The College of Engineering of the University of Buraimi concluded a three-day virtual webinar on Cyber-security, Information Security, Artificial Intelligence, and Supporting Education and Research, which was conducted in cooperation of Oman Research and Education Network (OMREN) of The Research Council.

The first day of the Webinar included a speech by Dr. Abood Hamed Al Sawafi, University of Buraimi Vice Chancellor, in which he shed lights on the significance of technology, cyber-security, and artificial intelligence for various daily sectors of our lives. While Dr. Abdulmonem bin Ali Al Kharusi, OMREN Director, participated with a presentation, in which he highlighted the services of OMREN as well as, its role and significance to support research, higher education, researchers and students especially during the crises of the Covid-19 pandemic. OMREN seeks to enable a technically, financially manageable and sustainable national Information and Communication Technology infrastructure and services that shall effectively contribute to the development of innovation, research, education, strategic and international e-collaboration with the research and education community of the Sultanate of Oman.  In the second panel, Prof. Dr. Teddy Mantoro from Sampoerna University presented a talk entitled ‘The Role of Computational Intelligence in Monitoring and Prediction of Covid-19 Pandemic: Indonesia Case’.

In the first panel of the second day, Prof. Dr. Magdy Saeb, Chief Technology Officer of Great Wall Information Security in Malaysia, presented a presentation on one of the security systems that was able to counter one of the most dangerous cyber-attacks in Malaysia.  In the second panel, Prof. Dr. Media Ayu from Sampoerna University talked about artificial intelligence in our everyday life.

In the first panel of the third day, Eng. Haitham bin Hilal Al Hajri, Cyber Security Researcher and Expert at Oman National CERT, highlighted the Covid-19 impacts on cyber society, while the second panel covered a talk on network security versus cyber security by Dr. Degala Satyanarayana, Assistant Professor at the College of Engineering of University of Buraimi.

Such webinars are found to promote virtual communication with great support and cooperation of OMREN and with the presence of over 120 participants. In addition, it is worth noting that University of Buraimi lastly added the Master’s program in cyber security in 2019/2020, and the first batch of students will start in Fall 2020/2021 semester.