Submission of Papers

The conference will accept paper submissions in the following areas:

1. Computational Intelligence	2. Cyber security & Forensics	3. Wireless Mobile Communications(3G, 4G and 5G)
4. GIS and Remote Sensing	5. Deep Learning	6. Machine Learning
7. Telecommunications	8. Data Communications	9. Cloud Computing
10. Computer Science Education on learning and teaching	11. Health Informatics	12. Food Security(Policies & Technical aspects)
13. ICT for development	14. Applied Mathematics	15. Internet of Things(IoT)
16. Nanotechnology	17. Information Science	18. Biotechnology

Demonstrators and Products Tracks

PACT 2019 has made provision for display and demonstration of working software and hardware that are relevant to African manufacturing base and learning environment. We will also consider working prototypes from university students, staff and industry.

Paper Submissions

Original research papers containing new research findings which have not been submitted concurrently to any other publication outlets such as conferences, Journals and books are sought from authors. Full length papers must be limited to six A4 single-line spacing pages (10 point font size minimum) and formatted following the Springer conference paper format. Student papers are also limited to between three and four A4 single-line spacing pages.

PACT has adopted the Springer referencing format for all its publications. Paper submission is through Easy Chair via the conference site at PACT 2019 Easy Chair Submission

Authors should access Easy Chair through the conference site for all submissions and by all means try not to email papers directly to Track or Conference Chair persons as this makes reviewing of your papers messy and difficult. All papers submitted to the conference will be reviewed by at least two international reviewers.

Papers which are registered and presented during the conference will be included in the conference proceedings with an ISBN to facilitate access and referencing.

Post Conference Publications

All papers accepted and presented at the conference will be submitted to Compendex and SCOPUS for indexing. Reviewed papers which meet the Springer requirements and presented during the conference will be forwarded to the Springer for consideration for inclusion in the Springer Digital Repository. Papers will also be submitted to iqproceedings.org for inclusion in their conferences database for worldwide access and indexing.

Despite the above undertaking, authors whose papers are found to be technically relevant and suitable as possible journal publications will be invited to extend their PACT conference papers to full length journal papers of not less than 12 pages. Such extensions must ensure that the extended paper is clearly significantly different in contents from the paper presented during the conference. They will be further reviewed, and if the extended papers are accepted by the Journals, they will be included in special 2019 issues of:

a) African Journal of Information and Communication	b) African Journal of Computing & ICT	c) Computing and Information Systems Journal
d) African Journal of Informatics	e) Journal of Machine to Machine

Workshops/Tutorials

A number of submissions have been accepted for workshop and tutorial presentations. They include:

Title: PAN African Institute of Strategic Studies (African Academic Research & Resource Centre)
Abstract: PAISS (PAN African Institute of Strategic Studies) is an institute proposed to address some of the challenges confronting Africa. These challenges are changing faces as occasioned by proliferating liberalisation of markets and international trade and democratic deficits to mention a few. AARRC (African Academic Research & Resource Centre) is an arm of PAISS commissioned to drive some technical processes aimed at combating the challenges. The workshop will feature some of the ongoing efforts of the institute.
Facilitator(s): Rev. Canon Benedict Koledoye & Prof. Michael Adeyeye Oshin
Biography: Benedict Koledoye obtained his first degrees in Philosophy (Ibadan) and Theology (Rome). He attended University of Bradford, United Kingdom where he received a Master's Degree in Peace Studies. He thereafter obtained a PhD from University of Swansea. His areas of expertise are; politics, governance, and development.
Michael Adeyeye Oshin earned his first Master's degree in Information and Communication Technology. He earned his second Master's degree and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town. Among other professional obligations, he holds various fellowships in Europe (Erasmus Mundus@University of Montpellier) and Africa (University of Zululand) and became a Professor at the School of Computing, University of Namibia.

Keynotes

Title: Cyber Court
Speaker(s): Prof. Atsushi Ito
Abstract: Because the business world is increasingly recognizing the Internet as a place where commercial dealings can take place, the legal system needs to be equipped to not only understand the Internet but also to use it as a tool to successfully exchange and use information. The Internet now provides a wide range of legal information, and one of the benefits of information being provided in this way is that it can be kept up-to-date as the law changes. Not only can the Internet assist in legal research but it can also assist in court processes in general, that is, in trial preparation and in the courtroom throughout the hearing. Reasons that courts should embrace such technology lie in the constantly increasing caseloads, the complexity of cases and jurisdictions, resource constraints, the pressure to improve access to justice, expectations of improvements in performance, and the pressure to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the court’s administration and the delivery of justice. Therefore, jurisdictions of many countries aim to follow economic growth and political changes to allow anyone to easily access judiciary documents by introducing ICT (information and communications technology). Such a justice system empowered by ICT is called a “cyber court”. In this keynote address, I would like to mention the idea of the Cyber Court, explain some examples of it in some countries and introduce researches to support it.
Biography: Atsushi Ito received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Nagoya University in 1981 and 1983, respectively. He also received a Ph.D. degree from Hiroshima City University in 2007. From 1983 to 2014, he was with Research and Development Laboratories of KDDI Corporation. He is now a Professor of the Graduate School of Engineering of Utsunomiya University from 2014. During 1991-1992, he was a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) of Stanford University. His current research interests include open platform for mobile communications, ad hoc networking, user interface design, cyber court and IoT for agriculture.

Title: External actors in national ICT policies formulation in developing countries
Speaker(s): Prof. Wallace Chigona
Abstract: National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policies are vital towards shaping how the technology contributes towards the attainment of socio-economic development goals of respective countries. Recent international events have nudged most of African countries to formulate national ICT policies. The low success rate of the policies in Africa could be, to an extent, attributed to the dearth of research focusing on ICT policies on the continent. In this talk we shine the lime light on an important aspect which needs to be critically researched: the role of policy formulation actors who are from outside to the country. The involvement of external actors in formulation of policies affects the look and feel of public ICT policies and consequently their acceptability and their impact. This presentation explores the nature and effects of external actors in the formulation of national ICT policies in Africa. Research in this area has the potential to contribute towards empowering custodians of ICT policies to manage the engagement between internal and external policy formulation actors.
Biography: Wallace Chigona is a Professor in Information Systems at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. His research focuses on the use of ICTs for human development and ICT policy. He has researched on the use and impact of ICTs amongst the disadvantaged communities in different African Countries. Prof Chigona is currently on the editorial boards of Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC) and previously served on the board of the African Journal of Information Systems. Prof Chigona is rated as an Established Researcher by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF). Prof Chigona is member of (i) UNESCO/Netexplo Advisory Board; (ii) the Communication Policy Research for the global South. He previously served as the IFIP 9.4 Africa and the Middle East representative.

Title: Artificial Intelligence for Humanity
Speaker(s): Prof. Christian W. Omlin
Abstract: The revolution of AI is fueled by ever larger available data, advancement in AI algorithms and the relatively cheap computational power that outperforms most supercomputer of the recent past. While these advances hold the promise of improving the quality of life and may even help tackling some of the pressing issues facing humanity, these opportunities also come with uncertainties and society is facing important challenges with AI. This talk presents both opportunities and challenges as we examine the present and the future of AI.
Biography: Christian Omlin joined the Center for Artifical AI Research (CAIR) at the University of Agder in Norway in September 2018. His previous academic appointments include the University of South Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, Middle East Technical University, University of the South Pacific. University of the Western Cape and University of Stellenbosch. He served as the founding director of the Telkom/Cisco Center of Excellence for IP and Internet Computing at the University of the Western Cape. He did his graduate work while at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton (USA). Much of his research focuses on architectures, learning algorithms, hybrid systems and knowledge representation in neural networks for time series modelling with applications in eHealth, security, safety, human-computer interaction, astronomy, and bioconservation. Beyond his immediate technical interests in AI, he is fascinated by deeper questions of (universal) consciousness and being. He received his Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA) and his M.Eng. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1995 and 1987, respectively.

Updates:

The conference proceedings can now be downloaded from here.

The conference registration form can be downloaded from here.

The conference registration fees, as indicated in the conference flyer, are as follows:
African Delegates: $260
Non-African Delegates: $400
For information on the visa application and booking of accommodation for the conference, please check the following files:

Visa and Accomodation Details

Esibayeni Lodge

Sibane Hotel

Royal Swazi Sun

Papers in computer science, networking, software, sensors may go into the Journal "Software Networking" at https://www.riverpublishers.com/journal.php?j=JSN/2016/1/undefine

The conference flyer is now available here.
The best papers in "IoT and Sensors" will be published in the Journal: Remote Sensing (Guest Editor: Johnson Agbinya), Special Issue: "The Internet of Things (IoT) in Remote Sensing: Opportunities and Challenges".

It is planned to publish the proceedings with Springer in their Communications in Computer and Information Science series (final approval pending).

Best papers on Wireless Communication (4G, 5G, WMN, Pico, etc) from PACT 2019, if they are many, will be shortlisted as book chapters in a new book on telecommunication to be published by River Publishers. Chapters will be of lengths 12 pages or more. The extended length book chapters need to be re-written in tutorial form by the authors on the topic of such papers.