Josip Balen

Assoc. Prof. Josip Balen works at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computing, and Information Technology in Osijek, Croatia, where he delivers lectures for various courses in the fields of programming, operating systems, mobile application development, and intelligent transportation systems. He has extensive experience in designing and managing projects and has participated as a researcher on various national and international projects. In recent years, he has been working in the field of fire prevention, where he has gained expertise in the R&D of advanced technologies and machine learning methods for fire prevention, early detection, and extinguishing. Josip Balen is the founder and project leader of several EU based projects in the domain of fire prevention, as well as air quality monitoring. He has been a panel expert for reaccreditation at a number of universities across Europe and an evaluator for multiple R&D projects. Furthermore, he has attended numerous short- and long-term training sessions at prestigious universities in Europe. He has given more than 30 talks at congresses and conferences, and has published more than 40 journal and conference papers. Josip has been also Co-Chairing IEEE International Conference on Smart Systems and Technologies (2016 - present). Josip became a student member of IEEE in 2008 and has since assumed varied roles with increasing responsibilities. As an IEEE Senior Member since 2020 and a member of the IEEE Young Professionals, he is currently serving as Vice Chair of IEEE Computer Society Member & Geographic Activities (MGA) Board, leading Awards and Recognition Committee, as well as the Counselor and Advisor of the IEEE Student Branch Osijek and the associated Computer Society SB chapter. In addition to working with his local section and the CS MGA, Josip is engaged with other IEEE groups such as the IOT Community, Young Professionals, IEEE Consultants Network, IEEE SIGHT, and the CS Special Technical Community on Autonomous Driving. Josip has been also the founder and leader of the IEEEmadC (English Mobile Application Development Contest), the largest global competition in creating mobile applications for students. He has received numerous IEEE recognitions and awards, including:

• Exceptional Outstanding Paper of CTI - Telecommunications & Information Section Section at IEEE MIPRO Scientific Conference, Opatija, Croatia (May 2023),
• The Best Oral Presentation Award at 15th IEEE International Conference on Computer and Automation Engineering (ICCAE), Sydney, Australia (March 2023),
• Special Award for the Best Innovation in the ICT area, Croatian Association of Innovator Entrepreneurs (December 2022),
• MGA Larry K. Wilson Transnational Award (December 2018),
• MGA Innovation Award (December 2017),
• The Entrepreneur of the Week IEEE Entrepreneurship, IEEE N3XT (2017),
• Darrel Chong Student Activity Award (January 2015),
• Croatia Section exceptional contribution award (December 2014),
• Larry K. Wilson Regional Student Activities Award (August 2014),
• Computer Society Richard E. Merwin Scholarship (December 2013),
• Computer Society Richard E. Merwin Scholarship (July 2012).