Dr Anwar Vahed is the Director of the Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA). He manages the South African national research data infrastructure in support of data driven research and research data management. DIRISA, together with the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) and the South African Research Network (SANReN), comprises the National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System (NICIS). 

Dr Vahed developed the South African strategy for research big data, and he serves on several local and international committees, notably, the South African Committee for CODATA, African Open Science Platform, South African Open Science Advisory Board, US National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences.