Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, FIEEE, FEIC, FCAE
Distinguished Professor and University Research Chair
University of Ottawa, Canada
www.eecs.uottawa.ca/~elsaddik
www.mcrlab.net

Prof. Abdulmotaleb El Saddik is Distinguished University Professor and University Research Chair in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Ottawa. He is the director of the Multimedia Communications Research Laboratory (MCRLab). He is Associate Editor of the ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (ACM TOMCCAP), IEEE Transactions on Multimedia and Guest Editor for several IEEE Transactions and Journals. Dr. El Saddik has been serving on several technical program committees of numerous IEEE and ACM events. He has been the General Chair and/or Technical Program Chair of more than 50 international conferences symposia and workshops on collaborative hapto-audio-visual environments, multimedia communications and instrumentation and measurement. He is leading researcher in haptics, service-oriented architectures, collaborative environments and ambient interactive media and communications (smart cities). He has authored and co-authored three books and more than 450 publications. He has received research grants and contracts totaling more than $18 million and has supervised more than 120 researchers.

Prof. El Saddik is a Fellow of the IEEE (2009), for his contributions to interactive haptic audio visual systems. He was also elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (2010) and Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (2010). He is the first Canadian in Computer Science & Engineering to receive the very prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award from the German Humboldt Foundation in 2007. He is the recipient of the Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award (PREA), in 2004 and the National Capital Institute of Telecommunications (NCIT) New Professorship Incentive Award (2004). In 2008 he was appointed an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, he also received the Professional of the Year Award, from the Canadian Lebanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Achievement in the Development of Canada. He has also received five Outstanding/Best Paper Awards. Dr. El Saddik is the recipient of the 2010 Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Distinguished Scientist Award, the 2011 Cátedra de Excelencia from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain and the 2010 IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society Technical Award, which is the highest award of IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement society, for his outstanding contributions to multimedia computing. Most recently, he received the Faculty of Engineering’s George S. Glinski Award for Excellence in Research for 2012. He also received the 2012 IEEE Ottawa Educator Award and the 2013 IEEE Canada Achievement Award: C.C. Gotlieb (Computer) Medal for important contributions to the field of computer engineering and science. In 2015 he received the University of Ottawa Researcher of the year Award.

Topic: Smart Cities - A Multidisciplinary Research
Smart city initiatives attempt to tackle the challenges brought forth by the rapid growth of the population in cities. This is essential for creating a more sustainable and livable city. Representative examples include: environmental protection, provision of transportation, utilities, safety, education, and many others. In a smart city, a multitude of deployed sensors delivers near real-time real-world data. The sensors may be physical, such as cameras, water/electricity meters, RFID tags, environment sensors, or induction loops in roads. Also, sensors may come in the form of information that is automatically extracted from the web, social networks or smartphones (soft sensors). All sensors are interconnected into a large computing platform, where data is aggregated in a hierarchy of gateways, creating a comprehensive picture of the live state of the city. The information is made available to various city services, which can then adapt to the citizens’ behavior. The inclusion of data analysis, modeling and prediction allows for a shift in the decision making from human operators to automated processes.
Through focused and applied research, the general goal of the talk is give an overview of smart cities, discuss some research issues and address some challenges.

Dawn Bardot, PhD
Vice President, Technology Innovation
Medical Device Innovation Consortium
phone: 952.314.2099
email: DBardot@MDIC.org

With more than 15 years of experience in computational model validation and uncertainty quantification, Dawn Bardot, Ph.D, brings a wealth of experience to her role as Vice President of Technology Innovation at the Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC). She is passionate about the application of modeling and simulation to improve health care and lower the cost of bringing products to market. She is an active member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); serves as Chair of the Verification and Validation in Computation Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer Committee; and is Sub-Group Chair of the Committee on Verification and Validation in Computational Methods for Medical Devices. Dr. Bardot has a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Kansas State University, a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington, was an Innovation Fellow at the University of Minnesota Medical Devices Center, and spent two summers as a Faculty Fellow at NASA Marshal Space Flight Center.

Topic: The Medical Device Innovation Consortium - Regulatory Grade Computer Modeling and Simulation

The vision.  Reduce the time and cost required to develop and approve medical innovation, while improving patient safety, through the consistent application of validated computational modeling and simulation in device development and regulation.

The need. Computational modeling and simulation (CM&S) has the potential to revolutionize the field of medical devices by accelerating innovation and providing comprehensive evidence of long-term safety. CM&S has advanced to the point where application of model environments could provide performance benchmarks, assess design parameters interdependencies, evaluate a variety of use conditions, provide visualization of complex processes and become a core element of device submissions and approvals. Yet, challenges remain. Foremost among these is the need for biomedical data and standardized processes to validate CM&S models across a variety of clinical applications and organ systems at the level necessary to substantially augment or replace animal, bench, and human models, and thereby accelerate and streamline the regulatory review process. Through collaboration and shared learnings in this regulated industry, CM&S will become a credible and common means for companies and FDA to demonstrate the safety of medical devices and thereby improve safety, reduce cost, and accelerate first in the world access to medical products.

Please check the associated conference (REDEC’16) website (http://www.redeconf.org/Keynote-Speakers) for information about additional keynote speakers.