Invited Speakers
Nobuo Funabiki received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematical engineering and information physics from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1984 and 1993, respectively. He received the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Case Western Reserve University, USA, in 1991. From 1984 to 1994, he was with the System Engineering Division, Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd., Japan. In 1994, he joined the Department of Information and Computer Sciences at Osaka University, Japan, as an assistant professor, and became an associate professor in 1995. He stayed at University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2000-2001, as a visiting researcher. In 2001, he moved to the Department of Information and Communication Systems at Okayama University as a professor. His research interests include computer networks, optimization algorithms, educational technology, and web application systems. He is a member of IEEE, IEICE, and IPSJ. He was the chairman at IEEE Hiroshima Section in 2015 and 2016, and a vice president at IEEE Consumer Technology Society in 2023 and 2024.
Jihong Ding is a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Computer Science, Hainan University, China. She leads the Multimodal Data Analysis and Intelligence Team. Her research interests include AI-enabled education, educational data mining, multimodal learning analytics, and learning sciences. She has led several research projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Education of China. Her work has been published in SCI, SSCI, CSSCI, and CCF-ranked journals. She is the author of academic books on educational data mining and intelligent learning systems. Prof. Ding received the Second Prize of the National Teaching Achievement Award of China and serves as a reviewer for the National Natural Science Foundation of China, international conferences, and scholarly journals in educational technology and artificial intelligence in education.
BA in Communication Design (2003), MA in Multimedia Art (2007) and PhD in Digital Media (2013) from the University of Porto. In 2020, he completed a Post-Doctorate in Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. He is currently Associate (tenured) Professor at the School of Design of the Polytechnic University of Cávado and Ave (IPCA) and Director of the MA in Digital Design.
He is an Integrated Researcher of the Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture (ID+), where he has focused his research in the area of Communication Design for Digital Media. He is currently Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) of the project "HERIC 2D - Health Risk Communication: Design and digital communication of official public health sources to guide citizens in pandemic situations" funded by FCT (Ref. 2022.06008.PTDC); was Principal Investigator (PI) of the project "ECHO - Echoing the Communal Self: designing the dissemination and replication of self-initiated practices in underprivileged urban communities in a post-pandemic world", funded by FCT (EXPL/ART-DAQ/0037/2021); and has participated, as a team member, in several funded research projects.
He is the Founder and Chair of DIGICOM - International Conference on Design & Digital Communication (http://digicom.ipca.pt). He is member of the editorial board of several scientific journals and was co-editor of more than several scientific publications in the area of Communication Design, namely chapter books and proceedings of international conferences.
He has won numerous awards, namely: 3 Graphis Gold Award (2021, 2015 and 2014, USA); 2 Graphis Silver Award (2020 and 2014, USA); 1st prize - Mascot of the Oceanário of Lisbon; 1st prize - Mascot of the Water Pavilion of Porto; 1st prize - Porto Digital logo; 1st Prize "Winner Online" in the contest Webdesign 2004, promoted by ESTAL; and 1st Prize in the Contest "Papies 2006" (category "Papies of the Internet). Some of his design projects appear in over two dozen books on Communication Design, published in Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, USA, Austria, Netherlands, France, China and UK.
Edwin P. Christmann earned his PhD from Old Dominion University and an Advanced Diploma from the University of Cambridge (UK). He is a professor in the Helms School of Government at Liberty University, where he serves as Director of Research Methods and teaches courses in research methods and statistics. Dr. Christmann has served as a contributing editor for the National Science Teachers Association's middle school journal, Science Scope, and is a member of the editorial review boards of several research journals. He is the author of Technology-Based Inquiry for Middle School and Beyond the Numbers: Making Sense of Statistics. He has also coauthored Interpreting Assessment Data: Statistical Techniques You Can Use; Designing Elementary Instruction and Assessment: Using the Cognitive Domain; Designing and Assessing IEP Instruction for Students with Mild Disabilities: Using the Cognitive Domain; and Designing Middle and High School Instruction and Assessment: Using the Cognitive Domain. In addition, Dr. Christmann has written over 100 articles and is a frequent speaker at international conferences. He is an active Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and holds certification as a statistician through the RSS.
Prof. Dr. habil. Gabor Kiss (OrcID: 0000-0002-0447-9376) is full professor in the Institute of Safety Science and Cybersecurity at the Óbuda University. He received the PhD. degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Debrecen University in 2013 and the Habilitation in Safety and Security Science from Óbuda University in 2020.
Prof. Dr. Kiss was a guest scientist in the Faculty of Computer Science Freie Universität Berlin in 2003 and Universität Paderborn in 2006.
Prof. Dr. Kiss has published more than 220 refereed papers in Journals and Proceedings. He serves as an Editorial board member more Journals. He has been a Keynote speaker, Panelist speaker, Publicity chair, Program Committee or Organizing Committee member for more than 240 international conferences.
Prof. Dr. Kiss is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and more Hungarian and International Societies in Computer Science.
Prof. Dr. Kiss is an external expert of Bureau of Education, Hungary; National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary; Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS).
His research interests include Artificial Intelligence in the Computer Science Education, Information Security Awareness, AI in self-driving vehicles, AI in Healthcare.
