IOTRAIN Project - دانشگاه شهید چمران اهواز

Internet of Things is recognized as a revolution in engineering with various real world applications: climate change, health, manufacturing, environmental pollution, smart offices/vehicles, agriculture, energy, traffic management, intelligent cities. IoT aims to catch the future technological emerging results in the context of Industry 4.0 and cyber physical manufacturing systems from production to maintenance, customer relationship and marketing.

The IoTrain project is an EU-funded consortium-based project towards capacity building in higher education (CBHE). IoTrain aims at enhancing the IoT skills of the engineers by developing and strengthening the Iranian and Iraqi HE training and curricula with state-of-the-art European standards and technologies.

For more information please see the following links:

Download the IoTrain Flyer

IoTrain Official Website

The IoTrain Consortium

IoTrain, funded under EU Erasmus+ CBHE program, has started from 14-11-2020 and will continue up to three years. The IoTrain Consortium consists of 10 partners including 4 European and 6 Iranian and Iraqi ones ranging from academia to industry, as listed below. Involvement of non-academic partner, Petanux GmbH (PG), ensures harmonizing academic training with market needs and the necessary skills in the business sector and the European Industrial knolwedge transfer to Iran and Iraq, as a way to expand employment opportunities of students and internship programs.

The Iranian academic target groups will benefit from this mutual collaboration by strengthening their connections and cooperating on new ideas and activities in research and education. IoTrain will be a fundamental model for further synergies in this regard, through the network built, lessoned learned and experiences exchanged.

List of international partners:

University of Siegen (USI), Germany

University of Manchester (UMA), UK

Universitatea Politehnica din Bucuresti (UPB), Romania

Petanux GmbH (PTX), Germany

University of Sistan and Baluchestan (USB), Iran

Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz (SCU), Iran

Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IBS), Iran

Islamic Azad University (IAU), Iran

University of Wasit (UWA), Iraq

University of Sumer, Iraq

Project Objectives

The main objectives of the project are listed below:

Modernizing ICT and engineering curriculum in Iranian HE systems through updating their existing relevant courses with IoT topics as a driving technology of tomorrow,
Developing new courses and modules and building capacities to Iranian HE and releasing them as Master of Science in IoT,
Specifically targeting IoT as one of the domains, which is of particular interest by the Iranian government, aligned with the national priorities of each country and is in accordance with global trends in business, industry and research,
Targeting IoT as one of the most driving forces of tomorrow's societies,
Promoting EU-Iran cooperation in HE, which is persuaded by political decision makers of both sides.
Improving national and international employability of Iranian IoT graduates by improving their skills,
Targeting engineers which, according to statistics, are the 2nd largest groups of unemployed graduates in Iran,
The goal of the project is the establishment and alignment of study programs for a Master of Engineering in Internet of Things for serving the industry in Iran and the European countries,
The project aims to strengthen the links between university-enterprise cooperation, entrepreneurship and employability of graduates in Iran

The main objectives of the IoTrain project

The Role of Shahid Chamran University

As the leader of the WP1-Preparation workpackage, SCU currently has various related disciplines, including Computer Engineering (BSc), Computer Science (BSc), Artificial Intelligence (MSc), and Computer Architecture (MSc). These are the most relevant existing academic programs that can directly benefit from the IoT program. The SCU's plan, in addition to boosting the current academic programs with extracurricular activities related to the IoTRAIN, is to establish the interdisciplinary "MEng in IoT degree program" that will admit students from the above programs in addition to students from Electrical and Communication Engineering backgrounds and train them towards industrial IoT as well as other automation fields.

As part of the project activities, SCU has led the preparation work package (WP1), which aimed at studying (1) the status of the existing educational courses and resources, (2) the market's needs to IoT skills and capabilities in university graduates. Then the study leads to identify the gap between current IoT-related education in partner countries (Iran and Iraq) and both market needs and IoT masters programs in Europe and other countries. A more detailed explanation follows:

In the first deliverable of the preparation phase, D1.1, around 60 courses in partner universities (including the European universities), with some topics related to IoT, were analyzed in details. The analysis for each course includes the syllabus, weekly program and topics, text books and references. In addition, over 300 courses from 31 IoT programs in various European, Asian and American countries were identified. These courses are used as reference and base for designing the intended IoT masters program.

In the second deliverable, D1.2, a survey was conducted among a number of market players (organizations) from various market sectors, including government, industry and private sector. This survey was done using both oral interviews and questionnaires. The intention was to assess the needs of these stakeholders (organizations) to IoT-skilled workforce. The required skills were guaged in details using a pre-defined set of IoT-related technical topics.

Third, after the above industry survey a discussion and analysis event (D1.3) was held between academic and industrial players, where industry members expressed their view on IoT education and what they expect from an IoT university graduate.

With the above reports and analyses at hand, the fourth deliverable (D1.4), identified two gaps: the gap between existing educational courses/resources in Iranian and Iraqi partners and the IoT programs abroad, and the gap between existing courses and industry/market's needs to IoT-related skills.

This gap identification, which is based on the outcome of the previous deliverables, helped us detect technical topics that are more important for the employability of the university but are missing in our education system. Furthermore, it was used to design the IoT program and select courses based on what is more important for the market and what makes the new program more complete, with respect to similar IoT program in other countries. SCU was directly responsible for this course development plan in the project (deliverable D1.5) and utilized all WP1 outcomes to design the curriculum in early 2022.

Equipment Tendring Process

EU provides budget for purchasing equipment in order to establish IoT laboratory in partner universities. EU and the project coordinator (USI) mandate a tendering process for equipment purchasing and procurement. The tendering process starts from Sep. 17th, 2022, and the suppliers have until November 11, 2022 (hard deadline) for providing their invoice. Full terms of the process and the list of approved equipment can be found below:

SCU IoTrain Equipment Tendering Terms - قواعد استعلام بهای خرید تجهیزات آزمایشگاه اینترنت اشیا

SCU IoTrain Equipment List - لیست تجهیزات مورد نیاز

A Sample template and some information for what needs to be included on the invoice

NEWS: Since the above deadline has passed, a new deadline for tendering will be announced soon after we receive the approval from EU. Please stay tuned!

Work Packages and Leader Institutions / Contacts

Work Package	WP Partner Leader	WP Leader
WP1 Preparation	SCU	Mohammad Javad Rashti
WP2 Development	UPB	Grigore Stamatescu
WP3 Quality Plan	UMA	Xiaojun Zeng
WP4 Dissemination	IBS	Farideh Saadati
WP5 Exploitation and Sustainability	PTX	Mahdi Bohlouli
WP6 Management	USI	Ali Behravan

Financial and Administrative Contacts

Financial and Administrative Responsibilities
ID	Partner Institution	Contact Person
01	USI	Ali Behravan, Petra Wenzel
02	PTX	Mahdi Bohlouli
03	UPB	Elisabeth Lazarou, Adriana Dumitrescu
04	UMA	Xiaojun Zeng
05	SCU	Kareem Lowaymi Motlaq, Avatef Bereihi
06	USB	Shahram Mohanna, Abdolhamid Bahr Peyma
07	IAU	Reza Ghaemi, Ehsan Pouladi Borj
08	IBS	Farideh Saadati
09	UWA	Dr. Salim Alwasity
10	USU	Dr. Wael Abd-Alaziz

IoT Master's Program and Student Admission

With successful accreditation of the IoT master's program, students with a bachelor's degree in CS/ECE or mechatronics disciplines are encouraged to apply by following up the Konkoor admission information, once announced by the ministry, and select the IoT program at SCU in their discipline selection form for next year. To become familiar with the program, you can download the program course list and requirements from IoT Master's Program Courses and Requirements.

IoT program Faculty members at SCU

Dr. Mohammad Javad Rashti, Computer Engineering

Dr. Seyed Enayatallah Alavi, Computer Engineering

Dr. Marjan Naderan Tahan, Computer Engineering

Dr. Mehdi Naderi Soorki, Communication Engineering

Dr. Mohammad Soroush, Electronics Engineering

Dr. Afshin Ghanbarzadeh, Mechatronics Engineering

Dr. Rahim Ghasemieh, Technology Management

Project News and Activities

This section provides news and project dissemnation and sustainability activities performed by SCU. In addition to the following reports, SCU is following up IoT related collaborations, including student internships, research projects and IoTrain project dissemination with various industries including oil, petrochemical, steel and agricultural industries in the province.

1st National Conference on Internet of Things, with focus on Industry and Agriculture

Collaborating with Iran's IoT development center, SCU organized the 1st national conference on Internet of Things, with focus on Industry and Agriculture. The conference was held on November 28-29, 2023 and was sponsored by Iran's largest cellular telecom provider (MCI), as well as other organizations such as Sugarcane and byproducts Development Compnay of Iran, Industrial Management Institute of Khouzestan, ISICE, Khouzestan CERT, SCU IT center, and SCU HPC center. The conference new report is following. CFP and more information can be found on the conference website here.

Conference News Report - 1st National Conference on IoT

Khouzestan province has huge natural reserves (including 80% of oil and gas and 30% of the surface water of the country), vast agricultural land (nearly 10% of the country's irrigable land), and diverse industrial productions (over 50% of hydroelectric power, 30% of petrochemical and steel, and 20% of agricultural productions of the country). Implementation of IoT solutions in these sectors will have huge implications for productivity and resource efficiency of the province, greatly affecting country's economy and society.

To promote the utilization of IoT technologies in various sectors of the economy, and following the accreditation of the Master of IoT Engineering program as part of the IoTrain project, the 1^st National Conference on IoT with focus on Industry and Agriculture was planned from early this year, to gather IoT activists from industry and academia, disseminate the program and increase its sustainability and exploitation in industry and agricultural sectors through university-industry collaborations.

The conference was held by Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz (in collaboration with IoT Expansion Center) on November 28^th and 29^th, 2023. The conference received over 60 technical papers from researchers across industry and academia. With about 15 papers on agro-industry, 10 papers on IoT platforms, 10 papers on security, 10 on technology management, and 13 on other areas such as AI and medical IoT, the submissions were almost evenly distributed across disciplines. With around 58% acceptance rate, 15 papers were accepted for oral presentation and 20 for poster presentation.

Numerous industrial players were attracted to the conference: the conference was sponsored by Iran's largest landline and mobile telecom companies (Telecommunication Company of Iran – TCI – and Mobile Communication Company of Iran – MCI) as the two major private providers of connectivity. It was also sponsored by Sugarcane and Byproducts Development Company (the largest agro-industry in the region), Khouzestan Water and Power Authority (the largest hydroelectric and water resource management company in the region), as well as a number of other smaller institutions. Groups of managers, researchers and experts from academia as well as various agriculture and industry subsectors attended the conference and actively participated in discussions and networking. This includes - but is not limited to – Iran science and technology vice presidency (ISTI), and companies from communications, petrochemical, steel, power, irrigation and water management, gas, sugarcane and other agro-industrial sectors. Academics from universities other than SCU also attended the conference, including University of Wasit in Iraq, Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khouzestan, and Islamic Azad University.

The event included multiple activities including four keynote speeches by sponsors and international partners, two discussion panels, technical paper presentation sessions, two hands-on workshops, and a small exhibition showcasing IoT products by local startups as well as the IoTrain project. All these sections turned out very popular and well received by the attendees.

At the conference opening ceremony, Dr. Rashti, scientific chair of the conference, introduced the IoTrain project and its outcomes and urged industry players to discuss collaboration avenues in order to exploit the future skilled graduates of the new program in expanding their IoT and smartification plans. During the discussion panels, researchers and executives from universities, telecom companies, industries, and agro-industrial companies presented their current IoT related projects, products, and solutions. The participants, then discussed and debated potential models to collaborate, including sponsoring student internships, industrial research projects, implementing IoT solutions, and providing IoT software platforms to universities for their IoT projects. At the closing ceremony, awards were given by high-ranked TCI representatives as well as SCU's chancellor to the best paper authors, international guests, panel contributors and other sponsors.

Meetings with Provincial Agriculture Management

A couple of meetings were held in May, 2023 between several divisions of Khuzestan Directorate of Agriculture and university members, including Dr Alavi and Dr Rashti from SCU as well as various IoT startups from SCU's technology incubator. The meetings were focused on introducing various university-based startups in the field of agriculture and finding applications for them in Khuzestan's agriculture market, the largest in the country.

Invited presentation at University of Wasit - Koot, Iraq

On March 16th, 2023, SCU's Dr. Rashti gave an invited talk on Industrial Implications of IoT to students and faculty members of University of Wasit, as part of a scientific program coordinated by UoWasit. He also held several sessions with university officials discussing collaborations, and visited UoWasit's Engineering faculty's numerous and modern research labs and education facilities. The presentation announcement on IoTrain website can be found here.

Winter School for Iran - Ahvaz (D2.4)

The Winter School in Ahvaz, as part of the IoTrain project (D2.4) was organized by Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz from January 28 to 31, 2023. The school held on SCU campus in Ahvaz, attracted nearly 50 participants from industry and academia, and included a variety of activities such as project report, keynote speeches, discussion of course contents, industry demos, hands-on workshop, and industrial plant visit. The meeting was held in the Faculty of Letters and Humanities building.

In the opening ceremony, the university and local officials talked about the importance of IoT and smartification in economy and education. Then Dr. Rashti from SCU presented a report on the IoTrain project and the winter school program. His talk was followed by a keynote speech on IoT and Digital Economy by Dr. Lotfi from Iran's Science and Technology vice presidency.

The presentation and discussion of IoT program courses and their content started on the same day. Professors from Iranian partner universities involved in preparation and review of the course content (i.e., SCU, USB, IAU and IBS) presented and discussed the slides prepared for the courses. Beside course content discussions, two local IoT startup companies presented technical details of their products, providing some practical hints on product development to IoT enthusiasts among the school participants. After the course content and startup presentations, the group visited a PLC-controlled industrial plant designed and manufactured by SCU professors and engineers. At the plant, the school participants became familiar with the smartification methods of the AI-based PLC control software.

The last day of the school was dedicated to a hands-on IoT workshop, where the participants, mostly students, were guided to create a complete IoT solution on Arduino-based boxes built by the SCU team. The workshop was conducted by the SCU-based WiniApp group and included experiments with hardware, IoT platform setup, data acquisition and programming. At the end of the winter school, an equipment tendering meeting was held by the PMB from Iranian partners. In this meeting, the board members discussed potential roadmaps to the proposed joint-tendering method led by IBS.

For this news in Persian, please visit pages on SCU's news site: https://scu.ac.ir/article/9146462 and https://scu.ac.ir/article/9121534 .

Interview with Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA)

In an interview with ISNA, one of country's most influential news agencies, Dr. Rashti introduced the newly-established Master of Engineering in IoT program. The details of the interview can be found here.

Presentation and Discussion Panel on the role of IoT in Digital Economy

In collaboration with Khouzestan's ICT directorate and a number of IoT startup companies, a public program including:

1. Case study presentation of two IoT startups and

2. An IoT business accelerator (Iran's IoT Development Center)

was held at SCU on Wednesday, December 21st. The presentations were followed by a discussion panel with participation of Smartification and IoT Workgroup members (including Dr Alavi and Dr Rashti from SCU) and a number of representatives from local industries (including gas, post, petrochemical industries, ...).

Along with the sustainability goals of the IoTrain project, this panel aimed at identification of provincial needs and opportunities for IoT and smartification projects and startup ideas that could include SCU and its professors and IoT graduates.

This event has also been reflected here on SCU website and here on Khouzestan ICT website.

IoTrain project presentations in Research Week

As part of the Khouzestan province's research week, SCU's Dr Rashti presented the IoTrain project and its outcomes to the audience (including students. professors, and participants from the industry) on Wednesday December 21st. In this presentation, after intrducing various IoT technologies, Dr Rashti elaborated on the IoTrain project's activities and achievements.

Other IoT related presentations were also held during this week on 18th and 20th of December. The first one was a seminar on applications and security of industrial automation systems and their future in IoT. Addressing students and IoT enthusiasts, the seminar was presented by Mr Mostafa Molai, CEO of Rubico Oxin company. The second presentation by Mr Sarmast from NISOC national company was focused on cyber attacks and security mechanisms of industrial networks, presented on December 20.

Smartification and IoT Workgroup

Khouzestan's Smartification and IoT Wrokgroup is forming. With the accreditation of the IoT master's program at SCU, a province-wide collaboration is starting to promote AI and IoT based development across the province. Aimed at improving efficiency and quality of life, the initiative is expected to cultivate smartification efforts powered by IoT and AI technologies. Lead by the province's head of ICT and SCU, the main goal of the workgroup is to expand the applications of IoT across various market sectors in the province. Multiple discussion and planning sessions have been held in the past few weeks, with the latest being held on December 13th at the Directorate of ICT affairs in Ahvaz. A summary of this event has been reflected here.

The next action will be a presentation by Dr Rashti on the outcomes of IoTrain project, followed by a discussion panel among representatives of various industries and market sectors, both happenning as part of the Provincial Research Week on December 21st at SCU campus. For more information please visit Resarch Week Seminars at SCU.

Industrial IoT class visits a university-based industrial automation company

For the first time and following participation in the IoTrain project, Shahid Chamran University if offering an Industrial IoT course at the masters's level. On December 3rd, 2022, the class students and professor (Dr. Naderan) visited Faraz, a university-based startup working on oil and gas products, and particularly had a tour of their industrial automation system which is based on PLCs.

Accreditation to Shahid Chamran University

It is with great pleasure to announce that the Master of Engineering in IoT, which is the main goal of the IoTrain project, has been successfully accredited by the ministry (MSRT) to Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz and the univeristy intends to accept students from next year through the nationwide entrance exam (Konkoor). Congratulations to all SCU members and students, specially the IoT project activitsts.

Introducing the project and IoT applications to Iran's National Steel Industrial Group (INSIG)

On November 8 2021, Dr. Mohammad Javad Rashti, along with Dr. Naderi, Prof MehraliZadeh and Dr Najafi held a series of seminars in Iran's National Steel Industrial Group (INSIG) to intrduce the project as well as IoT and IIoT applications in steel industry to this large steel manfacturing group. The presentation was very well received and acknowledged by the industry group and SCU intends to establish a joint Industry 4.0 research center in collaboration with local steel manufacturing industry to sustain the IoT educational activities initiated in the IoTrain project. For more information please see here on INSIG website.

SCU is collaborating with Iran's IoT Development Center

This is with pleasure to announce that SCU has come to an agreement to collaborate with Iran's IoT Development Center, business accelerator concentrating on IoT startups. The cllaboration includes IoTrain project activities such as the Winter School in Ahvaz, as well as scientific conferences, the first one planned jointly for May 2023 in Ahvaz.

First seminar on IoT applications in Petrochemical Industries

To highlight IoT's significance for industrial production, especially in pterochecmical industries as one of Iran's most active producers, SCU and ACECR, IoTrain partners from SCU (Dr. Naderi and Dr. Lotfi) made presentations in the first seminar on IoT aapplications in petrochemical industries, where the IoTrain and the new master's program was presented to industrial participants. The seminar was held in the port of Mahshahr (Khuzestan Province), Iran's largest petrochemical industry center (where Iran's National Petrochemical Company is headquartered). The seminar was organized by Iran's IoT development center, which is a partner of SCU in IoT activities and was held on June 22, 2022.

Introducing the IoTrain project to Iran's Vice-Minister

In a joint meeting with Dr Lotfi, the innovation center inspector of Iran's Science and Technology vice-presidency, Dr Rashti, SCU's IoTrain project manager introduced the IoTrain project to Dr. Manoochehr Manteghi, Iran's Vice-minister of Industry in transportation industries. Dr. Manteghi is also a former CEO of Iran Khodro industrial group, the largest automobile making industry in Iran and is leading the auto industry smartification initiative. This session, which took place on March 5th, 2022, included various discussions on how auto industry projects can take advantage of IoT experts graduated from universites and potential auto industry smartification projects.

Related Documents and Forms

IoT Market Needs Questionnaire (online web form)

IoT Market Needs Questionnaire (fillable MS-word electronic form in Farsi)

شرح فارسی پروژه

Project main website