IISCC 2026 Conference Program

Invited Speaker 1: Dr. Ali Younis Al-Maqousi

Affiliation: University of Petra, Jordan

Date: September 15, 2026, 11:00 AM

Talk Title: Cybersecurity in Cognitive Cities: An Inclusive Roadmap Framework, Trends, Challenges, and Future Directions

Bio: Ali Maqousi is a Jordanian computer scientist at Petra University in Amman. He earned his PhD from Oxford Brookes University in the UK before returning to Jordan to teach and conduct research.

At Petra University, he served as Associate Professor and later became Head of the Computer Networks Department. Earlier in his career, he worked as a Liaison Officer at Jordan's Scientific Research and Technology Fund, connecting academic research with funding and industry partners.

His research has focused on cybersecurity, particularly information security awareness and training, including work related to e-government systems in the Arab world. More recently, his work has extended into smart cities, examining how human-centered design can inform urban planning and policy.

He currently serves as Director of the Office of External Funding for Research Projects at Petra University, overseeing efforts to secure external research funding for the institution.

Abstract: Cognitive cities extend smart-city platforms with artificial intelligence, urban digital twins, adaptive sensing, and semi-autonomous public services. These capabilities can improve resilience, but they also create a gap in conventional cybersecurity thinking: protection is usually assessed at the platform or infrastructure level, while harm is experienced by affected people in specific contexts. A city may encrypt data, authenticate platforms, and monitor networks, yet still fail people who cannot understand an emergency warning, complete an accessible recovery workflow, revoke or challenge a data use, or contest an automated decision. This paper proposes an inclusive cybersecurity roadmap framework for cognitive cities. The contribution is a roadmap, not a detection algorithm, benchmark, or deployment report. The framework is derived through an integrative synthesis of cognitive-city security, smart-city data governance, AI risk management, accessible cybersecurity, and secure-by-design guidance. It contributes a non-sequential four-dimensional risk taxonomy covering technical, human/social, accessibility/exclusion, and systemic/equity risks; an ordered five-layer service-chain model spanning physical/IoT systems, data/privacy processes, cognitive/AI services, accessible interfaces, and governance/community oversight; a lightweight threat model; auditable evidence checkpoints for municipal procurement, incident response, and future pilots; and a synthesis of trends, challenges, and future directions for research, engineering, and municipal governance. The central claim is that cybersecurity in cognitive cities is incomplete unless protection is accessible, understandable, contestable, privacy-respecting, and equitably distributed.

Invited Speaker 2: Prof. Abir Jaafar Hussain

Affiliation: University of Sharjah; Liverpool John Moores University

Date: September 16, 2026, 11:00 AM

Talk Title: AI Applications in Industry: Innovation, Impact, and Responsible Adoption

Bio: Abir Hussain is a Professor of Image and Signal Processing at the University of Sharjah. She is also a visiting professor with Liverpool John Moores University, where she worked for over 23 years.

She completed her PhD study at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), UK, in 2000 with a thesis titled Polynomial Neural Networks for Image and Signal Processing. She has published numerous refereed research papers in conferences and journals in the areas of neural networks, signal prediction, telecommunication fraud detection, and image compression.

She has worked with higher-order and recurrent neural networks and their applications to financial, physical, e-health, and image-compression techniques. With her research students, she has developed a number of recurrent neural-network architectures. Her research has appeared in highly regarded journals including Expert Systems with Applications, PLOS ONE, Electronics Letters, Neurocomputing, and Neural Computing and Applications.

She is a PhD supervisor and an external examiner for research degrees including PhD and MPhil. She is also one of the initiators and chairs of the Developments in eSystems Engineering series, most notably represented by the IEEE technically sponsored DeSE International Conference Series.

Abstract: Artificial intelligence is making significant changes to industries including finance, healthcare, and agriculture at an unprecedented pace. From intelligent fraud detection, algorithmic risk assessment, and personalized financial services to AI-assisted diagnostics, predictive healthcare, and streamlined clinical operations, AI is unlocking new levels of innovation, efficiency, and value creation.

While these advances offer remarkable benefits, successful AI adoption requires more than technological capability. Organizations must address critical issues surrounding data quality, privacy, transparency, fairness, bias mitigation, explainability, regulatory compliance, and governance. In highly regulated industries such as finance and healthcare, trust remains central to AI deployment. The keynote therefore explores frameworks for responsible AI, emphasizing the importance of human oversight, ethical decision-making, robust risk management, and interdisciplinary collaboration between technology experts, domain specialists, regulators, and business leaders.

This keynote provides details on how organizations are moving beyond experimentation to real-world AI deployment, highlighting practical applications and measurable business outcomes. It also examines the challenges accompanying AI adoption, including transparency, ethical decision-making, and building trust among customers, patients, and professionals.