Keynote Speakers

Welcome to iSCSi – International Conference on Industry Sciences and Computer Sciences Innovation

This year’s event has scheduled two keynote moments, one from Ben Hiller and Professor François Vernadat

Cyber and Hybrid Policy Section Innovation, Hybrid and Cyber Division (IHC)

Ben Hiller is a Senior Policy Officer for Cyber and Hybrid issues at NATO. In his role, he developed NATO’s current  Cyber Defence Policy as well as strategic measures to address cyber campaigns below the Article 5 threshold. Following Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine, Ben developed the Alliance’s concept for enhancing the contribution of cyber defense to NATO’s overall deterrence and defense posture. A key focus of his work is the integration of civil-military cyber defense capabilities to address malicious cyber campaigns throughout peacetime, crisis, and conflict. Before joining NATO, Ben was responsible for international cyber policy at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

In his role, he guided efforts in developing and operationalizing confidence-building measures (CBMs) to reduce the risks of conflict stemming from the use of cyber capabilities. Before that, Ben worked on counter-terrorism issues, focusing on the use of technology and biometrics for the secure cross-border movement of people and goods across Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia

Prof. Dr. François Vernadat, LGIPM, University of Lorraine, Metz, France

Performance Management and KPIs for Industry 4.0 and Enterprise Sustainability

Since the beginning of the 21st century, manufacturing and industrial enterprises have been facing two significant trends: Industry 4.0 and sustainable development. On one hand, due to the intensive digitalization of most of their operations, they must successfully conduct their transition towards greater and more efficient integration of their cyber and physical worlds, i.e., operations technologies (OT) with information technologies (IT). On the other hand, they must demonstrate that they are socially, environmentally, and economically conscious of the impact of their development activities. These trends influence the performance management systems (PMSs) of industrial companies and imply deep changes in the set of key performance indicators (KPIs) to be considered. The talk will address these latter points with a special focus on sustainability and will question the scientific community on the potential role that AI can play in the future of performance measurement and management.

François Vernadat is a French and Canadian scientist with an automation and computer science background. He carried out a research career in Canada on computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) in the ’80s and then in France in the ’90s on enterprise modeling, integration, and architectures before being appointed as a Full Professor at the University of Metz, France. Since 2001, he has been continuing his academic career, concentrating on performance management and system interoperability, and carrying out a manager career at European institutions (first as a project manager at the European Commission and then as head of an IT unit at the European Court of Auditors) putting in practice several aspects of his research work (e.g. systems integration and interoperability, enterprise architectures and business process modeling). He has been an associate editor for many journals (IJPR, IJCIM, Computers in Industry, EIS, JII…). He has published over 300 papers and authored or co-authored 7 books.