Prof. Roberto Montemanni
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Roberto Montemanni is full professor of operations research at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. He also acts as an external research advisor at the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence, University of Lugano, Switzerland. He obtained a Laurea degree in Computer Science from the University of Bologna, Italy and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Glamorgan, UK. He has been leading basic and applied research projects both at national and international levels, administrating more more than one million of Euros. His main research interests are in the fields of algorithms, mathematical modeling and machine learning. Recently he is focussing on the interactions of optimization and machine learning.




Assoc. Prof. Alex Norta
Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia

Dr. Norta is currently an associate professor at the Department of Software Science where his recent research focus is on blockchain technology for enabling novel e-governance models that involve many collaborating organizations. His research background is interdisciplinary comprising cross-organizational business-process automation, multi-agent systems, security, agile software engineering, blockchain-system engineering, e-learning, the legal relevance of smart contracts. In conducting action-design research, he has been involved in numerous blockchain startup research. For example, he published the founding paper for qtum.org. He has also published many blockchain papers in diverse areas such as banking the unbanked, insurance issuance on blockchains, e-procurement on blockchains, multi-factor identity authentication with a blockchain-based distributed application. Recently he has developed a novel methodology for the design of distributed blockchain application Further pertaining to blockchain relevance, Alex has co-supervised an award-winning PhD thesis defended at the University of Goettingen about the novel machine-to-everything (M2X) economy in which it is assumed that self-driving cars participate in an open socio-technical ecosystem. His specific supply chain experience reaches back to his time as a PhD student at the TU-Eindhoven where he investigated the automation of cross-organizational business processes for truck production. As a post-doc at the University of Helsinki, he developed formalized lifecycle management for the setup, enactment, and orderly termination of such automated cross-organizational business-process collaboration. This keynote-speech paper summarizes conceptually the publication results that map into blockchain technology and have been further developed at the Department of Software Science. Alex was nominated as the most successful PhD supervisor of the IT School in 2020 and in 2021 he won also the best-paper award of the IT school in the category for social-science category for his journal paper about e-participatory budgeting.

Speech Title: Blockchain Technology for Secure IOT

Abstract: The keynote first introduces IoT, blockchain technology, smart contracts and security respectively. Next follows a pairwise investigation about the intersection of each elements, culminating in the lessons learned from this diagnosis. The current pros and cons are presented for applying blockchain technology for orchestrating and securing IoT systems. The presentation ends with giving several casestudies where blockchain is used in combination with IoT.




Assoc. Prof. Gabriela Mogos
Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China

Dr. Gabriela Mogos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE) at the Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), Suzhou, China. She received her PhD in Computer Science from the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania, in March 2010. She followed this with postdoctoral research positions at the University of Oradea, Romania.

Her interests and research activities are mainly centred around a quantum computing with an emphasis on design of new quantum algorithms and quantum cryptographic protocols. She has more than 100 academic publications, books, book chapters, and has acted as principal investigator and co-investigator in international and national research projects.




Assoc. Prof. Burcu Erkmen
Yildiz Technical University, Turkey

Burcu ERKMEN is Associate Profesor in Department of Electronics and Communication Egineering from Yildiz Technical University. She received her M.S. and Ph. D. degrees from YTU in Istanbul with a focus on artificial intelligence and electronic circuit design. Burcu ERKMEN collaborates with scientists in many domains on artificial intelligence and digital technologies. Her current focus is on using for FPGA Based System Design, Optimization Techniques in Electronic Circuits, Artificial Neural Networks, Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Power Converters.