Conference

Speakers

Professor Rajarajan (Raj) is the founding Director of the Institute for Cyber Security at City University of London and the CEO of Citydefend Cybersecurity Solutions Limited. Raj’s expertise are in the areas of encrypted search in big data, privacy preserving data analytics and trusted data sharing in heterogenous business sensitive environments. Raj has led several cyber security and privacy related research and commercialisation projects in the UK and internationally. He has published more than 350 conference and journal papers, four books and hold two patents in the area of cloud big data privacy and security. He continues to work closely with many deep tech start-up companies to innovate through digital transformation by applying blockchain, AI and cyber security in an integrated manner addressing many legal and regulatory data protection challenges. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and a full member of the Charted Institute of Information Security, UK.

Dr. Grace Lewis is a Principal Researcher at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) where she conducts applied research on how software engineering and software architecture principles, practices, and tools need to evolve in the face of emerging technologies. She is the principal investigator for the Automating Mismatch Detection and Testing in Machine Learning Systems project that is developing toolsets to support these two activities, in addition to other projects that are advancing the state of the practice in software engineering for machine learning (SE4ML). She is also the lead for the Tactical and AI-Enabled Systems (TAS) applied research and development team at the SEI that is creating and transitioning innovative solutions, principles, and best practices for (1) architecting and developing systems to support teams operating at the tactical edge in resource-constrained environments, (2) engineering AI software systems, and (3) using AI/ML at the edge for improved capabilities and mission support. She is currently the First Vice President of the IEEE Computer Society and the Society Representative on the Future Direction Committee on AI Coalition. Dr. Lewis holds a BSc in Software Systems Engineering and a Post-Graduate Specialization in Business Administration from Icesi University in Cali, Colombia; a Master in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University; and a PhD in Computer Science from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Madhusanka Liyanage, IEEE Senior Member (2020), is an Assistant Professor/Ad Astra Fellow and Director of Graduate Research at the School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Ireland. He is also acting as a Docent/Adjunct Professor at the Center for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland, and Honorary Adjunct Professor at the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. He received his Doctor of Technology degree in communication engineering from the University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, in 2016. From 2011 to 2012, he worked as a Research Scientist at the I3S Laboratory and Inria, Sophia Antipolis, France. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship and Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship during 2018-2020. During 2015-2018, he has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the CSIRO, Australia, the Infolabs21, Lancaster University, U.K., Computer Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Australia, School of IT, University of Sydney, Australia, LIP6, Sorbonne University, France and Computer Science and Engineering, The University of Oxford, U.K. He is also a senior member of IEEE. In 2020, he received the "2020 IEEE ComSoc Outstanding Young Researcher" award by IEEE ComSoc EMEA. In 2021, he was ranked among the World's Top 2% Scientists (2020) in the List prepared by Elsevier BV, Stanford University, USA. Also, he was awarded an Irish Research Council (IRC) Research Ally Prize as part of the IRC Researcher of the Year 2021 awards for the positive impact he has made as a supervisor. He is also currently an expert consultant at European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA). In 2021, Liyanage was elevated as Funded Investigator of Science Foundation Ireland CONNECT Research Centre, Ireland. Moreover, he is an expert reviewer at different funding agencies in France, Qatar, UAE, Sri Lanka, and Kazakhstan. Dr. Liyanage's research interests are 5G/6G, SDN, IoT, Blockchain, MEC, mobile, and virtual network security. More info: www.madhusanka.com .

Mahesan Niranjan received the BSc Degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, in 1982, the MEE Degree in Electronic Engineering from the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, in 1985, and the PhD Degree from the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, in 1990. He is currently a Professor of Electronics and Computer Science with the University of Southampton, Southampton, UK, where he was the Head of Information: Signals, Images, and Systems Research Group. He was a Professor with the University of Sheffield from 1999 to 2008 and a lecturer with the University of Cambridge from 1990 to 1998. He was the Head of Computer Science from 2002 to 2004 and the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering from 2006 to 2008 with the University of Sheffield. He has authored or co-authored about 100 papers in peer reviewed journals and conferences. His research interests include the algorithmic and applied aspects of machine learning, computational biology, and biomedical signal processing. He was the program chair of several international workshops and a co-organizer of a six month program on neural networks and machine learning with the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, UK.

Eng. Nipuni Karunaratne, Model Factory Manager, Digital Technology of Rolls Royce PLC, UK currently working with the NSF through its Global Digital Platform which has been established to harness Sri Lankan expatriates for national development.