Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering hosted a workshop, e-Services Composition and Development in the Cloud (W-Codec 2017) on December 27-28, 2017. This workshop was sponsored through an HEC funded project, 'Codec: Composition and Management of e-Government Processes in the Cloud of Public Services' under the Pakistan – US Science and Technology Cooperation Program.
The objective of this workshop was to investigate how services and business processes of public and private sector organisations can benefit by utilising resources available in the cloud infrastructure. The workshop included keynote and invited talks from experts in academia, industry and government. It also included panel discussions on issues and challenges faced by government and industry on moving their business processes and services to the cloud environment. In addition, a tutorial on e-services composition in the cloud environment was conducted to familiarise students and participants with the current research and its applications in the area of cloud computing and service-oriented computing.
The keynote talks at this workshop were delivered by Dr. Omer Rana, Professor of Performance Engineering, School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University; Dr. Syed Ismail Shah, Former Chairman, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and Dr. Ali Butt, Professor of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, USA.
The workshop was attended by 79 participants, including faculty members from different universities in Pakistan, government officials, industry professionals, and graduate as well as undergraduate students. It provided a forum for researchers, government officials, and industry professionals working in the ICT area to discuss the current research and development on topics related to cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT). It also provided an opportunity to learn the different e-government initiatives taken in the public sector in Pakistan and how such initiatives have improved the delivery of services to citizens as well as resulted in efficient management of organisational operations. The participants also learnt the different challenges and issues faced the public sector, which requires a concerted effort by government, industry, and academia to assess how such issues/challenges can be addressed through technology-based solutions.
The workshop participants concluded at the forum that the development of such solutions requires a multidisciplinary approach and must include all relevant stakeholders.
