Innovations through AI and Model-Driven Design
The rise of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) has revolutionized the way digital communities and organizations collaborate, allocate resources, and make decisions. Built on blockchain technology and powered by smart contracts, DAOs promise transparency, decentralization, and automation. However, this promise comes with significant security challenges stemming from complex governance systems, smart contract vulnerabilities, and token economy manipulations, as seen in high-profile incidents like the 2016 DAO hack.
This workshop will explore how AI technologies and model-driven design methodologies can be leveraged to address these challenges. AI techniques such as machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and reinforcement learning offer proactive solutions for real-time anomaly detection, predictive risk management, and adaptive governance. These tools can identify governance vulnerabilities, detect unusual token flow patterns, and optimize tokenomics to improve stakeholder engagement while preventing centralization. Through practical case studies, participants will see how AI-driven methods enhance DAO resilience, monitor system behavior, and help mitigate governance failures.
Additionally, model-driven design principles provide a structured approach to reducing vulnerabilities in DAO development. By systematically modeling governance and organizational structures, DAOs can achieve higher security and scalability, ensuring that the design process aligns with best practices and reduces the risk of coding errors. The workshop will also address the ethical integration of AI to maintain user privacy, ensure fairness, and uphold the core principles of decentralization.
Participants will gain actionable insights into how combining AI, model-driven design, and decentralized technologies can lead to the development of secure, transparent, and adaptive DAOs, paving the way for more robust decentralized ecosystems.
Workshop Topics
We invite researchers, practitioners, and industry experts to submit original papers covering (but not limited to) the following topics:
- DAO Security & Smart Contracts:
- Threat detection in DAOs using AI
- Formal verification and smart contract security
- Attack prevention and mitigation in decentralized governance
- AI for DAO Optimization & Governance:
- AI-driven governance models and voting mechanisms
- Machine learning for fraud detection in DAOs
- NLP for proposal analysis and decision-making
- Model-Driven Approaches for DAO Security:
- Structured DAO design methodologies
- Enhancing scalability and resilience in DAOs
- Token economy modeling and risk assessment
- Ethical & Regulatory Considerations:
- AI bias in decentralized decision-making
- Privacy-preserving AI techniques for DAOs
- Legal implications and compliance in AI-enhanced DAOs
Submission Guidelines:
We invite short papers (8 pages) and full papers (15 pages) in CCIS format. All accepted papers will be presented at the workshop and included in the MEDES 2026 proceedings.
- Submission Deadline: 05 September, 2026
- Notification of Acceptance: 25 September, 2026
- Camera-Ready Deadline: 01 October, 2026
- Submission Link: [CMT Platform]
Organizers
- Alex Norta, PhD
- Senior IEEE Member
- Tallinn University, Estonia / Dymaxion OÜ, Estonia / University of Pretoria, South Africa
- [email protected]
Alex Norta is currently a scientist entrepreneur focusing on his blockchain startup. He was an associate professor in the Department of Software Science of TalTech until March 1, 2022 and earlier a researcher at the Oulu University Secure-Programming Group (OUSPG) after having been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He received his MSc degree (2001) from Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria, and his Ph.D. degree (2007) from the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands. Currently, Alex is also a scientist at Tallinn University, working on an Estonian Web3 research project for the creative media domain. He is also a member of the Department of Informatics at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
- Akram Hakiri, PhD
- Professor of Computer Science
- University of Pau & Pays de l’Adour, France
- Expertise in decentralized systems, edge computing, and network security.
AKRAM HAKIRI, University of Pau & Pays de l’Adour, France, email: [email protected] Akram Hakiri is an Associate Professor of Computer Sciences and Engineering at the University of Pau & Pays de l‘Adour, France. He was a senior research scientist and researcher at LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France, and a visiting research scientist at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA. His current research focuses on developing novel solutions to emerging challenges in Blockchain technology, network virtualization, network slicing, management, and orchestration in 5G/6G, Digital Twins modeling, and DRE middleware for embedded system interconnects.
- Anne Laurent, PhD
- Professor of Computer Science
- University of Montpellier, LIRMM
- Specializes in data-driven applications, distributed systems, and knowledge management.
Anne Laurent ([email protected]) is Full Professor in Computer Science at the University of Montpellier. As a membre of the LIRMM, she heads the WEB3 research group. She works on data architectures and artificial intelligence: data warehouses and data lakes, pattern mining, fuzzy logic, semantic Web. She also heads the Data Science Institute of Montpellier, ISDM.
Workshop Format
The workshop will be a half-day event, divided into presentations, a panel discussion, and an interactive hands-on session. The format includes:
- Presentations: Keynotes and invited talks from domain experts.
- Interactive Panel Discussion: Engaging dialogue with researchers, practitioners, and developers.
- Hands-On Session: Guided implementation of AI-enhanced DAO models and threat detection using case studies. This session is conducted by generating conceptual models.
Target Audience
This workshop is intended for researchers, developers, DAO practitioners, blockchain engineers, and policymakers interested in decentralized governance, smart contract security, and AI-driven applications.
Technical Program Committee
- Sushil Kumar Singh, [email protected]
- Adedoyin A. Hussain, [email protected]
- Haleh Amintoosi, [email protected]
- Donna N. Dillenberge, [email protected]
- Pradip Kumar Sharma, [email protected]
- Melanie Swan, [email protected]
- KONSTANTINOS SGANTZOS, [email protected]
- Said A. Salloum, [email protected]
- Chayakrit Krittanawong, [email protected]
- Davor Svetinovic, [email protected]
- Arman Sargolzaei, [email protected]
- Bhabendu Kumar Mohanta, [email protected]
- Frederico M. Bublitz, [email protected]
- Sukhpal Singh Gill, [email protected]
- Shreshth Tuli, [email protected]
- Inderpreet Singh, [email protected]
- Karan Vijay Singh, [email protected]
- Dominic Lindsay, [email protected]
- Roman Vaculin, [email protected]
- Diogo Menezes Ferrazani Mattos, [email protected]
- Lo’ai Tawalbeh, [email protected]
- Kuan Zhang, [email protected]
- Khouloud Boukadi, [email protected]
- LAYTH SLIMAN, [email protected]
- SLIM Amri, [email protected]
- Bassem Sallemi, [email protected]
- Nour El madhoun, [email protected]
- Khaled Salah, [email protected]
- Johari bin Abdullah, [email protected]
- Adnan Shahid Khan, [email protected]
- Bassem Ben Hamed •, [email protected]
- jaap gordijn, [email protected]
- Gabriele D’Angelo, [email protected]
- Aparna Kumari, [email protected]
- Kanthi Sarpatwar, [email protected]
- Reza M. Parizi, [email protected]
- Zibin Zheng, [email protected]
- A. Tumasjan, [email protected]
- Chibuzor Udokwu, [email protected]
- Justin D. Harris, [email protected]
- Davide Calvaresi, [email protected]
- Claudio Schifanella, [email protected]
