KEYNOTES (TBA)
At the Edge of Everything: Unlocking Infinite Intelligence
Burak Kantarci, Full Professor University of Ottawa
Abstract: As we accelerate into the era of 6G and hyper-connectivity, intelligence is no longer centralized. It is ambient, distributed, and increasingly agentic. This keynote explores how Edge Intelligence, Large Language Models (LLMs), and next-generation networks are converging to create a powerful new paradigm: a world where machines reason, adapt, and collaborate autonomously at the network’s edge. From the battlefield to the city street, intelligent agents embedded in edge environments are already transforming critical sectors. I will delve into recent advances, including LLM-powered autonomous defense vehicles, real-time multimodal traffic cognition systems, and language-model-guided network optimization. The audience will gain insight into how techniques such as prompt engineering, federated learning, and lightweight language models are enabling secure, low-latency decision-making without compromising trust or privacy. Drawing from real-world implementations and collaborative research, this keynote outlines a bold vision for the future: a seamless edge ecosystem that brings together distributed intelligence, multimodal data, and next-generation connectivity to support responsive and scalable AI solutions. The edge is no longer the edge. It is the origin of infinite intelligence.
Biography: Dr. Burak Kantarci is currently a Full Professor and the University Research Chair in AI-Enabled Secure Networking for Smart Critical Infrastructures, Faculty of Engineering, University of Ottawa, Canada. He is also the Founding Director of the Smart Connected Vehicles Innovation Centre (SCVIC) and the Next Generation Communications and Computing Networks (NEXTCON) Research Laboratory, University of Ottawa. He holds a Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from ITU in 2009. He is the author/co-author of more than 300 publications in established journals and conferences and 15 book chapters. His research has attracted more than 10,000 citations. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and of the ACM. Continuously listed among the top-cited scientists in telecommunications and networking based on the data reported by Stanford University since 2020, and since 2021, based on data collected from Microsoft Academic Graph, research.com has listed him among Canada’s top computer scientists. He is a recipient of King Charles III Coronation Medal (Canadian Version), and was a recipient of the Minister’s Award of Excellence from Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities (2021) and the 2023 Technical Achievement Award of IEEE ComSoc Communications Software Technical Committee. He is also the winner of the 2024–2025 George S. Glinski Award for Excellence in Research in the Faculty of Engineering at University of Ottawa. He holds the Exemplary Editor Award from IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (2021), and multiple best paper awards from various conferences, most recently from IEEE Globecom 2024, IEEE VCC 2023, IEEE ICC 2023, Wireless World Research Forum 2022, and IEEE Globecom 2021. He was a Distinguished Speaker of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) 2019–2021. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society and the IEEE Systems Council. He has been a keynote/invited speaker or panelist in 40 events. In 2019 and 2020, he chaired the Communications Systems Integration and Modeling Technical Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has been the general chair, the program chair, or the track chair of more than 30 international conferences. He is an Editor of the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials and IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, an Associate Editor of IEEE Networking Letters and Vehicular Communications (Elsevier), a former Associate Editor of Internet of Things (2021–2024), and a former Area Editor of IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking (2016–2021).
From Clouds for 5G Systems to Clouds for 6G Systems: A Bumpy Road Ahead
Roch H. Glitho, Senior Industrial Research Chair Ericsson / ENCQOR, Full Professor, Concordia University
Abstract: Each generation of telecommunication systems brings additional levels of sophistication to the services offered to end-users. The Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) services (e.g. remote
robotic surgery) promised by the fifth-generation (5G) are compelling examples. They are a far cry from the Short Message Service (SMS) offered by the second-generation (2G), and the simple multimedia services offered the third and fourth generations (3G/4G). The deployment of 6G systems is expected for the 2030s, and much more sophisticated services (e.g. immersive holographic type – communications services) are expected. Clouds are the pillars of 5G and Beyond (5GB) due to the fact that features such as elasticity, scalability, and provisioning on-demand can successfully tackle the everlasting challenges such as lack of flexibility and over provisioning faced by telecommunication systems. 6G requirements are now known and are far more stringent than their 5G counterparts. Expected end-to-end latency for instance is now 0.1 milli-second instead of the 1 milli-second that is hardly met nowadays. Clouds for 5G will certainly fail
when it comes to meeting 6G challenges. Thus, the need of a new generation of clouds for 6G. However, the road ahead from clouds for 5G to clouds for 6G will certainly be bumpy due to the numerous
challenges. In the first part of this keynote speech, we will introduce the expectations of 6G systems on clouds, and
discuss why clouds for 5G cannot meet them. In the second part, we will sketch the research directions that may bring us to clouds for 6G. The third part will show that clouds alone will not be sufficient for 6G. It will be necessary to complement them by other paradigms. In-Network Computing (INC) is a good candidate. This is likely to bring us to a paradigm of “cloud-edge continuum enriched by INC” for 6G.
Biography: Roch H. Glitho is the Ericsson / ENCQOR Senior Industrial Research Chair in Clouds/Edges for 5G, and a
Full Professor of Networking and Telecommunications at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. In the
past, he has held a Canada Research Chair at the same university, and has also worked as a Principal
Researcher at Ericsson. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), and the
Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC). He is the founding Editor-In-Chief of IEEE Communications Surveys
and Tutorials journal, and has served as Editor-In-Chief of IEEE Communications Magazine and as IEEE
Distinguished Lecturer. He is the inventor/co-inventor of several dozen patents (granted or under
evaluation), and has widely published in areas such as cloud/edge/fog, 5G and beyond, Internet of
Things (IoT), and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).
Title
Vivek Kale, Principal Member of Technical Staff, Sandia National Laboratories, California
Abstract:
Biography: Vivek Kale is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories—California, where he leads R&D of parallel computing systems software for science, engineering, and AI workloads vital to the United States Department of Energy. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015, focusing on using intra-process load balancing to scale MPI applications. At Sandia, he oversees software development of GPU programming tools in support of Kokkos, a GPU parallel programming library widely adopted by Department of Energy’s science applications and that influences the new C++ StdPar library. He is specifically responsible for maintaining and driving development of the Kokkos Tools library’s infrastructure and capabilities, ensuring the library’s interoperability with MPI and cluster-level job schedulers, and influencing enhancements to Kokkos backend programming models such as OpenMP and CUDA to facilitate tooling for Kokkos. Over the past year, Vivek has concentrated on AI-assisted tools for Kokkos, particularly leveraging LLMs for source-to-source GPU program translation tools and developing ML-guided auto-tuning tools for Kokkos applications. Vivek has published over 40 articles in the area of HPC and parallel computing systems software, and he has served on multiple technical review committees for international CS conferences and journals. Furthermore, Vivek is active in open-source software standardization and governance efforts for parallel computing, in particular the standards committee for C++, MPI, OpenMP, and OpenACC, and the Linux Foundation’s High-Performance Software Foundation for Kokkos and Spack. Outside of work, he enjoys playing tennis competitively and playing pop songs on the piano.
Title
Dimitrios Pendarakis, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Security Officer, IBM Power
Abstract:
Biography: Dimitrios Pendarakis is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and the Chief Security Officer for IBM Power. In this role, he formulates and guides the execution of the security strategy and roadmap for IBM Power Systems across the hardware, firmware, operating systems and management layers for both on-premises and cloud offerings. Dimitrios leads security and compliance for the IBM Power Virtual Server offering on IBM Cloud, defining and overseeing security controls and leading compliance certifications such as PCI-DSS, ISO 27K, HIPAA, SOC1, SOC2 and HITRUST. Dimitrios works closely with IBM Power customers, to understand and meet their requirements, as well as ecosystem partners and other IBM business units. During his more than 20 years with IBM, Dimitrios has been instrumental in driving critical innovations across IBM systems and services. His technical leadership has resulted in numerous high impact academic publications and more than 60 patents. Dimitrios holds Master’s and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in the City of New York.