), e29385, 2022 · 2022 · 34 citations
7. Talk2Learn: a framework for chatbot learning
European conference on technology enhanced learning, 582-586, 2019 · 2019 · 29 citations
8. Embracing technological change in higher education
Higher Education-New approaches to accreditation, digitalization, and …, 2021 · 2021 · 26 citations
9. COVID19 led virtualization: green data center for information systems research
Information Systems Management 37 (4), 272-276, 2020 · 2020 · 19 citations
10. Capturing public concerns about coronavirus using arabic tweets: An nlp-driven approach
2020 IEEE/ACM 13th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing …, 2020 · 2020 · 14 citations
11. Opportunities and challenges in educational chatbots
Trends, applications, and challenges of chatbot technology, 119-136, 2023 · 2023 · 13 citations
12. An antenatal care awareness prototype chatbot application using a user-centric design approach
International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 20-31, 2020 · 2020 · 10 citations
Dr Mohammed BahjaResearch · 13
12. A user-centric design and pedagogical-based approach for mobile learning
International Conference on Mobile, Hybrid, and on-Line Learning, 100-105, 2018 · 2018 · 10 citations
13. Bridging the gap between informal learning pedagogy and multimodal learning analytics
The multimodal learning analytics handbook, 159-179, 2022 · 2022
14. Automated Analysis of Patient Experience Text Mining using a Design Science Research (DSR) Approach
The Eighth International Conference on Business Intelligence and Technology, 2018 · 2018
15. Edubot: A framework for chatbot in education
Trends, Applications, and Challenges of Chatbot Technology, 166-185, 2023 · 2023
16. Internet of Things to Internet of Humans: A Perception
Human-Centric Intelligent Systems 5 (1), 66–77, 2025 · 2025
17. Improved spectral efficiency and connectivity in rsma based 5G V2X systems
EAI Endorsed Transactions on Energy Web 9 (6), e3-e3, 2022 · 2022
18. Embracing technological change in higher education
R Hammad, M Bahja · 2022
19. Capturing Classic Authorial Style in Long-Form Story Generation with GRPO Fine-Tuning
Proceedings of the 30th Conference on Computational Natural Language …, 2026 · 2026
20. The Potential of Generative AI in Special Education: A Review of Applications and Impact
Unleashing User Innovation, 192-213, 2025 · 2025
21. User-driven development for UK M-health patient management system
Proceedings of the 32nd International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference, 2018 · 2018
22. A text-mining based approach to capturing the NHS patient experience
Brunel University London, 2017 · 2017
Dr Mohammed BahjaResearch · 14
Start a conversation
For governments & enterprises ready to move
Advisory engagements, AI solution delivery, and executive education — in the UK and across the Gulf.
Dr Mohammed BahjaContact · 17
Direct lines
Reach me
Email m.bahja@cs.bham.ac.ukLinkedIn linkedin.com/in/mbahjaLondon Gulf Nexus consultancy & trainingGoogle Scholar full publication recordAn artistic blog personal writing, since 2008
AI Associate Professor | AI Strategist & Government Advisor | Author & Speaker
Dr Mohammed BahjaContact · 18