Abstract of Talk:

Our entire world has changed in recent years – through the pandemic, wars, and amazing advances in technology. The pandemic encouraged us to develop better communication methods, saw the development of apps to advance healthcare, sustainable delivery, and many others. Technological advancements are often based on the availability of smartphones, and apps that provide us cheap (or even) free apps, in return for the use of data about where we are, what we’re doing, what we’re buying, eating, etc. In recent years, AI, and specifically large language models have brought about amazing advances that can, like most technology, be used for great good or great harm. The “smart economy” is based on exploiting these technological advancements for the betterment of society and humanity, and the wise use of limited resources safely, and with as little damage as possible to the environment. All of this innovation is based on software, with software being impossible to avoid in just about any area of life.

Brief Profile:

Professor Mike Hinchey is Professor of Software Engineering at University of Limerick, Ireland, where he was previously Head of Department of Computer Science and Information Systems and Director of Lero-the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, a national research centre headquartered at University of Limerick. He is Past President of IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing (www.ifip.org) and Past Chair of the IEEE UK & Ireland Section. He is Director-elect of IEEE Region 8 (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and serves on IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors. Prior to joining University of Limerick, Professor Hinchey was the Director of the NASA Software Engineering Laboratory. In 2009, he was awarded NASA’s Kerley Award as Innovator of the Year and is one of only 36 people recognized in the NASA Inventors Hall of Fame. Professor Hinchey holds a B.Sc. in Computer Systems from University of Limerick, an M.Sc. in Computation (Mathematics) from University of Oxford and a PhD in Computer Science from University of Cambridge. Professor Hinchey is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Engineering Professional, Chartered Mathematician and Chartered Information Technology Professional, as well as a Fellow of the IET, British Computer Society, Engineers Ireland, and Irish Computer Society, of which he is also Past President. He is Editor-in-Chief of Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering: a NASA Journal and Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society. In 2018, he became an Honorary Fellow of the Computer Society of India and was the SEARCC Global ICT Professional of the Year 2018. . He received the first ever service award of the Brazilian Computer Society in 2023, and the IEEE Computer Society Golden Core in 2024.

Abstract of Talk:

While the success or failure of an AI system depends in part on its accuracy and speed of performance, people often underestimate the importance of users’ mental models of how the AI system works and what its capabilities are. This talk gives a brief overview of issues that affect the design of successful Human-AI Teaming (HAT) experiences, including trust, information flow, social context, and privacy. To build a successful AI agent, you need to understand how your users will perceive its skills, knowledge, and abilities, much like a human teammate.

Brief Profile:

Stephen B. Gilbert is Director of Iowa State University's Human Computer Interaction graduate program and Associate Director of ISU's VRAC, an emerging technologies research center. He is also associate professor in the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering department. His research interests focus on technology to advance cognition, human-autonomy teaming, and XR cybersickness. He works closely with industry, NSF, and DoD on research contracts and has also worked in commercial software development and run his own company. He received a BSE from Princeton in civil engineering and operations research and a PhD from MIT in brain and cognitive sciences.

Abstract of Talk:

Transportation electrification is one of the objectives towards reducing urban pollution and decarbonization. Majority of the nations are now focussing on e-mobility in order to accomplish the goals. However, decarbonization behind battery EV charging is a concern because of the carbon footprint due to the electric power generation. In addition, electrification of gasoline vehicles does not reduce the concerns of traffic congestion and safety on the road. This keynote talk will address the issues of on road safety and traffic congestion by the conceptualisation of connected vehicles. It demands for more electronics instead of more electric technologies in vehicles. The talk will address the technologies, merits as well as challenges behind connected vehicles technologies.

Brief Profile:

Akshay Kumar Rathore is an IEEE Fellow and expert in power electronics and control of electrical motor drives. He is currently a Professor and Program leader of Electrical Power Engineering at Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore. From 2011-2015, he served as an Assistant Professor in Electrical   and   Computer   Engineering, National   University   of Singapore. From 2016-2021, he served as an Associate Professor in Electrical   and   Computer   Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada where he was listed in the Provost Circle of Distinction in 2021. He served as the Graduate Program Director and Chair of Graduate Awards during 2020-21. Dr. Rathore is a recipient   of   the   2013   IEEE   IAS   Andrew   W.   Smith Outstanding Young Member Achievement Award, 2014 Isao Takahashi Power Electronics Award, 2017 IEEE IES David Irwin Early Career Award, 2019 IES Publications Service Recognition Award, 2020   IEEE   Bimal   Bose   Award   for   Industrial Electronics Applications in Energy Systems, 2021 Nagamori Award, and 2023 Distinguished Alumna Award (Young Achiever Category -IIT BHU Varanasi). He published about 300 research papers in international journals and conferences, including 105 IEEE TRANSACTIONS. Dr. Rathore is currently serving as the co-Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Fellow Evaluation Committee member of IEEE IES Society, and member of the IEEE Nikola Tesla Award Committee. 

Abstract of Talk:

Metaverse term has different aspects and concepts for the readers. The easy understanding of a reader’s metaverse is a new way of hue cyberspace. Metaverse does not refer to any specific technology but several cutting-edge technologies and how those will be used under specific conditions. Mainly it focuses on social networks in 3D virtual reality mode. It creates a virtual space by the combination of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality. This virtual world provides a lot within its virtual cyberspace, including digital currency, digital and virtual economy, and multiple owners can own it. Users can be able to buy and sell their goods and properties, and even users can sell and purchase other livelihood items including cars, clothes, and other living items. Metaverse claims even more at the next level to use the NFTs technology for digital assets. We expect many opportunities from Metaverse and its related technologies in the near future. Besides of these opportunities, the expected cybersecurity challenges are there as well, some of them such as NFTs, Darkverse, Financial fraud, Privacy issues, Cyber-physical threats, Virtual/augmented/mixed/extended reality threats, social engineering, and other related threats.

Brief Profile:

Professor Dr. Noor Zaman Jhanjhi, often referred to as N.Z. Jhanjhi, holds the esteemed position of Professor in Computer Science with specializations in Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence. He currently serves as the Program Director for Postgraduate Research Degree Programmes in Computer Science and Director of the Center for Smart Society (CSS5) at Taylor’s University, Malaysia. Recognized as one of the world’s top 2% research scientists for consecutive years in 2022 and 2023, he is esteemed as one of Malaysia's top three computer science researchers. Notably, he was honored as an Outstanding Faculty Member by MDEC Malaysia in 2022.

Prof. Jhanjhi boasts a prolific publication record with numerous highly indexed works in WoS/ISI/SCI/SCIE/Scopus, accumulating a collective research impact factor exceeding 1000 points. His Google Scholar H-index stands at an impressive 65, with an I-10 Index approaching 291, and a Scopus H-index of 42. With over 600 publications to his credit, including several international patents in Australia, Germany, the UK, and Japan, Prof. Jhanjhi has significantly contributed to the academic discourse.

An accomplished editor and author, he has curated over 50 research books published by esteemed publishers such as Springer, IGI Global USA, Taylor & Francis, IET, Elsevier, Wiley, Bentham, and Intech Open. Prof. Jhanjhi excels in mentoring postgraduate scholars, with over 38 scholars graduating under his tutelage. He also serves as Associate Editor and Editorial Assistant Board member for reputable journals and has received accolades such as the Outstanding Associate Editor award for IEEE ACCESS.

Renowned as a top-tier reviewer by Publons (Web of Science), Prof. Jhanjhi has evaluated over 60 theses as an external Ph.D./Master thesis examiner for universities worldwide. His extensive academic qualifications span 10 years and encompass accreditation bodies such as ABET, NCAAA, and NCEAC. Prof. Jhanjhi's diverse research interests encompass Cybersecurity, AI, IoT Security, Wireless Security, Data Science, Software Engineering, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Additionally, he has been invited as a keynote speaker for over 60 international conferences and has chaired numerous international conference sessions.

https://expert.taylors.edu.my/cv/noorzaman.jhanjhi
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=J6QVIncAAAAJ&view_op=list_works

Abstract of Talk:

In the rapidly evolving landscape of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) play a pivotal role in enhancing road safety, traffic efficiency, and driving experience. However, the security of these networks is constantly threatened by Sybil attacks, where malicious vehicles generate multiple false identities to seize control of network resources or create non-existent traffic situations. While several Sybil attack detection mechanisms based on deterministic and learning methods exist, their performance is restricted to particular scenarios. This talk aims to provide attendees with a robust understanding of various advanced techniques for detecting Sybil attacks in VANETs to ensure the security and reliability of vehicular networks. At the time, a deep learning-based Sybil Attack Detection mechanism will also be discussed which identifies the Sybil nodes by detecting the associativity between senders at a time instant using common vehicle characteristics, including Euclidean distance, speed, flow, and computed similarity between senders by using the dynamic time warping (DTW) method. Also, it will be discussed that how the proposed solution achieves improved detection performance through convolutional neural network (CNN) and a combination of CNN with long short-term memory (LSTM) models in varying network scenarios.

Brief Profile:

Prof Meenakshi Tripathi is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at MNIT Jaipur. She received her PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from the MNIT in 2015. She has over 14 years of teaching experience in computer science and information security. She has published more than 100 research articles in leading journals, conference proceedings and books, including IEEE Transactions, IJCS, Computer Networks, journal of Supercomputing etc.. Under her guidance, four students have already been awarded their Ph.D. degrees, and five more are working with her. She has supervised around 30 PG students and more than 60 UG students for their project work. She holds several professional designations, including Dean at Rajasthan Skilled University Jaipur, BoS member of the University of Kota, Ex-chairman of CSI Jaipur chapter, BoS member of the Central University of Rajasthan etc. She is a senior member of IEEE, ACM and a lifelong member of CSI. Her research interests include information security, wireless sensor networks, IoT, Software Defined Networks, blockchain etc.

Abstract of Talk:

This talk presents a novel exploration of quantum mechanics through a quaternary framework, proposing a paradigm shift in our understanding and application of quantum phenomena like superposition and entanglement. Arguing that such phenomena are intrinsic to matter, this research introduces the Quaternary Interpretation of Quantum Dynamics (QIQD). This interpretation reimagines atoms as natural quantum computers operating within a fourfold code of space-time-energy-gravity, which serves as a fundamental blueprint for their functionality. The implications for technology, particularly in the creation of Integrated Quantum Computational Intelligence (IQCI) nano-cyborgs, are profound. These devices, designed to interface directly with the quantum realm, could significantly impact material science and life sciences by harnessing quantum intelligence inherent in natural systems. This reevaluation could lead to advanced quantum computers that exploit the untapped quantum capabilities of atoms, molecules, and cells, potentially leading to significant scientific breakthroughs and technological advancements.

Brief Profile:

Dr. Pravir Malik is a systems thinker and the founder and chief technologist at QIQuantum. His work creatively bridges quantum dynamics and systems thinking, developing models that interconnect cellular, atomic, and quantum scales using fractal patterns. He has authored a comprehensive ten-volume treatise on the cosmology of light and holds a patent-pending design for a fractal-based quantum computer. Dr. Malik has contributed numerous articles to Forbes, exploring the convergence of quantum computation, artificial intelligence, and genetics, and his research has been published in prestigious journals like IEEE and Springer Nature. He applies his theoretical framework to enhance technologies across complex adaptive systems, ranging from pricing systems to AI. As the leader of the Forbes Technology Council's Quantum Computing group, he steers pivotal discussions on quantum computing’s integration into the market and its intersections with genetics and AI, managing a community of over 130 executives. A global speaker and thought leader, Dr. Malik champions advanced quantum technologies on international stages. His background spans organizational sciences, pricing strategy, sustainability, and technology consulting, offering a multidisciplinary perspective crucial for advancing quantum computing. Dr. Malik is also a prolific author with 25 books on deeper aspects of systems thinking. He holds a Ph.D. in Technology Management from the University of Pretoria, focusing on the Mathematics of Innovation in Complex Adaptive Systems, an MBA from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg School of Management, an MS in Computer Science from the University of Florida, specializing in AI, and a BSE in Computer Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

Abstract of Talk:

Machine Learning algorithms rely on reliability and availability of datasets. Such open datasets are produced and created by researchers from respective countries. With the developments within the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence, South Africa remains lacking on current datasets. Considering that Southern Africa faces many challenges in almost every sector and implementation of machine learning algorithm could be an innovative solution. This study argues that proper application of machine learning using relevant and applicable data could assist some of the challenges facing Southern Africa. The problem at hand is that as Artificial Intelligence and open-source datasets emerge such as Kaggle, there are very few datasets available for Southern Africa. As researchers explore and gather data, it is critical to have a guiding architecture for data repository management. The key research question is:

How can an open architecture for Southern African datasets be developed towards machine learning algorithms?

The study is based on current available open-source datasets using online secondary data. Several datasets based on the common national challenges were considered. Kaggle was the open machine learning tool considered. Results show that a dataset search without mentioning Southern Africa will return more results. Once a search is more specified to Southern Africa, less results are returned. The searches were based on the common datasets that were considered popular challenges. Results are clear that there are very few datasets from Southern Africa to assist machine learning experts. This talk proposes a standardized operational open dataset architecture that is applicable for Southern Africa. The architecture is expected to be secure, interoperable, standard and open to be adopted for different types of datasets. The talk paves the way for machine learning researchers to have an integrated architecture that assist South African researchers to provide open datasets to improve decision making.

Brief Profile:

Nobert is a Pan Africanist and holds a PhD in Computer Science and is currently an Associate Professor in Computer Science. His research is centred around sustainable emerging technologies i.e ICTs, Open Data and HCI. He is currently the ICT for Sustainable development Research Niche Area chair at WSU. He has published over 50 articles in accredited journals and conference proceedings. Nobert is a certified ISO 27001:2013 Internal Audit Certified, ISO 20000-1: 2018 Lead Auditor and The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) Certified. He has supervised to completion over 15 Postgraduate students at PhD and Masters level. He is currently a South African National Research Foundation Y2 rated researcher.

Abstract of Talk:

Today, Smartphones have quality high resolution cameras, and taking a photo or video and sharing it has never been easier, resulting in the incredible growth of modern social networks like Facebook and Instagram. YouTube might be the second largest search engine and hundreds of hours of video are uploaded every minute and billions of videos are watched every day. The internet is comprised of text and images. It is relatively straightforward to index and search text, but in order to index and search images, algorithms need to know what the images contain. To get the most out of image and video data, we need computers to “see” an image and understand the content. In this talk, we introduce Computer vision with a brief about some machine learning processes. Then, we will discuss “Amazon Rekognition” for images and video of AWS and the algorithms for searchable image and video libraries. We also discuss some cases of Image moderation and sentiment analysis

Brief Profile:

Dr. Durgesh Kumar Mishra has received M.Tech. degree in Computer Science from DAVV, Indore in 1994 and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering in 2008. Presently, he has been working as a Director and Professor SCSIT, Symbiosis University of Applied Sciences, Indore. He was founder Director, Microsoft Innovation Centre at SAIT, Indore, India. He is associated with Namibia University of Science and Technology as the Program Advisory Committee for Doctor of Philosophy Computer Science (NQF level 10). Ex-visiting faculty at IIT-Indore. He has 30 years of teaching and 15 years of research experience with a good number of citations with h-index and i-index. He has four patents granted and twelve published jointly with Ph.D. students and more than 100 papers in refereed journals and conferences in his research field. His Ph.D. is in Secure Multi-Party Computation for Preserving Privacy. He has organized a number of IEEE, ACM, and Springer conferences in the capacity of conference General Chair and editor of conference proceedings. He is a Sr Member of IEEE, ACM, and CSI and held many positions like Chairman, IEEE Computer Society Madhya Pradesh Section(2022 to 2023),IEEE MP-Subsection (2011-2012), and Chairman IEEE Computer Society Bombay Chapter (2009-2010). Chairman CSI Division IV Communication at National Level (2014-2018). National Treasurer Computer Society of India (2019-2021). At Present he is the Chairman IEEE Madhya Pradesh Section and Chairman of ACM Indore Chapter. Dr. Mishra visited and delivered his invited talk in Taiwan, Bangladesh, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the USA, UK, and France. He has authored two books on “Database Management Systems” and “Programming in C and C++”. He edited 12 international books of Springer publication in his domain of Computer Science. He has been a consultant to industries and government organizations like the sales tax and labor department of the government of Madhya Pradesh, India. He has been awarded the “Paper Presenter award at International Level” by the Computer Society of India. He visited MIT Boston and presented his presentation on Security and Privacy he has also Chaired a panel on “Digital Monozukuri” at “Norbert Winner in 21st century” at BOSTON. He became a Member of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Govt of India for the Information Security domain. Recently, Microsoft invited him for his felicitation and to deliver his Innovation at Xi’an China. He has the recipient of many awards from the largest professional society CSI. Recently VDGOOD Society India, Awarded him as International Scientist Award for Engineering, Science, and Medicine.

Abstract of Talk:

In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that can provide human-centric explanations for decisions or predictions. No matter how good and efficient an AI system is, users or practitioners find it difficult to trust it if they cannot understand the basis for results generated by the AI or its behaviours. Incorporating explainability that is human-centric in AI systems is significant for building a decision-making process that is more trustworthy and sustainable. The need for human-centric explanation is critical to increasing the uptake of explainable AI (XAI) systems. In this lecture, we will discuss the requirements and the design considerations for the development of human-centric and explanation-aware decision support systems (HExaDSS). We will also examine metrics for assessing their performance, as well as the imperatives for effective governance of human-centric and explanation-aware decision support systems when they are deployed in sociotechnical environments.

Brief Profile:

Prof Olawande Daramola holds Bachelor's, Master's, and doctoral degrees in Computer Science. Recognized as a C-rated researcher by the NRF of South Africa, he is currently a research professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. His research, spanning Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Data Science, Big Data analytics, Software Engineering, knowledge-based systems, ontologies, and Information Systems, has made significant contributions to the field. With over 100 publications in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Software Engineering, he has guided numerous postgraduate students (doctoral, masters) in South Africa and overseas.

Prof Daramola regularly serves as an external examiner to several universities in South Africa and internationally. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Information Technology at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa. He is the Principal Investigator (PI) for two NRF grant-funded Health Informatics research projects. He is also a principal investigator (PI) for two grant projects that are funded by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). He serves on the editorial board of four computing journals and is a member of the technical programme committee of several international computing conferences. He is a reviewer for several top computing journals that IEEE, Springer, and Elsevier publish. He also serves regularly as a reviewer of grant applications for the NRF and the South African Medical Council. Prof Daramola has also had the privilege of serving on some national panels constituted by the NRF. He has participated in curriculum reviews of academic programmes for universities in South Africa and internationally.

Abstract of Talk:

In today’s dynamic technological landscape, the evolution of deepfakes has opened a landscape of opportunities and risks, particularly for online users who rely on digital multimedia content. Deepfakes enable users to generate new forms of art and entertainment. This technology has transformed the way we learn and interact with resources by providing access to a relatively affordable means of producing pedagogical and educational content. Deepfakes have significant implications in the medical field as researchers can now test novel ways of monitoring diseases without risking patients’ privacy. While deepfakes are a source of technological innovations and have the potential to positively transform our culture, yet malicious deepfakes pose a serious threat to corporate and private integrity and has become a major global concern. The recent proliferation of social media platforms has further contributed to the spread of deepfake content online. This has raised several concerns worldwide due to potentially negative consequences regarding unethical and malicious aspects of deepfakes. There are currently no established techniques for validating the validity of media posted on the Internet. This poses a serious threat to corporate and private institutions. While several researchers and vendors have proposed several solutions for detecting deepfakes, the proliferation of deepfakes has been continuous, indicating that existing systems for deepfake detection are ineffectual. Besides, current solutions proposed for deepfakes are reactive, in other words, the detection is done after the media has been uploaded to the content providers’ platform. Consequently, this talk will focus on the opportunités and risks of deepfakes. It will highlight the gaps in the current strategies for detecting deepfakes in online platforms with a view to proposing a proactive scheme for preventing as well as countering the menace of deepfakes on online platforms.

Brief Profile:

Dr. Vivian is an Expert in Digital Learning and a Data Security Consultant with over 13 years’ experience in managing projects in Cybersecurity, Digital Learning and Intelligent Information Systems. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). She has served at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in various capacities, including : being the Head of the Department of Computer Science, Deputy Director, Postgraduate Programme Coordinator and Research Team Lead for Cybersecurity at the African Centre of Excellence on Technology Enhanced Learning, within the National Open University of Nigeria. Dr Vivian is also a Visiting Professor at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. She has many years of industrial and academic experience with a track record of joint research. She has actually won many grants and co-authored several award-winning proposals for donor-founded projects including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Grants, Digital Science and Technology Network (DSTN) Grants and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) aimed at promoting collaborative capacity building in Africa. Her current research work focusing on cybersecurity include: Data security and privacy, Incident management and disaster recovery. She has equally undertaken research towards enhancing digital learning for the visually impaired and the under privileged. She has over 60 publications in high-impact journals and classified conferences. She is the Secretary General of the African Society in Digital Sciences, a Fellow of the Nigeria Computer Society, member of the Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria, Nigérian Women in Information Technology and several international professional and scientific associations.