Speakers
Antonio Luque – 2021-2022 IEEE Region 8 Director
Antonio Luque (M’03, SM’08) was born in 1976. He received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 2000 and 2005, respectively. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Electronics Engineering, University of Seville. He has authored 20 journal papers, 40 conference papers, 3 book chapters, and a text book, in addition to supervising two PhD students. He has been invited researcher and teacher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (Switzerland), Auburn University (AL,USA), Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), Jade University (Germany), Harbin Institute of Technology (China) and Tech Institute of Monterrey (Mexico). He was a recipient of the Burgen Scholarship from the Academia Europaea in 2007.
Simay Akar – IEEE Region 8 Vice Chair for Student Activities and SAC Chair
Simay Akar is an entrepreneur with reputable corporate industrial background and experience in the energy industry. She specialized in photovoltaic manufacturing, battery storage for electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies and the clean energy market development.
Akar is currently the Chief Commercial Officer & Co-Founder at Innoses.
Her past roles include Sales & Marketing Director of EkoRE – Eko Renewable Energy and Marketing & Business Development Director of GoodWe Turkey, Head of Overseas Marketing at Talesun Solar Akar has worked in China and Turkey and mostly focused on international commercial activities and has been employed by CSUN Eurasia, Schneider Electric, Arcelik (BEKO), and Lucida Solar.
In addition to her professional acclimates, she is an IEEE Senior member, acknowledged volunteer since 2007. Simay is a graduate of Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey and she participated in the Energy Innovation and Emerging Technologies Program at Stanford University.
She is also IEEE VOLT Graduate, IEEE Educational Activities TISP Champion, She has been serving several volunteer membership and leadership positions in different areas including mainly global committees and currently serving as IEEE R8 Vice Chair for Student Activities & SAC Chair 2021-2022.
Theodoros Chatzinikolaou – IEEE Region 8 Student Representative
Theodoros is currently Ph.D. Candidate and Teaching Assistant in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the Democritus University of Thrace, and has received his Engineering Diploma with Integrated Master from the aforementioned Department. His research interests focus on future and emerging computing systems and cutting-edge technologies, including memristive circuits and systems and artificial intelligence technologies.
Theodoros serves the IEEE Region 8 as the Regional Student Representative, he is an IEEE Brand Ambassador, he has served various IEEE OUs including the MGA SAC and his local Student Branch through many positions, and he has chaired the 5th IEEE Hellenic Student and Young Professional Congress. He has received various distinctions for his activity with the latest to be the IEEE Larry K. Wilson Award. As an active IEEE volunteer, he strongly believes engineering and volunteerism combined can create a valuable impact on humanity and society, especially when they are derived from students.
Ali Alfayly – IEEE Region 8 Young Professionals Corresponding Member
Ali Alfayly, PhD received B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computer and Network Technology from Northumbria University, UK in 2005 and 2006 respectively, Postgraduate Diploma in Internet and Distributed System from Durham University, UK in 2008, M.Sc. in Advance Computer Science from Manchester University, UK in 2011, and Ph.D. in Computing and Comm. from University Plymouth, UK in 2016. Currently I am assistant professor at computer department in College of basic education, Kuwait. He is IEEE KUWAIT YP Chair and IEEE R8 YP corresponding member.
Péter Nagy – IEEE Region 8 Vice Chair for Technical Activities
Péter Nagy has been the Operations Director (2005-today) at the Scientific Association for Infocommunications (HTE, the Hungarian IEEE Communications Society Sister Society). Mr. Nagy was involved in 40+ scientific and business-oriented conferences in various positions.
Mr. Nagy holds a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME in 2000) in Hungary. He was a State scholar at TU-Vienna, Austria (1998). He finished his Master of Business Administration studies in Budapest (2005), which included a series of intensive special courses maintained by the State University of New York Buffalo (USA) and Rochester Institute of Technology (USA).
Mr. Nagy is the publisher of the Infocommunications Journal (HU ISSN2061-2079) and was a Guest Editor of IEEE Communications Magazine in August 2013 (Quantum Communications). He is involved in promoting high quality Journal and Conference papers.
Mr. Nagy was a member of the Supervisory Board of Finatech Capital Ltd, a venture capital company which invested mostly in the ICT sector (2013-2019).
Aymen Tmar – IEEE PES Young Professionals Representative for Europe, Middle East and Africa Region
Aymen Tmar is an Asset Integrity Engineer at Shell Tunisia Upstream. He holds an engineering degree in electromechanics from the National School of Engineers of Sfax (ENIS) in 2017. He is the IEEE PES Young Professional R8 representative and the chair of the IEEE IAS Tunisia Chapter for 2021-2022 and he was the chair of the IEEE Tunisia Young Professionals AG for 2019-2020. His experience touches on all aspects of integrity management, from defining the corrosion management plan, assessing the inspection strategy and performing inspections to ensure threats of pressurized systems and pipelines are evaluated, risk assessed and well mitigated.
Gen Li – Vice-Chair of IEEE PES Young Professionals
Dr. Gen Li is a Research Associate at the School of Engineering, Cardiff University, UK. From 2013 to 2016, he was a Marie Curie Early Stage Research Fellow funded by the European Commission’s MEDOW project. He is an Associate Editor of the CSEE Journal of Power and Energy Systems. He is an Editorial Board Member of CIGRE ELECTRA. He is a Chartered Engineer in the U.K. He is an IET Professional Registration Advisor. His Ph.D. thesis received the First CIGRE Thesis Award in 2018. He is the Vice-Chair of IEEE PES Young Professionals and the Technical Panel Sectary of CIGRE UK B5 Protection and Automation.
Ömer Melih Gül – IEEE Computer Society Region 8 Coordinator
Ömer Melih Gül received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and electronics engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey, in 2012, 2014, and 2020, respectively. From 2012 to 2020, he worked as a Research Assistant in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at METU. He also worked for the Turkish Patent Institute from 2017 to 2019. His research interests focus on networking, scheduling algorithms, cognitive radio, IoT, UAV, robotic networks, and blockchain. He has published 15 works in conferences/journals and 1 book chapter. He was awarded third place in the 2019 Lance Stafford Larson Outstanding Student Paper Award by the IEEE Computer Society. He also became one of the three finalists in the Poster Competition at the 2021 IEEE Rising Stars Global Conference. Currently, his IEEE volunteering roles include IEEE Computer Society Region 8 Coordinator, IEEE Computer Society SYP vice-chair (for YP activities), IEEE Region 8 YP Corresponding Member, IEEE Turkey YP-AG Chair.
Eszter Lukács – IEEE Client Services Manager Europe
Eszter Lukács works with IEEE customers located in the following countries in Europe: Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Turkey.
Eszter has worked in the information industry since 2003 and joined IEEE in 2013 from EBSCO, where she worked as account manager. Eszter gained her Magister degree in Linguistics from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; she speaks German, English, and Hungarian and is based in Berlin, Germany.
Christos Verikoukis – IEEE Communications Society Director, Europe, Middle-East and Africa Region
Dr. Christos Verikoukis received his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in 2000. He joined the Telecommunications Technological Centre of Catalonia (CTTC) in 2004 and he is currently the Head of the SMARTECH department at CTTC and an adjunct associate professor at Barcelona University (UB). His area of expertise is in the design of energy-efficient protocols and Radio Resource Management algorithms for wireless networks.
He is currently serving as the Founded Associate Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Networking Letters and as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, of the IEEE Networks Magazine, and of the IEEE Transactions of Green Communications and Networking. He is also serving as a Steering Committee member of the IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing (TSUSC) (2017-present). Moreover, he has served as a Guest Editor in 14 special issues in prestigious Journals and Magazines (IEEE Communications Magazine (e.g. IEEE Networks Magazine, IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine, IEEE Communications Magazine, IEEE Access, IEEE Tran on Industrial Informatics, etc..).
Joanne Wong – 2022 IEEE Entrepreneurship Chair
Joanne Wong is General Partner of REDDS Capital, a Californian-based VC firm investing in global early-stage & seed-level IT startups. She has worked with IBM, HP, SAP, and Cisco in multiple technical, market development, and strategic investments positions. She is a mentor/advisor for multiple startups.
Joanne is Co-Founder/CEO of a health startup, SciosHub, providing a unified data and project management platform for life science researchers. She was Executive Director of a healthcare charity startup, The SuperComputer for Cancer Research, providing free green access to high-performance computational resources for cancer researchers. She has had startups in 3D simulations for learning.
Joanne will be the 2022 Chair of IEEE Entrepreneurship. She is Member at Large (2021) and was Vice Chair, Industry & Investor Activities (2020) of IEEE Entrepreneurship. She was Secretary, IEEE TEMS Executive Committee and Board of Governors (2019 to 2021).
Maria-Alexandra Paun – IEEE Region 8 Woman in Engineering Chair
Maria-Alexandra Paun is currently a Telecommunications Engineer at the Swiss Federal Office of Communication (OFCOM), working in access to market and conformity of radio equipment, as well as being project leader in the field of drones. Dr. Maria-Alexandra Paun received with honours her BSc and MSc delivering the Engineer Diploma in 2008 from Politehnica University of Bucharest, FILS, Romania, with a major in Computer Science, graduating top of her class. The Master Project was carried out at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL, Switzerland). During 2008-2009, she was awarded a postgraduate Marie Curie research fellowship at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK, where she worked in the field of OCT. Between 2009 and 2013, she was Assistant – Ph.D. student at EPFL. She received her PhD degree in June 2013 on the subject of Hall Effect sensors. During 2013-2015, Maria-Alexandra was a Visiting Researcher at University of Cambridge, UK, with two postdoctoral fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Between 2016 and 2019, she was a Scientific Researcher at EPFL Switzerland, where she was focused on the development of electronics for medical devices (MedTech). She has worked on various CTI (currently Innosuisse Switzerland) funded research projects with industrial partners, in the fields of magnetic sensors and insulin injection pens, as well as being awarded by Hasler Foundation two own grants to work on cochlear implants. She has published more than 60 scientific papers in reputed international journals and her Hirsch index (h-index) is currently 11. She is an IEEE Senior Member. She is committed to volunteering work within IEEE, as she is currently Chair of IEEE Switzerland Section, Chair of IEEE WIE Affinity Group in Switzerland, as well as Chair of IEEE R8 WIE Subcommittee.
Seif El Hajjem – Member of the IEEE Region 8 YP Team
Seif El Hajjem is an industrial engineer graduated from ENIT, the National Engineering School of Tunis, back in 2015, he started his professional career already during his studies by taking multiple internships in different companies as Ooredoo Tunisie, STELIA Aerospace, Clinique ENNASR and NSIS. Currently, he is an SAP (System Application Products) Functional Consultant at WYNSYS in Tunisia, where he has been involved in SAP implementation project for several companies, as PROEL, YAZAKI, PRETTL, SANCELLA and, more recently, FLEX AND GATE.
On his free time, Seif volunteers for JCI (Junior Chamber International) and for IEEE, where he is currently serving as IEEE IAS Tunisia Chapter Chair, IEEE Tunisia Young Professionals Vice-Chair and a Member of the IEEE Region 8 Young Professionals team.
Abdullateef Aliyu – IEEE Region 8 Humanitarian Activities Committee Chair
Abdullateef Aliyu has over 15 years’ experience working in the information and communication technology (ICT) /telecommunication industry. He is a specialist in providing broadband services to urban and rural areas in Nigeria and across West Africa. Aliyu heads the infrastructure roll-out and deployment department of Phase 3 Telecom W/A. In this capacity, he has successfully led the completion of several high-level projects. He holds B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering from Bayero University Kano, and a Master’s degree in Information and Communication Technology from Northern University of Malaysia. In addition to these, he is a certified project management professional (PMP) and a certified business analysis professional; alumni of the United States Telecommunication Institute (USTTI), Washington DC and member of PMI, ASQ, NSE, NIM, and COREN.
What’s more, Abdulateef is an active volunteer and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He was the local organizing chairperson for the 2019 IEEE PES-IAS PowerAfrica Conference, Abuja, Nigeria. Recently elected as the Secretary, IEEE Nigeria Section, Aliyu also serves as Industry Ambassador for Nigeria, member Region 8 Young Professional subcommittee and Advisor R8 Humanitarian activities Subcommittee. Other leadership positions held include Chair Membership development, Nigeria (2018 till date), Africa Lead for IEEE Day 2019 and Chair, Young Professionals AG Nigeria Section (2013-2017).
Tunçer Baykaş – IEEE Region 8 Standards Coordinator
Tunçer Baykaş (Senior Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Ottawa, in 2007. He joined the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan, in 2007. During his tenure, he contributed to multiple standardization projects, including 802.15.3c, 802.11ad, and 1900.7. He served as the Chair for IEEE 802.19.1 coexistence in TVWS Task Group. In 2021, he joined Kadir Has University. He is currently IEEE Standards Coordinator in Region 8, the Vice Chair of 802.19 Working Group and 802.11bb Light Communications Task Group. He has over 50 major journal and conference publications, and three U.S. and 37 Japanese patents. His research interests include THz communications, spectrum sharing, and radar signal processing. He was one of the recipients of Turkish Academy of Sciences Young Researcher Award, IEEE-SA Standards Board Award, and IEEE-SA Certificate of Appreciation. He served as a Guest Editor for IEEE Communications Magazine and a Board Member for IEEE COMSOC MMTC E-LETTERS.
Conrad Attard – IEEE Region 8 Professional and Educational Activities subCommittee Chair
Dr. Conrad Attard is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Computer Information Systems within the Faculty of ICT at the University of Malta and current Chair of IEEE Computer Society Malta. Recently he was appointed Deputy Dean of Faculty of ICT University of Malta. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Sheffield, UK, Faculty of Engineering, Computer Science Department.
His research interests are smart technology, enterprise applications, crowdsourcing Just in Time knowledge at the workplace, designing applications for mobile devices, digital health and persuasive technology.
He is the principal investigator of Pervasive Electronic Monitoring (PEM) in health care currently being carried out at the St Vincent de Paule Residence, which is a nursing home and hospital for the Elderly in collaboration with the University of Malta. His work involves the design of simulators that make use of Human Activity Recognition (HAR) that address the problem of incomplete data, collected from wearable devices. The aim of this work is to help researchers and ICT practitioners working on hospital systems to improve the designs and the requirements, providing solutions to the relevant problems.
Birk Hattenhorst – IEEE SIGHT Germany Section Chair
Birk Hattenhorst received his B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Applied Science Osnabrück, Germany, in 2012 and the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, in 2014. He has been a research assistant with the Institute of Electronic Circuits, Ruhr University Bochum, since 2014. His current research interests include microwave measurement techniques, radar technology, antenna and resonator design, metamaterials and material synthesis. Besides, Mr. Hattenhorst is a founder of the IEEE SIGHT Germany Section and the current chair since 2021.
Erdal Panayirci – Life Fellow IEEE
Erdal Panayirci (Life Fellow, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and system science from Michigan State University, USA, in 1971.,He is currently a Professor with the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, Kadir Has University, İstanbul, Turkey, and the Visiting Research Collaborator with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. He spent the academic years 2008–2009 and 2017–2018 with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University. He has published extensively in leading scientific journals and international conferences and coauthored the book Principles of Integrated Maritime Surveillance Systems (Kluwer Academic, 2000). His research interests include communication theory, synchronization, advanced signal processing techniques, and their applications to wireless electrical, underwater, and optical communications. He has served as a member of IEEE Fellow Committee from 2005 to 2008 and from 2018 to 2020 and as a member of the IEEE GLOBECOM/ICC Management and Strategy Standing Committee from 2017 to 2020. He was the Technical Program Co-Chair of the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC2006) and the Technical Program Chair of the IEEE PIMRC, both held in İstanbul, Turkey, in 2006 and 2010, respectively. He was the Executive Vice Chairman of the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, İstanbul, in April 2014. He was the General Co-Chair of the IEEE PIMRC held in İstanbul, in September 2019. He was an Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Communications in the areas of Synchronization and Equalization from 1995 to 2000.
Weizhi Meng – Associate Professor, Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark
Weizhi Meng is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Denmark. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU). Prior to joining DTU, he worked as a research scientist in Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR, Singapore. He is currently the Chair of IEEE Young Professionals Affinity Group in Denmark, and the Membership Development Chair of IEEE Denmark Section. He is also a member of IEEE R8 Young Professionals Subcommittee. He received the IEEE Outstanding Leadership Award for IEEE Blockchain 2018 and IEEE ATC 2019. He was the Ambassador in Denmark for the IEEE Region 8 Virtual SYP Congress 2020. He is passionate about organizing collaborative events to benefit Young Professionals.
Heather A. Love – Member at Large, IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) Board of Governors
Heather A. Love is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada), where she teaches communication courses to students in a variety of STEM programs. Her interdisciplinary research brings literary and rhetorical studies into dialogue with fields like science and technology studies, the medical humanities, and sustainability. She is currently working on several collaborative projects about engineering education and strategies for promoting ethical thinking within the tech community.
Heather is serving her second term as elected Member at Large for the IEEE’s Society on Social Implications of Technology (“SSIT”). She co-chaired SSIT’s 2021 flagship conference, “ISTAS,” or the IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society, which took place in late October and focused on the theme “Technological Stewardship and Responsible Innovation.” In addition, she edits the SSIT’s monthly newsletter, has co-edited several special issues of SSIT’s journal, the IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, and she is involved with the society’s conference series on Nobert Wiener in the 21st Century.