Top experts to present proposals at 'International Research Conference on Innovations in Information Technology'

At a meeting with representatives from the main sponsors of IIT 2004, members of the Organising Committee provided an outline of the IIT 2004 conference programme and the calibre of speakers and experts, who will address the event from October 4 to October 6 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Dubai. Sponsors of the event include IBM, Gartner, Emirates Computers, Thuraya Satellite Systems, CISCO and Dell.

This major international conference, which is aimed at promoting IT development and scientific research in the region, will be inaugurated by His Highness, Sheikh Nahayan Bin Mubarak Al Nahayan, Minister for Higher Education and Scientific Research and Chancellor of UAE University. IIT 2004 will comprise a two-day international research conference plus an entire day of international workshops focused on current topics of interest to the IT community.

H.E. Dr. Hadef Bin Jouaan Al-Dhahiri, Vice Chancellor of UAE University, said: "The galaxy of eminent speakers and experts at this conference will present a unique opportunity for participants to exchange views and share ideas and solutions on issues and challenges in scientific research and IT development in the Arab world. Together with Dubai E-Government, the UAE University will strive to turn this gathering of distinguished minds into an annual event that will further enhance the UAE's position as a regional hub for information technology. This event could not have become a reality without the superb support of our sponsors. We are grateful for their sponsorship, and also for their genuine interest in encouraging scientific research in this region".

Mr. Patrick Toole, General Manager of IBM's Engineering and Technology Services Division, will deliver the keynote speech "Technology for Better Lives" Since joining IBM in 1984 he held a variety of executive and management positions in manufacturing, engineering, information systems, marketing and sales. Mr. Toole holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Notre Dame and master's degree in business administration from Queen's University.

Dr. Krishna Nathan, Vice President of IBM Services and Director of IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory, will present his proposal at the workshop titled "The Global Technology". Dr. Nathan holds a doctorate in electrical sciences from Brown University and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Swami Manohar, President and CEO of PicoPeta, Simputers Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore, will present his proposal titled "Admida Simputer". Dr. Manohar has been on the faculty of Computer Science and Automation Department of the Indian Institute of Science since 1990. He has a Bachelor's degree in electronics and communication engineering from Madras University, a Master's in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and a Ph.D in Computer Science from Brown University in 1989.

Mr. Stephen Prentice, Vice President and Director of Research (EMEA) for Gartner, will address the workshop titled "The Future of IT". Mr. Prentice takes a particular interest in the longer term scenario for the development of IT infrastructure, its evolving role in supporting and enabling new business models and the impact of new technologies and trends in this respect. He is ideally placed to discuss Gartner's research processes and methodologies, as well as strategic trends.

Dr. Ossama Emam, the Group Manager, Human Language Technologies at the IBM Cairo Technology Development Centre, will speak at the workshop titled "Arabic Speech Recognition Technology". He is credited with the Speech Recognition Research Project with the objective of building an Arabic dictation system. Dr. Emam has received the IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award and the IBM Professional Excellence Award for the development of the Arabic VoiceType Dictation.

Mr. Khalid Raza, who is a distinguished engineer at Cisco Systems, will present his proposal at the workshop titled "IPv6 for Next Generation Networks". He has over 11 years experience in designing and troubleshooting large scale IP networks. He has designed some of the largest networks in the world and has also co-authored a book "Large Scale IP Network Solutions".

Mr. Dieter E. Staigler, Senior Technical Staff Member - IBM Development Laboratory Boeblingen in Germany will address the workshop titled "Introduction to Telematics". He is the author of various publications and holds key patents in the field of "Autonomic-embedded-Computing" and Distributed Intelligence - an innovative framework focusing on solution for tomorrow's "networked automobiles".

Dr. Nalin Sharda presently teaches and leads research in Multimedia and Internet Communications at the School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Victoria University, Australia. He has gained B. Tech and PhD. Degrees from IIT Delhi, and has several publications to his credit including the textbook entitled "Multimedia Information Networking", Prentice Hall.

The conference will be attended by more than 50 eminent international scientists and IT experts. More than 55 outstanding scientific research papers selected by a panel of over 100 leading scientists will be presented at the conference, which will focus on a wide range of areas related to innovations in IT including the following topics:
•Network and Information Security
•Information Systems Integration
•Internet and Communications Technologies
•Web Engineering and Applications
•E-Commerce
•Knowledge and Content Management
•Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
•Indexing and Search Technologies
•VLSI Chip Design and Test

High quality scientific research papers presented at the event will be considered for publication in special issues of three major international scientific journals - Enterprise Information Management Journal, Business Process Management Journal and International Journal of Mobile Computing and Commerce.