Keynotes

Keynote 1: From Connected Things to Connected Intelligence

Speaker: Prof. Merouane DEBBAH, Huawei France

Abstract: The standardization for 5G wireless systems is maturing and researchers around the world have already started to look at beyond the 5G systems. Although the next G gossip is at a premature stage, this talk aims to provide an overview of the vision, challenges and key enabling technologies envisioned by the wireless community. The talk will mostly focus on the fundamental technologies and will discuss potential research directions to meet the requirements of next generation wireless systems.

Biography:

Mérouane Debbah received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, France. He was with Motorola Labs, Saclay, France, from 1999 to 2002, and also with the Vienna Research Center for Telecommunications, Vienna, Austria, until 2003. From 2003 to 2007, he was an Assistant Professor with the Mobile Communications Department, Institut Eurecom, Sophia Antipolis, France. In 2007, he was appointed Full Professor at CentraleSupelec, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. From 2007 to 2014, he was the Director of the Alcatel-Lucent Chair on Flexible Radio. Since 2014, he has been Vice-President of the Huawei France Research Center. He is jointly the director of the Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Lab as well as the director of the Lagrange Mathematical and Computing Research Center. He has managed 8 EU projects and more than 24 national and international projects. His research interests lie in fundamental mathematics, algorithms, statistics, information, and communication sciences research. He is an IEEE Fellow, a WWRF Fellow, a Eurasip Fellow, an Institut Louis Bachelier Fellow and a Membre émérite SEE. He was a recipient of the ERC Grant MORE (Advanced Mathematical Tools for Complex Network Engineering) from 2012 to 2017. He was a recipient of the Mario Boella Award in 2005, the IEEE Glavieux Prize Award in 2011, the Qualcomm Innovation Prize Award in 2012, the 2019 IEEE Radio Communications Committee Technical Recognition Award and the 2020 SEE Blondel Medal. He received more than 20 best paper awards, among which the 2007 IEEE GLOBECOM Best Paper Award, the Wi-Opt 2009 Best Paper Award, the 2010 Newcom++ Best Paper Award, the WUN CogCom Best Paper 2012 and 2013 Award, the 2014 WCNC Best Paper Award, the 2015 ICC Best Paper Award, the 2015 IEEE Communications Society Leonard G. Abraham Prize, the 2015 IEEE Communications Society Fred W. Ellersick Prize, the 2016 IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper Award, the 2016 European Wireless Best Paper Award, the 2017 Eurasip Best Paper Award, the 2018 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award, the 2019 IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper Award, the 2021 Eurasip Best Paper Award, the 2021 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award as well as the Valuetools 2007, Valuetools 2008, CrownCom 2009, Valuetools 2012, SAM 2014, and 2017 IEEE Sweden VT-COM-IT Joint Chapter best student paper awards. He is an Associate Editor-in-Chief of the journal Random Matrix: Theory and Applications. He was an Associate Area Editor and Senior Area Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING from 2011 to 2013 and from 2013 to 2014, respectively. From 2021 to 2022, he serves as an IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Industry Speaker.

Keynote 2: Virtualization impact on the telecommunication industry: Current trends and perspectives.

Speakers:

Abstract: Emerging concepts such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) have been revolutionizing the telecommunication industry. These technologies have been pushing new and flexible ways for service providers to manage their networks through standardization, softwarization and automation. Thus, allowing a faster deployment of new services while optimizing the capital and operational expenses. In this presentation, we review the latest evolutions in the virtualization domain and how these new technologies have been adopted by Ekinops to push innovative services toward service providers. A live deployment scenario of a virtualized network service will be demonstrated using the complete Ekinops NFV solution.

Biography:

Amine Ismail is a telecommunication network and software development expert. He is leading the study and research activities at Ekinops. His main research topics cover the optical transport, SDN&NFV, SDWAN and congestion control algorithms for xG networks. Prior to this position Amine was a technology advisor attached to the CTO office and has been leading the architecture activities related to the Ekinops NFV and SDWAN solutions. Amine Ismail holds a PhD in computer science from University of Nice, a master degree from Telecom-ParisTech as well as an engineering degree from INSAT.

Imed Lassoued holds the position of Field Technical Expert (FTE) at Ekinops and plays tow-fold role: providing technical expertise and sales support to global account teams for a broad range of products (NFV, SD-WAN, routing, …) and work with PLM, architects and R&D in defining and developing products features. He has also worked as a technical presales engineer, R&D engineer and product manager. He holds a PhD from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, graduated with a Master degree from Telecom Bretagne and Engineering degree from ENSI.

Keynote 3: Managing Resource in Edge Ecosystems: Challenges and Open Issues

Speaker: Prof. Albert Y. Zomaya, University of Sydney, Australia

Abstract: Recent technological trends such as Industry 4.0 introduced new challenges that push the limit of current computer and networking architectures. It demands the connection of thousands, if not millions, of sensors and mobile devices coupled with optimized operations to automate various operations inside factories. This led to the new era of Internet of Things (IoTs) where lightweight (possibly mobile) devices are envisaged to send vital information to cloud data centres (mobile and fixed infrastructure) for further processing and decision making.
Current cloud computing systems, however, are not able to efficiently digest and process collected information from IoT devices with strict response requests for two main reasons: (1) the round trip delay between IoT devices to the processing engines of cloud could exceed an application’s threshold, and (2) network links to cloud resources could be clogged when IoT devices flush data in an uncoordinated fashion. Fog and Edge Computing are two solutions to address both of the previous problems. Though designed to alleviate the same problem, they have fundamental differences that make adopting one more applicable than the other.
This talk will overview the practical concerns of exploiting Edge Computing to realize today’s IoT implementations through tackling the most important obstacles that hinder their adoption. First, production of applicable network (fixed and mobile) latency models to capture all elements of IoT platforms. Second, building a holistic Edge ecosystem to orchestrate various inter-related layers of IoT platforms, including connectivity, big-data analytics, and workload optimization. Third, proposing viable solutions that can actually be implemented in IoT-based applications, such as, vehicular networks, preventative maintenance, health, energy, to name a few.

Biography:

Albert Y. ZOMAYA is Chair Professor of High-Performance Computing & Networking in the School of Computer Science and Director of the Centre for Distributed and High-Performance Computing at the University of Sydney. To date, he has published > 600 scientific papers and articles and is (co-)author/editor of >30 books. A sought-after speaker, he has delivered >250 keynote addresses, invited seminars, and media briefings. His research interests span several areas in parallel and distributed computing and complex systems. He is currently the Editor in Chief of the ACM Computing Surveys and served in the past as Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Computers (2010-2014) and the Founding Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing (2016-2020).

Professor Zomaya is a decorated scholar with numerous accolades including Fellowship of the IEEE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (UK). Also, he is an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales and an Elected Foreign Member of Academia Europaea. He is the recipient of the1997 Edgeworth David Medal from the Royal Society of New South Wales for outstanding contributions to Australian Science, the IEEE Technical Committee on Parallel Processing Outstanding Service Award (2011), IEEE Technical Committee on Scalable Computing Medal for Excellence in Scalable Computing (2011), IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award (2014), ACM MSWIM Reginald A. Fessenden Award (2017), and the New South Wales Premier’s Prize of Excellence in Engineering and Information and Communications Technology (2019).