IEEE IoT Vertical and Topical Summit for Tourism
20–23 September 2022 // Virtual Conference

Distinguished speakers and Panelists

Androniki Kavoura, Professor, Department of Business Administration, University of West Attica (Greece)

Androniki Kavoura is a Professor of Marketing Communication at the Department of Business Administration, University of West Attica, Greece. Her research focuses, among others, on marketing communication, social media marketing and tourism marketing. She has published in the International Journal of Mobile Computing and Multimedia Communications, International Journal of Web Based Communities, EuroMed Journal of Business, Library Review, International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Tourism Culture & Communication, Sustainability and Tourismos among others. She has around 2000 citations on google scholar. She chairs the International Conference on Strategic Innovative Marketing and Tourism (http://icsimat.com/).

Victor M. LARIOS Ph.D., University of Guadalajara (Mexico)

Victor M. LARIOS ​pursued his higher education degree programs at the ITESO University in Mexico (BSc in Electronics Engineering) and graduated in 1996. In 1997 he received his M.Sc. at the Université de Technologie de Compiègne in France and his Ph.D. in Informatics Engineering in 2001. In 2004 he was appointed  as a Full Professor in the Information Systems Department at the University of Guadalajara (UDG).

Since April 2014, Dr. Victor M. Larios has been the funder and director of the Smart Cities Innovation Center (SCIC) at UDG.  He led a group of researchers in Smart Cities and Information Technologies. The SCIC is a think-thank to help the government, industry, and other academic partners join efforts to improve life quality by using IT as the main transformation vehicle. His primary research interests are Smart Cities, IoT Distributed Systems, Networking, Multiagent Systems, and Data Visualization using Virtual Reality.

Dr. Larios published more than 70 papers in international refereed journals and conferences and published a Serious Games book. As a continuous activity, Dr. Larios collaborates in projects with the High Technology industry and government using design thinking and agile methodologies to accelerate technology transfer in living labs. As an entrepreneur, he is the founder and CIO of IDI Smart Cities, collaborating with Advion Solutions LTD from Finland. The main activities are market research and international projects supporting Latin American Countries and the European Union. More specifically, efforts are to introduce the Circular Economic Model as a sustainability component for the Mega-Cities and support scholarships to develop local talent.

As a volunteer, Dr. Larios is also a technical advisor for the Guadalajara Smart City project for the government and international NGOs such as IEEE. Victor M. Larios is a Senior Member at IEEE with 29 years of membership and the local leader of Guadalajara Core City at the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative since 2013. In 2019 he started to support the Internet of People (IoP) projects with Joel Myers, director of the IEEE IoT Smart Cities Vertical.

Antonio Liotta, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy)

Antonio’s passion for artificial intelligence, has driven his academic career through the meanders of artificial vision, e-health, intelligent networks and intelligent systems. Antonio’s team is renowned for his contributions to micro-edge intelligence and miniaturized machine learning, which have significant potential in harnessing data-intensive systems (smart cities, cyber-physical systems, Internet of Things, smart energy, and machine learning with humans in the loop). He has led the international team that has recently made a breakthrough in artificial neural networks, initiating a new research strand at the intersection between machine learning and network science.

Roberto Minerva, Telecom SudParis (France)

Roberto MINERVA holds a Ph.D in Computer Science and Telecommunications from Telecom Sud Paris, France, and a Master Degree in Computer Science from Bari University, Italy. He is Maitre de Conference (Associate Professor) at Institut Mine-Telecom, Telecom Sud Paris, part of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris. His research topics and contributions fall in softwarization and networks (edge computing, virtualization and SDN), Internet of Things and Digital Twin, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. He was the Chairman of the IEEE IoT Initiative, an effort to nurture a technical community and to foster research in IoT. Roberto has been for several years in TIMLab, leading research lines and carry out research on network intelligence and programmability, service architecture, SDN/NFV, 5G, Big Data, architectures for IoT. He is authors of several papers published in international journals, magazine, conferences, and books.

Charalampos Z. Patrikakis, University of West Attica (Greece)

Charalampos Z. Patrikakis is a Professor at the Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Engineering of the University of West Attica on the Design and Implementation of Interconnected Electronic Systems and Services, with emphasis on data collection and processing. He has been an adjunct lecturer at the National Technical University of Athens and the Agricultural University of Athens, while he has worked for 20 years as a researcher at various laboratories of the Institute of Communications and Computer Systems, the National Technical University of Athens and the Agricultural University of Athens. He is currently the Director of CoNSeRT (Computer Networks & Services Research laboraTory) of the University of West Attica, which researches on Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing and Networking, Web and Internet of Things and Blockchain technologies and for the design and implementation of mobile and network applications and services. He is also the Director of the MSc Program “Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning” offered jointly by the Dept of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and the Dept of Industrial Design and Production Engineering of UniWA. His research experience includes participation in in over 50 research projects, from which in more than 20 he has been involved as technical coordinator or principal researcher. He has over 200 publications in chapters of books, international journals and conferences, and has 2 contributions in national legislation. He has been a member of the editorial committee of more than 60 issues in international journals and conferences, and has acted as editor in the publication of special issues of international journals, conference proceedings volumes and coedited three books. E is currently the Associate Editor in Chief of the IEEE IT Professional Magazine, responsible for Special Issues, and a senior member of IEEE, a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece, and counselor of the IEEE Student Branch of the University of West Attica.

Urška Starc-Peceny, Ph.D., Chief Innovation Officer (Slovenia)

Urška Starc-Peceny, PhD has gained an international education in Slovenia, Italy and Austria. Her Phd thesis in Business Communication with specialization in the New Media and Technologies entitled “Netlife” has paved the way in 2001 in research of collaboration design in the reality in which AI and big data play an increasing role. From Europe to Middle East, she has gained 20+ years of experience as entrepreneur by co-founding more companies and disruptive initiatives.

Susana Garrido Valiente, Les Roches (Switzerland)

Susana Garrido is the Director in charge of Digital Learning, General Education courses, and Faculty Development. She has taught and continues to teach different courses within the Marketing Pathway. She is also the Director of Innovation (Spark Project) in Les Roches Marbella.

Susana Garrido has Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Business as well as an MBA by the San Telmo International Institute in Malaga. She also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Translation and Interpretation by the University of Malaga and a Masters in Golf and Country Club Management. She’s currently pursuing her PhD.

She has been teaching in Les Roches Marbella since 2012 and before that she developed her career in the hospitality industry both in the US and in Spain. Her last role before joining Les Roches was as the Hotel Manager and Spa Manager at a 5-star Golf Resort Property in Southern Spain.

Susana Garrido is fluent in English and Spanish.