Belgium

This fellowship supported my work in updating to the IEEE 802.11 standard to prevent a recently discovered security weakness. This weakness is related to mesh networks, where, without extra defenses, an adversary could inject arbitrary packets into protected mesh networks. We designed a defense to mitigate this challenging gap. Unique about our created defense is that it is fully backward compatible, meaning each individual mesh client can independently enable this defense. As a proof-of-concept, we also implemented this defense in the Linux kernel to demonstrate practicality and confirm it prevents attacks.
 

The gaps that this fellowship enables me to address has been to dedicate solid time first for the ECMA meetings that I convened, but also for the community background work that needs support and attention. The priorities are to users the creation of the core specifications for ECMA approval, which has been challenging because of the influx of attention on PURL for SBOM and CRA compliance. The challenge from PURL getting increased attention meant needing to cater to new contributors and supporting long debates and addressing objections, in particular on topics like character encoding.

The AI Act is a European regulation promoting the uptake of human-centric and trustworthy AI, while ensuring protection of health, safety, and fundamental rights. Companies can prove conformity with the AI Act by complying with the 10 harmonised standards drafted by CEN-CENELEC. My fellowship contributes to two harmonised standards supporting the AI Act.

Standards for basic quantum infrastructures such as quantum information encryption in future quantum networks can support innovation in quantum technology and accelerate its uptake by European SMEs.

Harmonised cybersecurity standards for AI systems need to be developed and adopted, as a matter of urgency, for the benefit of the European industry, including SMEs and startups, as well as European users and consumers.

By optimising design, production, deployment and operation of PV, AI can maximise energy generation, leading to increased renewable energy adoption, reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

Clarifying for the EU SMEs and European societies the direction they would have to take to evolve and change their product, ensuring their compliance with the regulatory obligations activated in the RED Delegated Act.

I am to positively influence the European market and its infrastructures by benefiting from international contributions (e.g. ISO/IEC) in the controlling of civil security and the protecting of e-identity and e-privacy.