We are thrilled to welcome all of you to the 6th International ACM Conference on Management of computational and collective Intelligence in Digital EcoSystems (MEDES 2014), in-cooperation with ACM, ACM SIGAPP and IFIP WG 2.6, held in beautiful and hospitable Buraidah, Saudi Arabia.

The MEDES conference series is becoming an important forum for researchers and practitioners across disciplines and from around the world seeking to discuss issues related to digital ecosystems. As you know, the multi-disciplinary nature of digital ecosystems makes them a complex topic to research, especially considering the role that information technology (IT) plays in them by transforming business practices, creating value for individuals and organizations, and introducing new knowledge. For IT to play that role, we must continually improve it through innovative techniques, models and methodologies in areas such as Digital Ecosystem Infrastructure; Green computing; Computational and Collective Intelligence; Services; Trust, Security & Privacy; Data & Knowledge Management; Internet of Things and Intelligent Web; Human-Computer Interaction; Networks and Protocols; and Open Source. These areas happen to be the themes of this year’s MEDES conference.

This year, for the main conference and the student track, we received 70 submissions from 22 countries. The conference program committee (PC) included 65 members from 22 countries, selected for their expertise in their respective research areas. PC members were tasked with selecting the highest quality submissions. Most papers were reviewed by 2 PC members and in some instances by a third PC member. After a high quality peer review process, 32 papers were selected for the main conference including full papers, short papers, and posters. 5 papers were selected for the student track. The accepted papers constitute a balanced mixture of topics covering the various themes of the conference. These have been organized into 6 sessions: Cloud and Internet of Things, Decision Making and Computational Intelligence, Digital Ecosystems and Services, HCI and Wireless Computing, Networks and Security, and Social Medias.

This year’s MEDES conference program also includes one special track related to “Computational Intelligence” as well as one workshop: “the 2nd Workshop on Security and Privacy Preserving in e-Societies”. The MEDES 2014 conference is proud to host an exceptionally high number (seven) of keynote talks. Our distinguished speakers are: (1) Dr. Fabien Gandon, INRIA - France, (2) Dr. Ton Kalker, DTS Incorporation – USA, (3) Prof. Kwei-Jay Lin, University of California - USA, (4) Prof. Azer Bestavros, Boston University – USA, (5) Prof. Youngjin Yoo, Temple University in Philadelphia - USA, and finally (6) Marc N. Chahin, Elsevier - Netherlands. A tutorial will be given by Prof. Raj Jain, Washington University in St. Louis - USA on "Recent Advances in Networking: Network Virtualization and Software Defined Networking for Cloud Computing".

We wish to thank all authors who submitted papers to the conference. We express our appreciation to the program committee members for their dedication and efforts in reviewing the papers and promoting the conference. Our special thanks go to the special tracks chair: Ismail Biskri, UQTR, Canada; and the tutorial chairs:  George Ghinea, Brunel University, UK; Joe Tekli, Lebanese American University, Lebanon; and Marina Dabic, University of Zagreb, Croatia. Special thanks to the publicity chairs: Patrizia Grifoni, IRPPS-CNR, Italy; Rajkumar Kannan, Bishop Heber College Autonomous, India; Silvio Spinella, Centro de Tecnologia da Informação Renato Archer, Brazil; and Youakim Badr, INSA-Lyon, France. The conference would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of the local organizing committee at Qassim University, namely Mohammed Alodib; Lamri Laouamer; Ahmad Almuhirat; Khalied Radaidah; Tarek Mulahi; Amad Alzuid; Bader Alhusan; Mushera Farhat; Shahla Asoielm; and Wissem Achour. Last but not least, our gratitude goes to the conference general chairs, namely Obaid Al Motairy (chair), Qassim University, KSA; Richard Chbeir (chair), UPPA University, France; Mohammed Alodib (co-chair), Qassim University, KSA; and Lamri Laouamer (co-chair), Qassim University, KSA.