Professor David J. O’Regan President, International Collaboration of Surgical Education and Training (ICOSET) MBA (Distinction) • MD • BM • FRCSEd • FRCSEd (C-Th) • FFSTEd LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/pub/david-o-regan/8/b6/47a Twitter: @David_ukan | @BBASS_skills Websites: www.heart2health.co.uk | www.bbass.org Professor David J. O’Regan is an internationally recognised surgeon, educator, and advocate for excellence in surgical training. Currently serving as Professor in the Medical Education Research and Development Unit at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Professor O’Regan combines decades of clinical experience with a passion for educational innovation. He previously held a distinguished clinical career as Consultant Adult Cardiac Surgeon at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (UK), where he was celebrated for his mentorship and commitment to professional development and quality in heath delivery. A pioneer in simulation-based and low-fidelity skills training, Professor O’Regan founded the Black Belt Academy of Surgical Skills (BBASS) — an international educational community now engaging more than 5,000 participants across 135 countries. He also established the Yorkshire Heart Centre Wetlab, securing significant funding to develop a state-of-the-art surgical skills centre, and directed the long-running PAR Excellence and PAR Aorta training programmes, both recognised for outstanding educational impact. His leadership roles have included Director of the Faculty of Surgical Trainers at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where he shaped national strategy, strengthened professional standards, and introduced the FST Medal for Distinguished Services to Surgical Training. He was President of the Association of Surgeon in Training where he initiated and coordinated the Silver Scalpel Award to identify the best surgical trainer of the UK for twenty-two years. Professor O’Regan’s contributions to education and mentorship have been recognised with numerous honours ; Visiting Professorship at Imperial College London, and a shortlist nomination for Most Innovative Teacher of the Year at the Times ASEAN Awards (2025). Through ICOSET, he continues to inspire a global community of educators, surgeons, and learners — promoting a culture of mastery, humility, and continuous growth in surgical practice and education.  

Effariza Hanafi received the B.Eng. in Telecommunications (first class honours) from the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, S.A., Australia, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2014, respectively. She joined the Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she is now a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering. She is actively involved in research as a principal investigator and has secured research grants from Fundamental Research Grants Scheme (MOE, Malaysia) and internal research grants in Universiti Malaya. She has published more than 40 journal papers in ISI-indexed publications and refereed conference papers. She is an active reviewer for numerous high-quality journals such as IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Access and several international conferences such as IEEE Global Communications Conference.   She is currently a Senior Member for IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). She was the recipient of the MARA Scholarship for undergraduate study, and the Codan Achievement Prize in 2010. She was also the recipient of Scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education and University of Malaya, Malaysia for her doctoral studies, and the best student poster presentation at the Australian Communications Theory Workshop (AusCTW) 2013. In 2015, she was the recipient of the University of Malaya Excellence Awards. She was an awardee for financial support from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for AUN/SEED-Net Regional Conference on Computer and Information Engineering (RCCIE) 2018.   Her main research interests span widely across the area of Internet of Things (system integration, smart system), wireless communication (5G networks, channel characterization, cooperative and distributed communications, non-orthogonal multiple access), RF technologies (PCB fabrication, UHF RFID tag antenna) and optical communications (fiber laser and sensor).

Dr. Firdaus Hariri is a Professor and senior consultant in oral maxillofacial surgery at University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC), Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry Universiti Malaya and University of Malaya Specialist Centre. He obtained both his dental and medical degrees from Universiti Malaya (UM) and completed his oral and maxillofacial surgery training with distinction at Queen Mary Hospital and Prince Philip Dental Hospital, The University of Hong Kong (HKU). He later had his craniofacial attachments at various established craniofacial centres abroad and also obtained his Master of Science in Molecular Medicine from International Medical University (IMU). In addition to routine maxillofacial surgical practices such as orthognathic surgery, trauma and oral implantology, his subspecialty and research interests are focused on pediatric craniofacial and reconstructive surgery, tissue engineering in particular distraction osteogenesis technique, bone regeneration for oral rehabilitation and the field of neurotrauma. He has more than 70 academic publications and is actively involved in national and international scientific conferences, consultations and organizations. He is one of the founding members and currently the lead coordinator for the multidisciplinary craniofacial clinic in UMMC, the team leader for Oro-Craniomaxillofacial Research and Surgical (OCReS) group at the Faculty of Dentistry UM, subspecialty coordinator for the Fellowship in Advanced Craniomaxillofacial Surgery (FACS) UM, and the chairman of National Dental Specialty Education Committee (DentSEdC) for oral and maxillofacial surgery. He currently serves as the Dean of Faculty of Dentistry UM, Strasbourg Osteosynthesis Group (SORG) South East Asia (SEA) Chairman and also the guest editor for BMC Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery as well as in the editorial board of Malaysian Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. He is passionate in music, social enterprise and humanitarian activities. Among the significant contributions in these areas are the success of Voices of Hope Charity Concert, collaboration with University of Malaya Industry and Community Engagement (ICE) office for social enterprise initiative among single parents in marginalized community and successfully initiating the nation-wide aerosol box fabrication and distribution during COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.