The 3rd International Workshop on BLockchain Enabled Sustainable Smart Cities (BLESS 2020)

Rationale of the Workshop:

Enabled by the proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT), edge-fog-cloud computing, and interconnected networks, smart cities are capable of innovative solutions to change the lifestyles of its residents. Unavoidably the potential benefits come along with new challenges and concerns related to information security and privacy. Blockchain technology is a platform that would provide tamper-proof storage for data derived from smart cities and ensure the access to the data is tracked and provided to authorized users. The resultant chain of custody will provide an interoperable platform that would facilitate decisions in smart cities that would impact the communities. The transparency of the platform would provide citizens would go a long way in building trust and ensure that the businesses will held to high standards of accountability.

Researchers and developers from both academia and industry have recognized the potential of blockchain technology as a trusted platform for the information and communication infrastructure of smart cities. The integration of blockchain in smart cities would benefit applications such as universal ID cards, land/property/housing/energy/ water/pollution management, improving public transit urban planning, universal data storage and keyless signature interfaces, amongst several others.

BLESS’2020 will bring researchers and experts together to present and discuss the latest developments and technical solutions concerning various aspects of blockchain technology in the context of smart cities. BLESS’2020 seeks original unpublished papers focusing on theoretical analysis, emerging applications, novel system architecture construction and design, experimental studies, and social impacts of blockchain. Both review/survey papers and technical papers are encouraged. BLESS’2020 also welcomes short papers that summarize speculative breakthroughs, work-in-progress, industry featured projects, open problems, new application challenges, visionary ideas, and preliminary studies.

Scope and Topics of the Workshop:

BLESS’2020 aims at highlighting the roles that blockchain technology can play in the smart cities, it is cross-disciplinary and covers multiple area including information security, infrastructure security, facilities, communication networks, data storage, distributed computing, and more. The main goal of the workshop is to gather researchers from these areas together to foster the collaboration among such interdisciplinary areas and to spark discussion on open topics related to blockchain enabled applications in smart cities.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Blockchain based cyber physical systems for smart cities
• Blockchain based information hiding/encryption in smart cities
• Blockchain based lightweight algorithms and protocols for IoT
• Blockchain based security and privacy solutions for smart cities
• Blockchain enabled novel applications and services in smart cities
• Smart contract and distributed ledger for smart cities
• Security, privacy and trust of blockchain based decentralized systems
• Blockchain in critical infrastructure resilience (power grid, oil and gas, etc)
• Blockchain for supply chain protection
• Blockchain for networked identity management
• Scalability of Blockchain
• Secure Blockchain based identity management systems
• Interoperable Blockchain systems
• Blockchain infrastructure for public transit management
• Blockchain for social impact
• Blockchain based voting systems for urban and regional planning decisions
• Blockchain for universal data storage
• Keyless signature interfaces

Submission Guidelines:

Original papers from the above mentioned and related topics will be considered. Please submit regular full papers (8 pages) and short papers (4 pages) including all figures, tables, and references. Authors are requested to follow the standard IEEE double-column format with Font 10 (https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html). Papers should be submitted electronically in pdf format through the EDAS website together with a short abstract (approximately 150 words). Submitted papers must not have appeared in or be under review/consideration for another workshop, conference or journal during the review process. Each submission will be reviewed by at least three reviewers.

All papers are submitted electronically at https://www.edas.info/newPaper.php?c=27679&track=103555.

Important dates:

• Paper Submission – August 15, 2020
• Acceptance Notification – September 05, 2020
• Camera-ready due – September 10, 2020
• Conference dates – September 28, 2020

Workshop Organizers:

• Dr. Yu Chen (Binghamton University - SUNY, USA) ychen@binghamton.edu
• Dr. Sachin Shetty (Old Dominion University, USA) shetty@odu.edu

Technical Program Committee:

• Norman Ahmed - U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory
• Mike Borowczak - University of Wyoming
• Amin Hassanzadeh - Accenture Technology Labs
• Chin-Tser Huang - University of South Carolina
• Yaoqing Liu - Clarkson University
• Sarada Prasad - Old Dominion University
• Danda Rawat - Howard University
• Ali Tekeoglu - The University of New Brunswick
• Mohammad Wazid - Manipal Institute of Technology
• Ronghua Xu - Bingahmton University