KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Assoc Prof Dr 

Jafreezal Jaafar

 Dean, Faculty of Science and Information Technology

Jafreezal Jaafar is an Associate Professor and Dean at Faculty of Science and Information Technology at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), Malaysia. He holds a PhD from University of Edinburgh, UK (2009), MAppSc in IT from RMIT University, Australia (2002) and BSc in Computer Science from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (1998). He also appointed as Professional Technologies (P.Tech) by Malaysia Board of Technology. He joined Department of Computer and Information Sciences, UTP since 1999, where he was a former Head (2012-2016). He also a former Head of Center for Research in Data Science (2017-2020), which focus on implementation of Machine Learning and predictive analytic in Oil and Gas (O&G) industry. He also active in conducting professional training in AI and Big Data Analytics for public and industry. Based on his experience and expertise, he had become member of Academy Science Malaysia SIG in Machine Learning, Senior Member and Executive Committee (2016-2018) for IEEE CS Malaysia Chapter and Executive Committee for MyAIS (2017-2019).  His main research area are AI, Machine Learning and Data Analytics, with over 100 technical publications.

Assoc Prof Dr 

M Fadzil Hassan

 Institute Director, Institute of Autonomous System

Associate Professor Ts. Dr. Mohd Fadzil Hassan is an alumnus of the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) and graduated in 1999 from the Colorado State University, USA with a BSc (cum-laude) in Computer Information Systems. He obtained his MSc in Artificial Intelligence in 2001 and PhD in Informatics in 2007 from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He was the former Dean, Centre for Graduate Studies, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) and currently the Director, Institute of Autonomous Systems, UTP. His research interests are in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). He is actively involved in research works focusing on these areas and has secured numerous research grants as a principal investigator namely FRGS, ERGS, PRGS, and Technofund from the Malaysian government. He is also actively involved with international collaborative research works and secured international joint research grants with Universities from the Middle East, Korea, and ASEAN region. His consultancy works with industry particularly PETRONAS is largely focused on the design and development of AI-based systems for achieving operational excellence in the oil and gas industry. He has involved in authoring more than 100 indexed publications. He is a senior member of IEEE and an executive committee for the IEEE Computer Society Malaysia in 2018 besides numerous special task force appointments at the national level by the Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education and private sectors, among others.

Assoc Prof Dr 

Tang Tong Boon

 Institute Director, Institute of Health & Analytics

Tong Boon Tang received the B.Eng. degree (Hons.) and Ph.D. degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from the School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, in 1999 and 2006, respectively. He was with Lucent Technologies (Singapore) and the University of Edinburgh (U.K.) between year 1999 and 2012. He then joined Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), Malaysia in 2012 as an Associate Professor in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. He is currently the Director of the Institute of Health and Analytics at UTP.Dr. Tang’s current research interests are neurotechnology and mental healthcare. Dr. Tang is a recipient of IET Mountbatten Medal and is the Chair of IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (Malaysia Chapter).
 Dr Tang is recognised for his pioneering work on functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in Malaysia. Funded by HITACHI Japan, he setup OT-HUB, an international collaboration platform to promote fNIRS-related research. He led the development of EEG-fNIRS bimodal system and the application to mental stress studies. The work has recently being translated into a fatigue management system for offshore platform workforce. In addition, he received multiple national grants to develop analytical tools to identify cognitive deficits due to traumatic brain injury, to study mental states of nursing students and registered nurses for better understanding about the drop-out issue among nursing students, and to develop a new cognitive training system for Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis and prevention. In total, he received more than USD 1 million research grants from governmental funding agencies and industries, and eight awards for his innovations in neurotechnology. He has also produced over 120 publications, and supervised 10 postgraduate theses, Ph.D. (5), master’s (5) where two of them received best thesis awards from the IEEE. Dr Tang’s research centre (Centre for Intelligent Signal and Imaging Research) has been conferred the status of Malaysia National Higher Institution Centre of Excellence (HICoE), one of the 20 centres across all disciplines. He received the Lab on Chip Award in 2006 and the IET Nanobiotechnology Premium Award in 2008. He was a Governing Board Member of International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF), and a Visiting Professor to National Taiwan Normal University. Presently he serves as the Secretary of the HICoE Council, and the Chair of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Malaysia Chapter.