Conferences

Speakers

Prof. Erol Gelenbe, Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics, Polish Academy of Sciences

Bio:

A graduate of METU (Ankara), Erol Gelenbe holds a PhD from New York University (Tandon School of Engineering) and the DSc from the Sorbonne. He is a pioneer of the field of computer and network performance analysis and evaluation, and has been elected a Fellow of IEEE, ACM, IFIP, RSS (London), and IET (London). He has received the Grand Prix France Telecom (1996), the Parlar Foundation Science Award (Ankara, 1994), the ACM SIGMETRICS Life-Time Achievement Award (2008), the Oliver Lodge Medal of the Institute for Engineering and Technology (London, 2010), the Mustafa Prize (2017) and other awards. He was awarded three doctorates "honors causa" (Univ. of Roma II, Italy; Bogazici University, Istanbul; Univ of Liege, Belgium), and was elected Fellow of the Science Academy of Turkey, the National Academy of technologies (France), the Royal Academy of Belgium, and the Science Academies of Hungary and Poland. He has graduated 95 PhDs to date, and is active inEU Horizon programs.

Talk Abstract:

Networked systems must offer acceptable levels of QoS with minimum energy consumption for sustainability, in addition to being able to detect and mitigate possible cyber-attacks. In this presentation we will show how this difficult problem can be addressed with the help of the Cognitive Packet Network and Reinforcement Learning. The principles we describe will be illustrated with results on an experimental test-bed.

Prof. Michael Wooldridge, University of Oxford, UK

Bio:

Michael Wooldridge is a Professor of Computer Science and Head of Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, and a programme director for AI at the Alan Turing Institute. He has been an AI researcher for more than 30 years, and has published more than 400 scientific articles on the subject, including nine books. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Association for the Advancement of AI (AAAI), and the European Association for AI (EurAI). From 2014-16, he was President of the European Association for AI, and from 2015-17 he was President of the International Joint Conference on AI (IJCAI). In 2021, Wooldridge received a five-year Turing AI World Leading Research Fellowship from the UK government.

Talk Abstract:

The rapid progress in AI over the past decade has led to much speculation about how this emerging new technology will affect society. Visions raise from the dystopian (AI will put us all out of work; AI will increase inequality and divide global society) through to the utopian (AI will free us from work and make universal basic income a reality; AI will provide free global healthcare). With so much speculation, it is easy to suffer from nightmares – or delusions. So what is the reality? In this talk, I will discuss how AI will affect three main aspects of society: work, money, and education. In each of these areas, I will discuss how I believe we will likely feel the effects of AI. Finally, I will briefly review some of the main areas of concern around AI – the issues that should concern us now, as affecting us over the next three decades.

Prof. Raj Jain, Washinton University in Saint Louis

Bio:

Raj Jain is currently the Barbara J. and Jerome R. Cox, Jr., Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Jain is a Life Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of ACM, a Fellow of AAAS, a recipient of the 2018 James B. Eads Award from St. Louis Academy of Science, 2017 ACM SIGCOMM Life-Time Achievement Award. Previously, he was one of the Co-founders of Nayna Networks, Inc., a Senior Consulting Engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation in Littleton, Mass, and then a professor of Computer and Information Sciences at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. With 34,000+ citations, according to Google Scholar, he is one of the highly cited authors in computer science. Further information is at http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/

Talk Abstract:

Blockchains has found numerous applications in Fintech, Supply chains, and contracts because it is an ideal distributed consensus where all nodes agree on the validity of transactions in a block without needing a central trusted party. The consensus is binary - agree or disagree - True or False. In this era of big data, we need to move blockchains beyond data storage to provide knowledge. In the real world, there are many situations in which various participants may not fully agree, and their opinions may be probabilistic, leading to probabilistic agreements. In this talk, Prof. Jain will present his recent extensions using AI that allow blockchains to be used for group decisions that may not be binary. These extensions enable blockchains to be used for group decision making and risk management when the group sizes are large, and group members may want to remain anonymous. In particular, Prof. Jain will describe numerous use cases of this idea. Such situations frequently arise in network security and risky investments.

Christophe Negre, Cyber Security Technical Director, Thales France

Bio:

Christophe Negre is a Cyber security expert specialized in National Cyber Sovereignty and Detect & Response. He worked on critical projects as a technical expert and advisor for European and International organizations such as the French Ministry of Defence, the European Spatial Agency or for the NATO. Since 2019, Christophe also developed training roadmap and courses for top engineering school as Thales’ head of studies. He has taught post-graduate students and professional on numerous subjects such as biometrics, vulnerability management or Cyber Sovereignty.

Talk Abstract:

To be added.

Dr. Oktay Adalier, TUBITEK BILGEM

Bio:

Oktay ADALIER, Ph. D. is a Head Senior Researcher at Design & Development Division in National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptology (UEKAE) under TUBITAK BILGEM, Turkey. He is currently leading eID & Blockchain Department. He received his B.S degree (1992) in mathematics and M.S. degree (1995) in Computer Engineering, both from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He also received his Ph.D. degree (2008) in Computer Engineering from Aegean University, Izmir, Turkey. He has work as Senior Researcher and developer in various military projects on secure communication device development and implementation of secure communication protocols. He has managed several Secure Management Center development projects for security devices which is developed for governmental institutions. He and his team are currently working on Digital ID and CDBC based on Blockchain technology. His major interests include project management and control, project risk Management, authentications technologies for system on behalf of governmental and public use, Digital ID, application of blockchain technologies to Digital ID’s. He has published several papers on security management and project cost estimation issues.

Talk Abstract:

Turkey is investing a large budget and effort to authentication infrastructures to succeed in digital government services. Turkey is trying to transform public and private services into the electronic format. Identification of service holder is becoming very important. Turkey have been started research and development ID projects in house with private sector to establish a national ID system. It is successfully established and more then 65 million electronic ID cards is issued to citizens. They are used in every day life to hold a service. After that mobile authentication is widely used by financial bodies and mobile operators. More or less every bank in Turkey has mobile authentication capability. Next step on the road map is distributed identity and its application to public and private sectors. Currently TUBITAK BILGEM and solution provider companies are working on blockchain based distributed identity technologies. The aim is to established a nationwide blockchain based Self Sovereign oriented identity management solution.

Dr. Naveed Afzal, Lead Data Scientist, Humana

Bio:

Dr. Afzal is currently a Lead Data Scientist at Humana – Health, Wellness & Fitness public company in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Natural Language Processing from University of Wolverhampton, United Kingdom and a Master degree in Advanced Software Engineering from University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. He is the author of a book along with over 40 academic publications, and have a multiple year of experience in academia (Assistant Professor in King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), research (Research Fellow in Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN) as well as in the healthcare industry in the field of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Data Analytics.  Dr. Afzal have worked extensively on unstructured datasets using various NLP, machine learning and deep learning approaches to build supervised and unsupervised models that have produced meaningful insights to facilitate the decision-making process for various business use-cases.

Talk Abstract:

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield of Artificial Intelligence (AI) which has the potential to analyze complex data. NLP is accelerating innovation in all industries and healthcare presents one of the biggest opportunities for new solutions. However, the healthcare domain also poses unique challenges. Data comes in myriad formats, is noisy and rarely labeled. Use cases may require mixing data-driven approaches with those that leverage expert domain knowledge. Few situations enable direct application of familiar machine learning methods but instead require inventive approaches of discriminant analysis and/or ensemble methods. There is also a high bar for evaluation, integration, and operationalizing of AI solutions in clinical settings.   In this talk, we began with a brief overview of NLP and cyber security, challenges in healthcare and how NLP is being leveraged to address various use-cases in the healthcare industry.

Dr. Mohamed Y. Nabeel, QCRI

Bio:

Dr. Mohamed Nabeel is a senior scientist at Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI). His research interests include web security, data privacy, machine learning security and applied cryptography. Prior to joining QCRI, he was a senior staff member of Oracle database security team. He is a Fulbright fellow and earned his PhD from Purdue University.

Talk Abstract:

Malicious domains, including phishing websites, spam servers, and command and control servers, are the reason for many of the cyber attacks nowadays. Thus, detecting them in a timely manner is important to not only identify cyber attacks but also take preventive measures. There has been a plethora of techniques proposed to detect malicious domains by analyzing Domain Name System (DNS) traffic data. However, most of the  existing techniques rely on rule-based systems, local features or simple graph information to detect such domains. Such approaches not only fail to detect stealthy attacks, but also are unable to adapt to changing attack tactics. In this presentation, we show how we utilize unsupervised graph representational learning followed by supervised learning to detect stealthy and adaptive malicious domains.

Dr. Maode Ma, Qatar University

Bio:

Prof. Maode Ma, a Fellow of IET, received his Ph.D. degree from Department of Computer Science in Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 1999. Now, Dr. Ma is a Research Professor in the College of Engineering at Qatar University. Before joining Qatar University, he has been a faculty member at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore for over 20 years. He has extensive research interests including network security and wireless networking. Dr. Ma has about 450 international academic publications including more than 220 journal papers and over 230 conference papers. His publication has received over 6800 citations by Google Scholar. He has delivered over 80 keynote speeches and 10 tutorials at various international conferences. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Computer and Communication Engineering and Journal of Communications. He also serves as a Senior Editor for IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, and an Associate Editor for International Journal of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing and International Journal of Communication Systems. Dr. Ma is a senior member of IEEE Communication Society and a member of ACM. He is now the Education Chair of the IEEE Singapore Section and the Chair of the ACM, Singapore Chapter.

Talk Abstract:

Recently, the Fifth Generation (5G) wireless network becomes a major carrier for wireless communications that supports the Internet of everything and large-scale heterogeneous connections. Nowadays, the 5G wireless networks have been deployed in many countries in the world such as Qatar, where 5G commercial services are available to end-users. 5G wireless networks present some promising and advanced features. Since the introduction of the new techniques and new features makes 5G wireless networks facing several new security challenges, it is critical to design new security functionality to protect the operation of 5G wireless networks. The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has produced the Technical Specification TS 23.501 R16 to specify various functions of 5G wireless network with corresponding security mechanisms. Some other pioneering research works have enhanced the security mechanisms specified by the 3GPP. In this talk, I would like to summarize some followed-up research work with the aim to achieve a compromise between the security functionality and the performance of the 5G wireless networks. A series of proposed solutions targets at providing security protection with high efficiency in three kinds of network scenarios will be discussed.

Dr. Erdal Ozkaya, Cheif Cybersecurity Strategist, Comodo

Bio:

Dr Erdal Ozkaya is known as a passionate, solutions-focused professional with a comprehensive global background within the information technology, information security, and cyber security fields.

He is committed to the delivery of accurate, accessible resources to inform individuals and organizations of cybersecurity and privacy matters in the internet age. Dr Erdal is a collaborative team leader with the key areas of his expertise spanning end-to-end IT solutions, management, communications, and innovation. In addition, he is a well-known public speaker, an award-winning technical expert, a book author, and writer of certifications (courseware and exams) for prestigious organizations such as Microsoft, EC Council, and other expert-level vendors.

Some of his recent awards are:

2021: Best CISO for Banking and Financial Sector
CIO Online & IDC : Top 50 Technology Leaders, Security Magazine Top CISO, Tycoon Success Magazine, Most Powerful 10 Middle East Businessman EC Council CEH Hall of Fame
2020: Khaleej Times "CISO Power List" , Cybersecurity Legend by GEC Media Group, "Super Hero CISO", by Enterprise IT
Top CISO by Security ME Magazine
2019: CISO Mag " Hall of Fame" and Cybersecurity Influencer of the year , Microsoft Regional Director
2018 : NATO Center of Excellence Award
2017: Microsoft Platinum Club.

Talk Abstract:

More and more organizations are getting hit by Ransomware . This session will cover the Cybersecurity Dilemma which causes cyber-attacks , all cases real from the field, based on lessons learned ,with lots of practical advises  to help you mitigate any future  attacks and help your organization to be “even” better.

Mr. Radhakrishnan Mahalingam, Hamad Medical corporation, DOHA

Bio:

An ICDL, WHO, Bullet Proof® certifiedIT Global Advisory Head [Enterprise & Large Scale Blockchain , Artificial Intelligence solutions , Cloud , Industrial automation applications]with 21+yrsof successful Technology strategy, Product Ideation & strategy , Business Solution management , CxO consulting , Data & Analytics Engineering , Reporting Engineering Services , Corporate technology strategy consulting & Technology operations , Technology planning, National Technology roadmap definition, Key parameters Assessment & Planning, Cloud transformations, Technology Innovations Management , Automotive Solutions & Delivery management ,Global Digital Vision management track record on various domains.

Talk Abstract:

The healthcare domain is undergoing a major shift towards electronic health records(EHR) and data management with a shift over recent times from passive technology adopters towards more investigators and explorers. There is a vital need for a universal patient record in a distributed ledger and new approaches to ensure collaborative health when we can manage our own wellness outside of the system to improve outcome and contain healthcare costs. There are few immediate needs to address which are patient-centric management regarding high incidence chronic diseases and identification and optimization of at-risk parameters. This is anideation for exploring “Blockchain” implementation to match the correct individual to their health data which is critical to their medical care. It is recognized that a significant proportion of EHRare not accurately matched within the same health care system and this hinders critical success factors such as effective patient management, patient satisfaction, and continuity of quality care. The following outcomes and advantages are expected to be delivered for patient care records management offering transparent and verifiable records which are encrypted to provide streamlined clinical dataflow benefitting patients. Core benefits also include enhancing transparency to patients, reducing threats of hacking, increasing patient records safety, eliminating workarounds, and minimizing IT expenditures and downtimes. As a promising breakthrough, this idea has yielded that patients no longer need to co-ordinate the tedious task of gathering records from various providers, instead they would only need to provide access to their health blockchain, hence retaining control of their data and not spending time and energy keeping their data upto date.

Dr. Cetin Mericli, CEO Locomation

Bio:

Çetin Meriçli, Ph.D., is the CEO and co-founder of Locomation, a leading developer of safe and reliable autonomous driving technology with a current focus on semi-trucks. An experienced entrepreneur and formerly a Special Faculty at the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, Çetin has two decades of experience in leading teams on developing and deploying complex robotic systems for commercial, military, and scientific applications – and he has played key roles in over a dozen high profile applied robotics projects. He is a well published expert in AI, robotics, and machine learning.

Talk Abstract:

In this talk, I will give an overview of challenges in autonomous driving, and will present our case on why Locomation's human guided autonomous convoys enable the safest and fastest way to deploy autonomous trucks.

Dr. Soren Sennels, Dencrypt, Denmark

Bio:

Søren Sennels, 53, is the chief operating officer for Dencrypt A/S, which develops and provides advanced encryption solutions. Among others, Dencrypt delivers secure communication for the Danish Armed Forces and NATO. Søren joined Dencrypt in 2014, bringing more than 18 years of technology leadership, project management and algorithm development expertise from the international telecommunication industry to his role with the company. Søren Sennels graduated from the Technical University of Denmark in 1993, earning his master degree in Electrical Engineering. He received his PhD in Digital Signal Processing in 1996 also from the Technical University of Denmark. From 1996 to 2014, he worked for Nokia, Renesas Mobile and Broadcom developing 2G, 3G and 4G modem technology.

Talk Abstract:

The talk will address and provide examples of vulnerabilities in 2G/3G/4G network and why these are carried over to the emerging 5G network. We will discuss the need for security at the application level to ensure secure communication for governments, industry and citizens. Finally, we will touch on the increasing awareness of secure mobile communication in Denmark and the strategies applied.

Thomas Allan Reimann, Executive Director of Ambulance Service, Hamad Medical Corporation

Bio:

Thomas Reimann has extensive experience within Emergency Service/management and all aspects of operationalizing a modern Ambulance Service, including technology platforms and solutions to enable seamless handling of calls in urgent or non-urgent environments. Also, the use of Big data in Emergency services to enable robust decisions pre-, during, and post an incident. Thomas Reimann is currently pursuing a Ph. D in Disaster Management with Jacksonville State University.

Talk Abstract:

To be added soon.

Fathelalem Hija, Joaan Academy for Defense Studies, Qatar

Bio:

Fathelalem Hija is with the Joaan Academy for Defense Studies, Qatar. He had his first university degree of B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Khartoum in 1988. He got a Master’s in Electrical & Information Engineering, and a doctoral of Engineering, in Complex-Intelligent Systems Engineering, from University of the Ryukyus, Japan, in 1997 and 2000, respectively. Prior to joining Joan Academy, Hija had been working for more than two decades with Meio University, Japan, as a professor of Information Engineering. His profession and research interests include computational intelligence, information theory and engineering, and cyber security.

Talk Abstract:

To be added soon.

Dr. Abdelhak Belhi, Joaan Bin Jassim Academy for Defense Studies, Qatar

Bio:

Abdelhak Belhi is an assistant professor at Joaan Bin Jassim Academy for Defence Studies - Qatar. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Lyon in France and a master’s degree in software engineering and information processing from the University of Boumerdes in Algeria. He previously worked as a researcher for four years at Qatar University on research projects related to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and blockchain. He published numerous research articles in highly ranked peer-reviewed journals and participated in multiple international conferences in many fields, including artificial intelligence, information systems, and cybersecurity. He co-edited a book on Data analytics in the digital cultural domain and participated as a reviewer for top journals in the field of machine learning and deep learning.

Talk Abstract:

In the workshop, the participants will enjoy a hands-on experience with AI technologies for visual recognition and reconstruction. The first part will be dedicated to the environment setup on Google Colab as well as to some high-level theoretical details about visual recognition and image processing. Participants will then build a transfer learning-based visual classification model using a set of available datasets. They will then train their model and use real-world images to test its accuracy. The second part will be dedicated to the visual reconstruction or the “Inpainting” of pictures with missing areas using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) leveraging their contextual and perceptual visual information. Participants will build a visual reconstruction model and will have the possibility to test to complete real-world images with missing regions.

Mr. Kenan Begovic, Group Director of Information Security, beIN MEDIA GROUP

Bio:

Kenan Begovic is a seasoned information security professional with over 20 years of experience in the field across the various industry verticals, specializing in “greenfield” implementations. As one of the pioneers of information security in South-East Europe and GCC, Kenan managed information security governance, risk, and operations for intelligence/law enforcement, government departments, Islamic finance industry leaders, and sports and entertainment companies. In the past several years he held the lead position in Information Security for the organizer of FIFA World Cup Qatar2022 and he co-founded avant-garde security consultancy firm GROUP40 that specializes in the development of offensive security capabilities for government entities (headquartered in Istanbul). Currently, Kenan is holding the position of Group Director of Information Security for beIN Media Group in Doha where he is tasked with establishing and improving information security in all of the Group’s members spread across the five continents and 11 countries. Also, proudly, he is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Qatar University.

Talk Abstract:

Cybercrimes are the prominent problem of our interconnected world and ransomware among them is one of the oldest continuous threats that have no permanent solution in sight. "What is ransomware?", "What is its lifecycle?", "Why it is not malware?", "What we did so far and what are our chances in the future to defend against it?" are topics of this presentation.

Louis Brayle, Strategy and Digital Business Development, Thales

Bio:

With a background in consulting and critical industries, Louis is helping Thales customers and partners in the Middle East region answer their digital transformation challenges.

Talk Abstract:

A glimpse of Thales work and capabilities in Artificial Intelligence. When working in heavily regulated industries, we must ensure that our technologies meet demands of certification, explainability and trustworthiness, while keeping people accountable for critical decisions. To tackle these challenges, Thales has developed the TRUE AI approach, for an AI that is Transparent, Understandable and Ethical.

Khalid Al-Kubaisi, Practice Head, Cybersecurity at Malomatia

Bio:

Khalid is a cybersecurity executive at malomatia, leading cybersecurity services practice; he led the inception and growth of cybersecurity services at malomatia and successfully executed nation-wide cybersecurity programs. Prior to joining malomatia, Khalid founded a cybersecurity start-up with aim to employ blockchain integrity verification to assist company and law enforcement to combat cybercrime. Khalid received his Bachelor’s degree from University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) and Master’s from Qatar University both in Computer Science. Also, Khalid has wide top-line industry certifications in cybersecurity such as CISSP, CISSP-ISSMP and CISM.

Talk Abstract:

Dr. Junaid Qadir, Qatar University

Bio:

Junaid Qadir [SM'14] is a Professor at the Qatar University in Doha, Qatar, and the Information Technology University (ITU) of Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan. He directs the IHSAN Research Lab. His primary research interests are in the areas of computer systems and networking, applied machine learning, using ICT for development (ICT4D); human-beneficial artificial intelligence; ethics of technology, artificial intelligence, and data science; and engineering education. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles at various high-quality research venues including publications at top international research journals including IEEE Communication Magazine, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication (JSAC), IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (CST), and IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC). He was awarded the highest national teaching award in Pakistan—the higher education commission's (HEC) best university teacher award—for the year 2012-2013. He has obtained research grants from Facebook Research, Qatar National Research Fund, and the HEC, Pakistan. He has been appointed as ACM Distinguished Speaker for a three-year term starting from 2020. He is a senior member of IEEE and ACM.