4th MEC International Conference on Big Data and Smart City commenced on 15th January 2019

The 4th Middle East College (MEC) International Conference on Big Data and Smart City (ICBDSC) 2019 has commenced on Tuesday, the 15th of January 2019 at the MEC Student Hub, MEC’s premises, Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM). The inauguration ceremony was held under the auspices of the Shiekh Talal bin Said Al Mamari, Chief Executive Officer, Oman Telecommunication Company (Omantel) and in the presence of eminent people from the public and private sectors. The conference aims to bring together researchers, designers, developers and practitioners interested in the advances and applications in the field of smart cities, green information, communication technologies, sustainability, energy aware systems and technologies to realize the smart communities of the future. 124 paper submissions from 22 countries around the world were received by the conference committee, and a total of 44 papers were accepted after conducting an intensive IEEE approved blind peer review process.

The key-note addresses were given by 4 leading experts and professionals from different countries. The first day of the conference began with a keynote address on “Oman – a Smart Nation” which was presented by the keynote speaker Prof. Latif Ladid, Founder and President of IPv6 FORUM, Chair, IEEE ComSoc IoT subcommittee, Emeritus Trustee, Internet Society – ISOC, and Research Fellow at University of Luxemburg on multiple European Commission Next Generation Technologies IST Projects. Prof. Latif’s address talked about And the second keynote address was presented by Prof. Francesco Masulli, Chair of IEEE Italy Section Computational Intelligence Society Chapter, a Full Professor of Computer Science with the University of Genoa (Italy), an Adjunct Professor at the Center for Biotechnology of the Temple University in Philadelphia (PA, USA), and a founding partner of the innovative start-up company Vega Research Laboratories s.r.l.s on “A Computational Intelligence Approach to Short-Term Urban Traffic Flow Forecasting” . The third keynote speaker, Dr. Ali Al Shidhani, Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Research, The Research Council, Oman, presented an address on “Oman Smart City Platform”.

In his speech, Dr. Kiran G. R., Dean, MEC, welcomed the guests to the ICBDSC 2019 and expressed his happiness on the commencement of the ICBDSC 2019. He said: “Recognizing the potential of Big Data and Smart City and in alignment with national priorities, MEC has been organizing national and international conferences on this theme. The discussions and deliberations will surely contribute to invent innovative solutions to enhance urban planning and the quality of life in today’s rapidly growing cities”. He also expressed his gratitude to the MEC team who worked hard on the preparations of this conference.

The second day of the conference’s schedule features a keynote address on “Coventry University’s Institute for Future Transport and Cities – Using Big Data to Solve the Urban Mobility Challenges of the Future” which will be presented by Prof. Richard Dashwood, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Coventry University, UK, Advisory Board Member for the Knowledge Intensive Product Realisation (KIPR) project at Jönköping University, Sweden, and chairs the Strategic Advisory Board for the Designing Alloys for Resource Efficiency (DARE) EPSRC project based at Sheffield University.