Biographical note

Hamid Jahankhani’s principal research area for a number of years has been in the field of cyber security, information security and digital forensics. In partnership with the key industrial sectors, he has examined and established several innovative research projects that are of direct relevance to the needs of UK and European information security, digital forensics industries, Critical National Infrastructure and law enforcement agencies. Hamid have planned, proposed and managed several collaborative projects, and secured a substantial research income of up to £6m.

Professor Jahankhani is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, www.inderscience.com/ijesdf, International Journal of Electronic democracy, www.inderscience.com/ijed, both published by Inderscience and general chair of the annual International Conference on Global Security, Safety and Sustainability (ICGS3). Hamid has edited and contributed to over 20 books and has over 150 conference and journal publications together with Various BBC radio interviews. Hamid has supervised to completion 13 PhD and professional doctorate degree students and overseen 67 PhD students progressing. In summer 2017 Hamid was trained as the GCHQ “cyberist” to train the next generation of cyber security experts through GCHQ CyberFirst initiative. Recently, Hamid trained over 100 frontline police officers in three of the larges London Boroughs.

Babak Akhgar is Professor of Informatics and Director of CENTRIC at Sheffield Hallam University and Fellow of the British Computer Society. He graduated from Sheffield Hallam University in Software Engineering, and later gained considerable commercial experience as a Strategy Analyst and Methodology Director for several companies. He consolidated this experience by obtaining a Masters degree (with distinction) in Information Systems in Management and a PhD in Information Systems. Babak has more than 100 referred publications in international journals and conferences on information systems with specific focus on knowledge management (KM). He is member of editorial boards of three international journals, and chair and programme committee member of several international conferences. He has extensive and hands-on experience in development, management and execution of KM projects and large international security initiatives (e.g. combating terrorism and organised crime, cyber security, public order and cross cultural ideology polarisation). He has co-edited two recent books on intelligence management – Intelligence Management: Knowledge Driven Frameworks for Combating Terrorism and Organised Crime, and Strategic Intelligence Management: National Security Imperatives and Information and Communications Technologies.

Peter Cochrane has been professionally engaged in science, technology and engineering for over 40 years, and his primary focus remains the solving of problems and the creation of wealth through the application of new technologies and business solutions.

During his life he has had the good fortune to work with exceptional people in governments, companies and major international operations, but the icing on the cake has been the creation and management of teams up to 2500 people with budgets in excess of £1Bn, and his senior roles as CTO, CEO and Director in the UK and USA.

Mohammad Dastbaz is the Dean and Pro Vice Chancellor at Leeds Beckett University, faculty of Arts, Environment and Technology. The faculty is the largest faculty within Leeds Beckett with 5 Academic Schools, including School of Art, Architecture and Design, School of Humanities and Cultural Studies, School of Film, Music and Performing Arts, School of Built Environment and Engineering and School of Computing and Creative Technologies. The faculty has over 600 staff and 8000 students on campus.
Before joining Leeds Beckett Mohammad Dastbaz joined University of East London in 2008, as their Dean of School of Computing, IT and Engineering. The School covered subject areas such as Computing, IT, Civil Engineering, Construction, Electrical and Electronic Engineering as well as Surveying and Product Design, with 3000 students on campus and over 2000 students off campus.
Professor Mohammad Dastbaz completed his first degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, going on to complete a PhD in the ‘Design, Development and Evaluation of Multimedia Based Learning Systems’ at Kingston University. In 1989 he set up one of the UK’s first multimedia PC companies, ‘Systems 2000’ and participated in the first multimedia exhibition to be held in the UK at Olympia in 1990.
In 1994 Mohammad joined Kingston University, developing innovative multimedia-based learning systems, which led to his appointment as Principal Lecturer in the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at London South Bank University. In this position Mohammad was responsible for their IT andMultimedia Postgraduate portfolio in addition to being director of resources. In 2002 he joined the University of Greenwich as the Head of Information Systems and Multimedia leading an academic department of some 30 staff and over 1000 students.