Wednesday 09 May 2018: Dr Jan Camenisch, a leading privacy and cryptography researcher, will deliver a keynote presentation on the second day of the World Computer Congress (WCC) 2018 in Poland in September.

Dr Camenisch joins a prestigious line-up of keynotes which also includes:

• Eminent computer scientist, Professor Will van der Aalst;
• Complexity theory authority and Turing Award winner, Professor Leslie Valiant; and
• World-renowned expert in disaster risk reduction, Shamika N. Sirimanne.

IFIP’s flagship event, WCC2018 will run from 17-21 September 2018 with a broad range of leading edge content for ICT professionals and thought leaders, computer scientists and researchers, academics, ICT vendors and developers, and more.

Dr Camenisch is Principal Research Staff Member at IBM Research in Zurich, leading IBM’s Privacy & Cryptography research team.

He is a leading scientist in the area of privacy and cryptography, has published over 100 widely cited papers, and has received numerous awards for his work, including the 2010 ACM SIGSAC outstanding innovation award and the 2013 IEEE computer society technical achievement award.

Dr Camenisch is also a co-inventor of Identity Mixer, a unique cryptographic protocol suite for privacy-preserving authentication and transfer of certified attributes.

With data increasingly becoming the most valuable currency online and heightened concerns about the improper collection and abuse of data leading to privacy invasions and identity theft, Camenisch’s ground-breaking work enables greater security for users and suppliers while guaranteeing user privacy.

Identity Mixer use cryptographic algorithms that encode user data in a way that provides only the essential information that online services need to authenticate the user and ensure that transactions are legal while safeguarding the user’s identity.

The software is currently being tested through two pilots in Greece and Sweden, with the results being assessed by the European research initiative ABC4Trust.

Camenisch is collaborating with partners from leading vendors, research institutions and privacy groups to prove and enhance the system, which analysts say has the potential to lay the foundations for a global identity card.

WCC2018 will be held at Poznań in Poland from 17-21 September next year with 14 co-located events, including:

• IIFIP TC-9 Human Choice and Computers Conference
• IFIP TC-11 Information Security and Privacy Conference
• IFIP TC-14 Int. Conf. Entertainment Computing
• IFIP TC-5 Int. Conf. Computer Applications in Technology
• IFIP DC Conf. on IT in Disaster Risk Reduction
• IFIP WG 8.1 Conference on Practice of Enterprise Modeling
• IFIP TC-10 International Embedded Systems Symposium
• IFIP TC-12 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations
• IFIP WG 13.2 International Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering
• IFIP TC-9 HComp Working Group sessions & tracks (History of Computing)
• Beyond Databases, Architectures and Structures (BDAS)
• Congress of the Polish Computer Science
• Information Security Education for a Global Digital Society (WISE)
• Business to Science – Science to Business (B2S2B)

IFIP is also providing opportunities for students and researchers to obtain scholarships to attend WCC 2018. There are currently:

• Seven grants for students presenting at the PhD Student Research Competition. The grants cover: (1) Congress student full pass registration and (2) accommodation and are provided by the Polish Academy of Sciences. For more info and how to apply go to the PhD Student Research Competition web page.
• Up to three travel grants for PhD students from developing countries. The grants cover airplane ticket costs. They are provided by the IFIP Digital Equity Committee. For more info and how to apply see the grants page.

One travel grant for a mature researcher from a developing country. The grant covers an airplane ticket cost and is provided by the IFIP Digital Equity Committee. For more info and how to apply visit the grants page.

About IFIP

IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing, is the global professional federation of societies and associations for people working in Information and Communications Technologies and Sciences. Established under the auspices of UNESCO in 1960 and recognised by the United Nations, IFIP represents ICT professional associations from more than 50 countries and regions with a total membership of over half a million. It also brings together more than 3,500 scientists from industry and academia, organising them into over 100 Working Groups and 13 Technical Committees to conduct research, develop standards and promote information sharing. Based in Austria, IFIP organises and supports over 100 conferences each year, fostering the distribution of research and knowledge to academics and industry practitioners alike.

Website: http://ifip.org

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Stephen Ibaraki, Founding Chair of the IFIP Global Industry Council (GIC) and Vice Chair of IFIP IP3 (International Professional Practice Partnership), last week chaired and presented a keynote address at the UN Headquarters New York ITU Briefing on the “AI for Good Global Summit”.

The briefing was a resounding success by all measures with high interest by all participants including requests for follow-up. Moreover, Mr Ibaraki was requested to give a similar presentation at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to be held in June in Geneva.

Mr Ibaraki, who founded the summit along with co-organizers, ITU and XPRIZE Foundation, opened the briefing by updating attendees on the current state of play of artificial intelligence, pointing to recent developments in tracking poverty using convolutional neural networks and extending medical care through automated diagnosis well as highlighting future areas of greatest opportunity.

“The impacts of AI are going to be profound and they are happening faster than most people expect,” said Ibaraki.  “Moreover, AI will power the ICTs and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals).”

The SDG Agenda is unique in that it’s the first ‘global’ development strategy agreed to by both the developed and developing world and involved 3 years of consultations with Member States, civil society and the private sector. The SDG Agenda (Para 12) recognizes ‘connectivity’ and ‘ICTs’ as holding ‘great potential to accelerate human progress to bridge the digital divide and to develop knowledge societies’…across diverse areas’.  

The specific ICT targets are:

• SDG Goal 4 – Education (clearly digital literacy and critical learning skills must go hand in hand here in order to generate relevant local content)
• SDG Goal 5 – Gender Equity (the digital gender gap is actually increasing – there are 250 million fewer women on line and the number in STEM education (especially computer science) is decreasing)
• SDG Goal 9 – Infrastructure. Target 9c calls for ‘universal and affordable access to the internet by 2020 in the least developed countries.  This is an essential cornerstone to ensure that the benefits of Artificial Intelligence are to be achieved for all and to stave off some of the prevalent Orwellian scenarios that are spinning around AI.
• SDG Goal 17 – Partnerships – where ICT ‘partnerships’ (such as the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission, Connect 2020, WEF Internet 4 All and the AI Summit for Good) are being deployed as a ‘means of implementation’ for ALL goals and ALL targets.  

ITU was at the forefront of ensuring that ICTs were recognized as a ‘cross-cutting catalyst for all three pillars of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental balance’.  

To be held from 7-9 June 2017 in Geneva, the AI for Good Global Summit (AGGS) seeks to speed the development of, and access to, Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to address global challenges ranging from poverty, hunger, health and education to equality and environmental sustainability.

Organized by ITU and the XPRIZE Foundation – in partnership with UN agencies, including OHCHR, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNICRI, UNIDO, UNITAR and UN Global Pulse – the summit will evaluate the opportunities presented by AI with a view to ensuring that AI benefits all of humanity.

Mr Ibaraki is playing a foundational role as a member of the AGGS Steering Committee, founding chairman of the AGGS Outreach Committee engaging in numerous meetings, workshops and daily communications to formulate the structure, content and logistics for the event, which will bring together AI experts, stakeholders and government policymakers from around the world.

His long and active involvement not only in IFIP but also in ACM and ITU has enabled him to bring together key players and thought leaders from across the globe to enhance his personal contribution and optimise outcomes.

Thanks in part to Mr Ibaraki’s efforts, the AGGS has attached significant international attention and support. In addition to the 10+ UN bodies working to make the summit a reality, more than 50 high profile speakers have committed to participating in the program.

IFIP President, Mike Hinchey, will present at and moderate a plenary presentation at the AGGS, drawing on his extensive experience as Director of Lero, the Irish Software Research Centre and

past Director of the Software Engineering Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland. Here, his work helped make NASA missions self-managing and better able to handle challenging terrains.

Professor Hinchey, whose article entitled, “AI and Ethics – Where to Draw the Line” appeared in the March issue of the UN ITU Magazine focused on AI, will also be joined by IFIP GIC members, Frits Bussemaker and Andy Chen as plenary speakers/moderators at the Summit.

About IFIP

IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing, is the global professional federation of societies and associations for people working in Information and Communications Technologies and Sciences. Established under the auspices of UNESCO in 1960 and recognised by the United Nations, IFIP represents ICT professional associations from more than 50 countries and regions with a total membership of over half a million. It also brings together more than 3,500 scientists from industry and academia, organising them into over 100 Working Groups and 13 Technical Committees to conduct research, develop standards and promote information sharing. Based in Austria, IFIP organises and supports over 100 conferences each year, fostering the distribution of research and knowledge to academics and industry practitioners alike.

Website: http://ifip.org

The post IFIP AI Expert Stephen Ibaraki Chairs United Nations AI Briefing appeared first on Core Sector Communique.

WCCE 2017 Will Now Accept Papers Up Until Friday 3^rd March 2017

Monday 27 February – The World Conference on Computers in Education (WCCE) has extended its Call for Papers until Friday 3^rd March while confirming it has secured five prominent keynotes for the July event.

The flagship education conference of IFIP, the global federation of ICT professional bodies, WCCE 2017 has adopted the theme of, “Tomorrow’s Learning: Involving Everyone”. It will focus on the latest uses of technologies, computing and technology-based learning resources, highlighting educational practice, cutting-edge educational research and thought-leadership for the future.

To be staged in Dublin, Ireland from 3-6 July with a Doctoral Consortium on 2nd July, WCCE 2017 is being organised by IFIP Technical Committee 3 (TC3) which focuses on ICT and Education. The conference organisers have announced a line-up of five influential Keynote Speakers to headline the event:

• Andreas Schleicher, Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the OECD;
• Lord David Puttnam, Digital Ambassador for Ireland and Chairman of Atticus Education, Director for Education and Skills;
• Professor Val Shute, Mack and Effie Campbell Tyner Endowed Professor in Education in the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems at Florida State University, USA;
• Dr Indrajit Banerjee, Director, Knowledge Societies Division, UNESCO; and
• Davide Storti, Programme Specialist, YouthMobile Coordinator, Knowledge Societies Division, UNESCO.

WCCE is open to anyone involved in developing and using technology and computing in education and training, including those involved in computer science education. TC3 is particualrly interested in hearing from researchers, policy-makers, teachers, learners, developers and technology suppliers wanting to share their knowledge and insights at the event.

To submit a paper, visit the WCCE website for guidelines and conditions, with all submissions due by Friday 3rd March.

About IFIP

IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing, is the global professional federation of societies and associations for people working in Information and Communications Technologies and Sciences. Established under the auspices of UNESCO in 1960 and recognised by the United Nations, IFIP represents ICT professional associations from more than 50 countries and regions with a total membership of over half a million. It also brings together more than 3,500 scientists from industry and academia, organising them into over 100 Working Groups and 13 Technical Committees to conduct research, develop standards and promote information sharing. Based in Austria, IFIP organises and supports over 100 conferences each year, fostering the distribution of research and knowledge to academics and industry practitioners alike.

Website: http://ifip.org

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ifipnews

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ifip—international-federation-for-information-processing

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