The 14th International Conference on Information Technology and Its Applications (CITA 2025) marked a historic milestone as it was held for the first time outside of Vietnam, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. With impressive scale and academic excellence, the conference received 165 paper submissions from 450 authors representing 30 countries. All accepted papers are published in the Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems (Springer), which is indexed in both DBLP and Scopus. Notably, very few conferences initiated by Vietnamese scientists have maintained such a long-standing history, successfully expanded abroad, and had their proceedings included in major academic databases like Scopus, making CITA a remarkable exception.

Overview of the CITA 2025 Opening Ceremony

CITA 2026 – the 15th Anniversary – will be held in Ha Long, Vietnam, co-hosted by VKU and Phenikaa University. CITA 2027 is scheduled to take place in Bangkok, Thailand, jointly organized by VKU and King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB).

The CITA Organizing Committee presents the hosting flag to the representative of Phenikaa University, the host of CITA 2026 in Ha Long, Vietnam

On July 14–15, 2025, the 14th International Scientific Conference on “Information Technology and Its Applications” (CITA 2025) was successfully held in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. The event was co-organized by Vietnam – Korea University of Information and Communication Technology (VKU), the University of Danang; Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology (CADT); ASEAN Consortium for Innovation and Research (ACIR); and the Vitenam Association of ICT Faculties – Institutions – Schools – Universities. CITA 2025 also received strong academic support and sponsorship from Springer Publishing, IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (IEEE SMC), Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (Poland), and Dublin City University (Ireland), and was generously funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) through an ODA project.

At the opening ceremony, representatives from the organizing unit – the Vitenam – Korea University of Information and Communication Technology, The University of Danang (VKU) – included Assoc. Prof. Dr. Huynh Cong Phap, Rector and Chair of the Conference Organizing Committee; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thanh Binh, Chair of the University Council; and Dr. Huynh Ngoc Tho, Vice Rector. From the co-organizing unit, Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology (CADT), Dr. Sopheap Seng, President of CADT, was also in attendance.

Serving on the Advisory and Academic Sponsorship Board were: Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Thanh – Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (Poland); Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Khac Nhien An – Dublin City University (Ireland); and Dr. Nguyen Quang Hung – Secretary of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Information and Communication (Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam). Among the international scientists and keynote speakers were: Prof. Franck Leprevost – University of Luxembourg; Prof. Masugi Inoue – National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan; and Dr. Kien Nguyen – Chiba University, Japan. The conference also welcomed the active participation of numerous scholars from over 30 countries, along with faculty members from VKU and other universities and research institutes.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Huynh Cong Phap, Rector of VKU and Chair of the Organizing Committee, delivered the opening remarks

In his opening address, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Huynh Cong Phap – Rector of VKU, Chair of the CITA 2025 Organizing Committee, Founding Chair of the CITA Conference Series, and Co-founder of the ACIR – extended a warm welcome and heartfelt thanks to representatives of international organizations, scientists, experts, universities, research institutes, enterprises, and both domestic and international partners for their continued support of VKU throughout the 14-year journey of the CITA conference series. “As the founder and a dedicated companion of CITA since its inception, I am both delighted and proud to reflect on a journey of more than a decade in which CITA has steadily grown into a prestigious international academic forum – a gathering place for knowledge, connecting research communities in the fields of information technology, communications, and the digital economy. CITA 2025 marks a particularly meaningful milestone: for the first time, the conference is being held outside the territory of Vietnam, in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. This is not only a significant expansion in scale, but also a clear demonstration of the international scope and mission of the conference. We deeply appreciate the effective cooperation and enthusiastic support from the Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology (CADT), the local host institution, as well as the valuable contributions of scientists, academic organizations, enterprises, and research communities from many countries. CITA is not only a platform for presenting research and academic publications, but also a bridge for spreading knowledge, fostering innovation, and contributing to the digital transformation process in Vietnam and the Southeast Asian region. At the same time, the conference affirms VKU’s strong commitment to the common development of the scientific, educational, and technological communities in the region.”

Initiated in 2012, the Conference on Information Technology and its Applications (CITA) is an annual scientific conference on information technology and its applications, organized by VKU. The main objective of the conference is to create a platform that brings together and connects domestic and international researchers, scientists, and experts to publish, discuss, and share new issues and developments in the field of information technology and its applications.

CITA 2025 – the 14th edition marked a significant leap forward in terms of prestige, scale, and academic quality, affirming its status as a truly international conference. Notably, the conference proceedings continue to be published in the Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems (Springer), indexed by DBLP, Scopus, and Web of Science. This year, the Organizing Committee received 165 scientific papers from more than 450 authors representing over 30 countries and territories worldwide, including Austria, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Norway, Poland, Luxembourg, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Vietnam. Following a rigorous and serious review process — with each paper evaluated by 2 to 4 independent reviewers — and under the academic guidance and leadership of esteemed scientists in the fields of information technology, communications, and digital economy such as Prof. Dr. habil. Nguyen Ngoc Thanh (Poland), Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thanh Thuy (Vietnam), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Khac Nhien An (Ireland), Prof. Dr. Kang-Hyun Jo, Prof. Dr. Franck Leprévost (Luxembourg), Prof. Dr. Christian Boitet (France), Prof. Dr. Tzung-Pei Hong (Taiwan), Prof. Dr. David Camacho (Spain), Prof. Dr. Nitesh Chawla (USA), and Prof. Dr. Lipo Wang (Singapore), 73 papers were selected for publication in the Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, resulting in an acceptance rate of 44%. In addition, four outstanding papers were selected for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Information and Communication Technology (ISSN 1859-3526) – a reputable journal of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam.

Dr. Sopheap Seng, President of the Cambodian Academy of Digital Technology (CADT), delivered a welcome speech as the representative of the host institution

Dr. Sopheap Seng, President of the Cambodian Academy of Digital Technology (CADT), the host institution, delivered a welcome speech at the opening of CITA 2025. He expressed that CADT is honored and proud to co-organize CITA 2025 in Cambodia, marking a significant milestone in regional academic cooperation. He emphasized CADT’s commitment to continuing its active role in fostering a vibrant research and innovation community. CITA is not only a platform to share academic achievements, but also a driving force that strengthens regional ties in developing human resources and technologies for the digital future.

Prof. Dr. Masugi Inoue from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan, delivered Keynote 1 with the topic: “Building a Resilient Society through ICT Innovation and Deployment.”

Prof. Dr. Franck Leprévost from the University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, presented Keynote 2 entitled: “Classification Models at Image Recognition Tasks: Assessing the Risks.”

Notably, during the plenary session of CITA 2025, the conference featured two high-quality keynote speeches: Prof. Dr. Franck Leprévost (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg) with the topic “Classification Models at Image Recognition Tasks: Assessing the Risks” and Prof. Dr. Masugi Inoue (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan) with the topic “Building a Resilient Society through ICT Innovation and Deployment”.

In addition, with its well-established reputation and quality, since 2022, the CITA conference has received professional sponsorship and support from prestigious international journals, including: The Journal of Information and Telecommunication (indexed in Scopus and eSCI), published by Taylor & Francis [https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tjit20/current], and the Vietnam Journal of Computer Science (indexed in Scopus and eSCI), published by World Scientific Publishing. Both journals are indexed in major databases such as Scopus and Emerging Sources Citation Index (e-SCI). Accordingly, a selection of high-quality papers presented at CITA sessions will be invited for expansion and publication in special issues of these journals.

The conference featured 12 parallel sessions covering a wide range of current and rapidly developing topics in the fields of information technology, communications, and the digital economy, including:

• Data Science and Artificial Intelligence;
• Image Processing and Natural Language Processing;
• Software Engineering and Information Systems;
• Networking and Communications;
• Digital Economy.

And special sessions on the following topics were also held: Vision and Intelligence Communication Systems for Next-Generation Applications; Cyber Security, Digital Forensics and Cryptography; Modern Computational Intelligence in Digital Economy; Computer Vision.

Prof. Dr. habil. Nguyen Ngoc Thanh – Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland, delivered the closing remarks at CITA 2025

The Organizing Committee awarded 02 Best Paper Awards and 01 Best Special Session to the author groups

Closing the CITA 2025 Conference, the Organizing Committee evaluated and presented awards to two Best Papers: the paper “Investigating Impact of Uneven Node Distribution and Cross-shard Transactions on Sharding IoT-Blockchain Systems” by the author group Yue Su, Yang Xiang, Kien Nguyen, Hiroo Sekiya from Chiba University, Japan and the paper “IoT Intrusion Detection: A Comprehensive Benchmark of Feature Selection and Machine Learning Models” by the author group Hong-Nhu-Y Vo, Dat Thinh Nguyen, Xuan Ha Nguyen, Kim-Hung Le from the University of Science, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The Best Special Session Award was given to the special session “Vision and Intelligence Communication Systems for Next-Generation Applications”, chaired by the team of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kien Nguyen, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Xuan Tan, and Assistant Professor Pham V. Thanh.

A group photo was taken with all CITA 2025 participants

The 14th International Scientific Conference on Information Technology and Its Applications (CITA 2025) once again affirmed its academic prestige and professional quality, serving as a vital bridge for both Vietnamese and international scientists to share their expertise and collaborate in advancing science and technology in the fields of information technology, communications, and the digital economy. The conference plays a key role in promoting scientific development and accelerating the digital transformation of the nation. At the closing session of CITA 2025, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Huynh Cong Phap, Chair of the CITA Organizing Committee, officially launched the call for papers for CITA 2026 – the 15th conference. He also presented the rotating hosting flag to the representative of Phenikaa University, which will host CITA 2026 in Ha Long, Vietnam, scheduled for July 2026. Following that, CITA 2027 will be held in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.

Center for Learning Resource and Communication

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