How I came to the IDS

How did I came to doing a PhD? And why at the IDS? And why BRMS? This is the topic of this post. So I will tell the whole story now, for you hords of curious fans :D

I worked at SAP headquarters in Rot-Malsch (just a train station before Walldorf, 40 minutes in train from Karlsruhe) as a student in the Business Process Modelling team for almost a year. As part of my tasks I had to model and develop using the ARIS Framework from the IDS Scheer. I came into contact with consultants from the IDS.

At the same time I was working on my master Thesis at the FZI at the university of karlsruhe, where I was doing my double degree in computer science (with the ENSIMAG-INPG in Grenoble, France). My master thesis topic was about policy-based collaboration in semanic business process management. I had already decided some time before that I definitely wanted to work in reasearch and do a PhD. As I am of a very communicative nature, I had told almost everybody in the company (and that makes a lot of people :-)) about what I was doing and that I was looking for a PhD position to continue working around semantic BPM.

Through one of the consultants who was in contact with an IDS engineer who already was doing his PhD at the IDS, I doscovered that the IDS also had a research division and even a PhD program. Since the IDS offered what I needed for my PhD Project, I decided to jump on the opportunity and sent my application through my contact. I was contacted by email and after some phone interviews (which I was used to since I have had numerous professional experiences previously, I also had many interviews with french companies, at a time where I thought I would go back to work in France...) and a few other interviews at the IDS headquarters (also with my current supervising professor), I received a contract proposal in Karlsruhe in february. I signed immediately and sent it by post the following day.

I still had to finish my master thesis, to get my marks from my french engineering school validated and converted at the faculty of computer science (which took some time...). After all administrative difficulties at the university were overcome, I had to apply for a work permit in Karlsrueh and wait. Thanks to my IDS superior's insistance , the procedure was highly accelerated and I got my work permit at the beginning of june. I started immediately. I had already moved to saarbrücken in May.

I said goodbye to Karlsruhe and closed one chapter more of my dislocations in European countries and a prolongation of my stay in Germany of at least 3 years :D

We'll see how it goes here, and if I get along well with the city and life here in saarbrücken. Hope for the best.

Marwane El Kharbili