Mohamed Essaaidi
Full Professor, Mohammed V University, Morocco
Past IEEE Morocco Section Chair
Title : Smart Cities Promised Technological & Social Revolution
Abstract:
Many cities around the world are currently transitioning towards Smart Cities to attain several key objectives such as a low carbon environment, high quality of living, and resource efficient economy. Urban performance depends not only on the city's endowment of hard infrastructure, but also on the availability and quality of knowledge communication and social infrastructure. There is a growing importance of technologies (e.g. 5G, Cloud Computing, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Blockchain. etc.), and of social and environmental capital in profiling the competitiveness of cities. Digital transformation is playing a critical role in building smart cities and is supporting comprehensive urban smart systems. This brings together citizens and integrates technologies and services such as transportation, broadband communications, buildings, healthcare, and other utilities. Furthermore, it can facilitate a participatory approach allowing to achieve integrated solutions and creating novel applications to improve urban life and build a sustainable society.
The main purpose of this keynote talk is to present an overview on Smart Cities technologies, applications and best practices, and also to discuss different opportunities and challenges they present for all stakeholders.
Biography
Mohamed Essaaidi, is a Professor of ENSIAS, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco. He has been Dean of ENSIAS College of IT Engineering of Mohammed V University of Rabat, Morocco (November 2011-April 2019), he has been a Professor at the Faculty of Science, Abdelmalek Essaadi University in Tetuan, Morocco (2001-2011) and an Assistant Professor at the
same university (1993-2001). He is an IEEE Senior Member, the founder and past Chairman of the IEEE Morocco Section (2005-2015), co-founder and chair of IEEE Morocco Communications / Computer Society Chapter (2006-2008) and current Chairman of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society and Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Morocco Joint Chapter and IEEE Education Society Morocco Chapter chair from 2007 to 2009.
He has been a member of Committee of Global Accreditation activities of IEEE Education Activities Board between (USA) 2017 and 2018. He has been also Director of the Morocco Office of Arab Science and Technology Foundation, ASTF (2006-2009) and the Coordinator of ASTF RD&I Network of Electro-Technology between 2006 and 2008 (UAE).
He has authored and co-authored 7 books and more than 200 papers in international refereed journals and conferences in the field of Electrical and Computer engineering and its diverse applications including smart homes, smart mobility smart grid and smart cities. He has been the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal on Information and Communication Technologies, Serial Publications, India (2007-2011) and Guest Editor of several international journals. He is also an active member of the editorial boards of several international journals in the same fields mentioned above.
Furthermore, Prof. Essaaidi is the founder and the General Chair / co-chair of several IEEE technically sponsored international conferences, such as Mediterranean Microwave Symposium (which is organized on a yearly basis since 2000 in the Mediterranean countries), Information and Communication Technologies International Symposium (2005, 2007). He also organized and co-chaired the US National Academies 5th Arab American Science, Engineering and Medicine Frontiers Symposium in November 2017, Rabat, Morocco and US NSF sponsored workshop on Smart Cities in January 2016 in Rabat, Morocco. He has also served in the Organizing committees and TPC and presented keynote talks at many other international conferences worldwide on different topics related to electrical and computer engineering and technologies including smart grid and smart cities. He has also been co-organizer of Casablanca IEEE Core Smart City Workshop in January 2016 and a member of Madinat Al-Irfane University Smart Campus initiative in Rabat in 2019.
Prof. Essaaidi holds 10 patents in the field ICT. Some of these patents received several international innovation awards. He was also a member of the IEEE 802.16 Sponsor Ballot Pool of IEEE Standard Association that defined the technical specifications for WiMAX. He supervised several Masters and PhDs Theses and he has been the principal investigator and the project manager for several research projects in the framework of national and international research programs and funds.
