Keynote speakers
Prof. dr. habil. László Kovács
University of Miskolc, Department of Information Technology
Keynote Title: "Process Mining with Neural Network Technologies"
Bio: Prof. Dr. habil. László Kovács from University of Miskolc, Department of Information Technology is a well known specialist in knowledge modeling and data mining. He obtained a PhD degree in technical sciences from University of Miskolc, (HU).
Main teaching areas cover Database Systems, Data Mining, XML/JSON data models, Ontology Management.
The research interest of Dr. Kovács involves the following areas: soft computing, concept set management, heuristic optimizations, ontology modeling, statistical grammar induction and rough set models.
He participated in several mobility programs on the field of software engineering and database management at DEC Munich, University of Helsinki, University of Lisboa, University of Karlsruhe, University of Dortmund, University of Klagenfurt, University of Erlangen.
Dr Kovács has about 200 publications with 250 references. He is the Head of the Department and the leader of the Research Group on Ontology-based Grammar Induction at University of Miskolc.
Dr. Rahmah Elfithri
Chief of Section, Capacity Development and Water Family Coordination, UNESCO-IHP, Paris, France
Keynote Title: "Ecohydrology for Water Security"
Bio: Dr. Rahmah Elfithri is an environmental scientist and sustainable water resources management specialist. Currently she holds the position of Chief of Section for Capacity Development and Water Family Coordination (CDW) in the Division of Water Sciences, UNESCO since April 2022. She was previously Deputy Regional Coordinator at the Global Water Partnership Southeast Asia (GWP-SEA) (2021-2022). Prior to joining UNESCO and GWP, she worked at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) as Visiting Professor (2019-2021); Senior Lecturer/Senior Research Fellow (2009-2019); Lecturer/Research Fellow (2007-2009) at the Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI), UKM and has more than 15 years research and academic experience in the field of water, environment and sustainable development.
She has been coordinating the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and Sustainable Ecosystem Management Research Groups in UKM since 2008.
Dr. Elfithri is bringing a wealth of experience on ecohydrology, sustainability science, water education and capacity development, watershed and community-based water management and multi-stakeholders’ water partnership at various levels. She initiated the Langat River to become a UNESCO Hydrology for the Environment Life and Policy (HELP) River Basin in 2004 and the Putrajaya Lake and Wetland as a UNESCO Ecohydrology Demonstration Site in 2010.
She also conducted Sustainability Science Demonstration Projects at Langat UNESCO HELP River Basin and Langkawi UNESCO Global Geopark in 2015, where she promoted pathways towards sustainable development in the region, focusing on the interface between hydrological science and environmental, economic, social and cultural realities.
She initiated the establishment of the Ecohydrology Malaysia Chapter (EMC) in 2017 as a platform for all ecologists and hydrologists in Malaysia to work together on Ecohydrology implementation in Malaysia and strengthen their collaboration nationally, regionally and internationally. She is a Founder Member of International Association of Water, Environment, Energy and Society (IAWEES) since 2018, Executive Direction Board Member of International Society for Ecohydrology (ISEH) since 2019, Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) Core Member of UNESCO-IHP Ecohydrology since 2019, Steering Committee (SC) Member of UNDRR’s Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF) since 2020, and Member of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Hydrohub Think Thank since 2022.
Prof. dr. eng. Abdelazim M. Negm
Water and Water structures Engineering Department, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt.
Keynote Title: "Water-Energy-Food- Environment Nexus Approach by Case Study: A Novel Standalone Solar-Driven Agriculture Greenhouse - Desalination System"
Bio: Abdelazim Negm held the professor of Hydraulics and Water Resources position in Water and Water Structures Engineering Department at Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egipt.
He worked as a demonstrator in the Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University in 1986 and continued till he occupied the position of vice dean for Academic and Student Affairs. He worked for Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) as a professor of Water Resources since Dec. 2012 until Sept. 2016 and chairperson of Environmental Engineering Dept. at E-JUST since March 2013 until March 2016.
He published more than 350 scientific papers in national and international Journals and conferences, 25 edited books and about 50 book chapters. He participated in more than 90 conferences and was a keynote speaker in several national and international conferences. He has awarded the prizes of the best papers three times. His research areas include hydraulic, hydrology and water resources. Currently, he is very interested in sustainability studies, sustainable development and green environment in addition to water resources management.
Prof. Negm is a member of IAHR and the head of the Egyptian permanent sceintific committee for Water Resources (115) for the promotion of associate and professorship positions for the cycle 2019-2022 and was the vice head for the cycle 2016-2019. He is a member of the editorial board of several scientific journals including IJESD, EJRS, AJES, JEST, JHGGM, ENRRJ etc and a member of the sceitnific committee and organizing committee of several Int. Conferences, associate editor-in-chief for IWTJ and was a member of the organizing committee of Oceanography 2015, and IWTC2013-IWTC2017. Additionally, he is the secretary general of the IWTC from 2013 until the year 2017. He was the head of the ZU committee for assessment of the scientific publications of ZU faculties until Dec. 2018. He published 12 contributed volumes during the years from 2016-2019, in the Handbook of Environmental Chemistry (HEC) series, by Springer Nature. Recently, 15 contributed volumes will be published under the Springer Water series in (2020) and . He is the editor-in-Chief of EIJEST (Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University), associate editor of IWTJ (IWTA) and EMJEI (Springer) and Guest editor of AJGS – Springer. He is the principal investigator of several international projects including the smart greenhouse and automated irrgation project which is funded from from STDF of Egypt and BC of the UK. Recently, he is a member of the editorial board of the HEC series, Springer Nature.
He is listed in (a) Marquis Who is Who? for more than 10 years until now, (b) IBC's 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century, and (c) ABI directory for his achievement in the field of Hydraulics and Water Resources. He was nominated for many other awards from both IBC and ABI.
Ahmad Hably, PhD HDR
GIPSA-lab, Grenoble INP-UGA, Université Grenoble Alpes, France.
Keynote Title: "Airborne Wind Energy"
Bio: Ahmad Hably (senior Member, IEEE) received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Lebanese University Beirut Lebanonin 2004 and the M.S. degree and the Ph.D. degree in automatic control from the Grenoble Institute of Technology Grenoble France in 2005 and 2007 respectively. After one year as a Researcher with the LIRMM Laboratory Montpellier France, he joined the University Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, as an Associate Professor
with the Grenoble Image Parole Signal Automatique Laboratory (GIPSA-Lab) Automatic Control Department.
Now he is the head of the COPERNIC research team in the data science pole of Gipsa-lab and head of the international Master MARS of UGA.
His research interests include electrical vehicle integration nonlinear control predictive control for energy systems and airborne wind-energy systems.
Prof. dr. eng. Dan Centea
School of Engineering Practice and Technology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Keynote Title: "Using a Learning Factory for Teaching, Research and Training"
Bio: Upon graduating as automotive engineer. Dr. Dan Centea worked for 10 years in the automotive industry, first as designer of automotive components and then as founding member and then manager of the computing and modelling department of the Romanian National Automotive Research Institute.
Dr. Centea’s academic career started in 1991 at Transilvania University in Romania as assistant professor in the engineering design department. After completing a Master of Philosophy in the United Kingdom at the University of Bradford, he moved in 1997 to Canada where he worked as sessional instructor, then as assistant professor, and later associate professor at McMaster University. He served for seven years as Chair of the Automotive and Vehicle Engineering Technology program within the Faculty of Engineering, and he is currently the Associate Director for Undergraduate studies at McMaster’s School of Engineering Practice and Technology.
Dr. Centea has a strong international academic cooperation with Universities from Romania, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, USA, India, and Korea where he co-leads McMaster teams in two international engineering collaboration automotive-related competitions.
After more than 20 years of involvement in scientific research in the automotive field, Dr. Centea’s research focuses on research in teaching and learning using non-traditional course delivery approaches. In 24 years at McMaster, he developed 30 new courses and published 40 peer-reviewed journal papers and book chapters related to problem-based learning, active learning, experiential learning, learning factories, and Industry 4.0, and chaired two International Conferences on interactive, collaborative, blended and mobile learning. His contributions to teaching and learning have been recognized at McMaster through the Faculty of Engineering Special Achievement Award for Teaching Excellence, and through one of McMaster’s highest recognitions – the President’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning.
The newest innovation developed by a team of three professors that included Dr. Centea is the foundation of a Learning Factory - a cutting-edge facility focused on implementing modern manufacturing approaches such as additive manufacturing and on implementing and testing Industry 4.0 concepts. Dr. Centea was involved in developing the framework of the McMaster Learning Factory, in securing funds for building it, worked with student on several projects, and co-authored nine research papers related to teaching activities carried out in the learning factory. His outstanding contribution to the development of the McMaster Learning Factory have been recognized internationally by being accepted as member of the International Association of Learning Factories and by receiving the Outstanding Industry 4.0 Education Award presented by the International Engineering and Operations Management Society.
Prof. Ahmed Hussein Ibrahim, PhD.
Zagazig University, Egipt
Keynote Title: "Integration of Industry 4.0 Technologies for Smart Cities Development"
Bio: Prof. Ahmed Hussein Ibrahim obtained PhD degree in Construction Industry Management. He has twenty five years of experience in the field of Construction Engineering & Management and fourteen years multi experience, knowledge, research in Construction Industry, Industrial project, Commercial, and Projects planning, scheduling, controls duties and field engineering.
Ibrahim owns updated knowledge about construction technologies and extensive knowledge of Primavera, Microsoft Project, MS Office, MATLAB, UDEC, FLAC, Visual Basic, FORTRAN, Java, and Simulation languages.
As project management consultant, Professor Ahmed Hussein Ibrahim´s work comprises the following: leading the planning, scheduling, progress, and changing management development for the three phases (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) of the project, reviewing and approving of construction plan, reviewing and approving of the workflow diagram, planing and scheduling, developing the risk management plan, monitoring and control of the financial plans, managing the project resources, organizing the work of subcontractors, tracking engineering and construction s-curve progress or monthly progress report preparation.
Special Invited Talks
Bogdan Robu, PhD
GIPSA-lab laboratory Control Systems Department, Université Grenoble Alpes, France
Keynote Title: "Privacy protection for mobile applications"
Bio: Bogdan Robu is an Associate Professor at the University of Grenoble, France and a researcher in the GIPSA-lab laboratory in Grenoble since 2012. Prior to this he had a one year teaching position in the University of Toulouse, France. He received his PhD in control theory from the University of Toulouse in 2010 and his M.Sc. degree in control theory and informatics from the University of Toulouse in 2007. His main teaching areas include control theory and mathematics. He is a member in different working group focused on the introduction and development of information and communication technologies at the University of Grenoble.
His research interests are mainly on applying control theory to different types of computing systems while assuring performance and/or dependability. The main application domains of these researches are Heterogeneous Computing Systems, Cloud Systems, High Performance Computing Systems and Server Systems. Bogdan Robu other research interests are on fuel cell control and PDE modeling. He is author or co-author of numerous journal and conference papers. He was in the Scientific Committee for several conferences and reviewer for different journals (IEEE TCST, JVC, JESA) and conferences (CDC, ACC, ECC).
Harri Kiiski, PhD
CEO, Azomures, Mureș, Romania
Keynote Title: "Green Transition?"
Bio: Born in Helsinki in 1962, Harri Kiiski started his career at Kemira in 1987 as a research chemist after completing a master’s degree (MSc) in Chemistry from University of Jyväskylä. He went on to complete a PhD on the Properties of Ammonium Nitrate based fertilizers from the University of Helsinki. Harri Kiiski speaks 6 languages and has a vast experience in the academic field.
After his studies he held various positions from Product and Process development to Manufacturing Technology management. Harri joined Yara International in 2007, before becoming the Senior Technology manager in SABIC in 2014. He returned to Europe in January 2018 as the Chief Operations Officer for Azomures, and in January 2020 he was appointed as Azomures CEO. Besides this, he is Chairman of Agriculture Committee in Fertilizers Europe.
He is an author of over 70 publications on fertilizer properties, editor on fertilizer chapters of Ullmann’s Encyclopaedia of Industrial Chemistry and inventor in 5 patents.
, 2022