Umar Saif,

“The TR35 recognizes the world’s top 35 young innovators that are radically transforming technology as we know it. Their work – spanning medicine, computing, communications, energy, electronics and nanotechnology — is changing our world”, according to MIT Technology Review.

According to a LUMS press release today, this is the first time that a Pakistani has been selected in the TR35 list.

Dr. Umar Saif joins an elite group of researchers and entrepreneurs selected over the last decade. Previous winners include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook; Jonathan Ive, the chief designer at Apple; David Karp, founder of Tumbler; Harvard Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik for his work on Quantum computers; and MIT Neuroscientist Ed Boyden, one of the inventors of the emerging field of optogenetics, which makes it possible to control neurons with light.

Dr. Saif joined LUMS after completing a post doctorate at MIT where he was part of the group that developed technologies for project Oxygen. At LUMS, his research is focused on technology for developing regions. He has recently developed BitMate, a BitTorrent client for improving download speeds in regions with poor Internet connectivity. The client was been downloaded more than 30,000 times by people in 173 countries.

Dr. Saif is also a co-founder of several startups at his Saif Center for Innovation. The startups include SeenReport, BumpIn, and SMSall. Talking to STEP earlier, he offered his vision of Saif Center in a previous interview here. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Mark Weiser award, Microsoft Research award, and IDG CIO Technology pioneer award. He was also named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010.

Congratulations Umar!

The talk will be streamed live and a brief Q&A session will follow the talk. Undergraduate and graduate students inwfp survey report all disciplines and especially those enrolled in public health related programs, people involved with flood-relief efforts, and government and non-government organizations interested in flood-relief are strongly encouraged to attend.

Title: Determining Humanitarian Needs after Pakistan Floods

Where: Air University, AKU, FAST-NU Islamabad, IBA-Karachi, IMS Peshawar, and LUMS.

When: November 11th, 2010, 6:30-7:30pm Pakistan Standard Time (8:30-9:30am EDT).

Slides, WFP report, Video of the talk

Abstract:

The worst flooding in Pakistan’s history has left over 2,000 people dead and an estimated 15 to 20 million displaced, according to the United Nations – a total that exceeds the combined number of people displaced by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. During the last two weeks in August, Prof. Richard Garfield, the Henrik H. Bendixen Professor of Clinical International Nursing and Clinical Population and Family Health, helped coordinate the analysis of field surveys in four of the most severely affected provinces in Pakistan to determine short and long term needs for health, water and sanitation, nutrition, agriculture, livelihoods, shelter, and issues affecting women. This ‘combined needs assessment’ is an effort by the international community to jointly set priorities. The data is being used by the U.N. and other organizations. The project involved teams of researchers who fanned out across the country to interview flood victims in 380 locations in the provinces of Gilgit Baltistan, Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Researchers spoke to refugees living in camps, damaged homes, and spontaneous settlements. From start to finish, the entire process in Pakistan took 20 days.  Preliminary results were presented in Pakistan to U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, on her second day on the job.

Dr. Garfield previously took part in a similar effort in Myanmar and is evaluating a similar survey process done earlier this year in Haiti for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Bio:

Richard Garfield, DrPH is the Henrik H. Bendixen Clinical Professor of International Nursing and the Director of the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center in Advanced Practice Nursing. He received a doctorate from Columbia University School of Public Health. Dr. Garfield is a public health/community health nurse with expertise in epidemiology and international health. His research interests include community health promotion among minorities, the effects of wars on civilian populations, and the impact of economic embargoes on health and well- being. Dr. Garfield chairs the human rights committee of the American Public Health Association.

Help us connect your university!

Acknowledgments: Special thanks to Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) for facilitating the video broadcast of this talk.

Title: Learning to Learn

Where: Air University, FAST-NU Islamabad, GIK, IMS Peshawar, LUMS, MCS, and NUST SEECS, Virtual University.

When: October 15th, 2010, 5:30-7:30pm Pakistan Standard Time (8:30-10:30am EDT).

Poster of the talk

Slides, Video of the talk

Help us connect your university!

Abstract: The Sugar learning platform is a free software project that is being widely adopted for use in both formal and informal science education settings around the world. Sugar is designed to promote collaborative learning through activities that encourage critical thinking. Designed from the ground up especially for children, Sugar offers an alternative to traditional office-desktop, increases the likelihood that computation will be used as a critical-thinking tool in the context of open-ended exploration and discovery, going beyond the use of the computer as a tool of instruction. It is the core component of a worldwide effort to provide every child with equal opportunity for a quality education.

The Sugar learning platform is grounded in almost forty years of university research in the area of technology and learning and research specific to computers in the classroom. Members of the partnership team have worked closely with intellectual leaders, such as Seymour Papert, Marvin Minsky, Alan Kay, and Lea Fagundes. This unique opportunity to create a large-scale embodiment of their ideas, previously realized only in small-scale pilot projects. It is of great value to the field of education science and a great opportunity to engage students and faculty in a global research program.

Lecture goals:
The Sugar software is maintained by a community of volunteers (educators and engineers) working with the non-profit Sugar Labs foundation, a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Through the establishment of a Sugar Labs in Pakistan, we will directly engage science and engineering students and faculty at the leading Pakistani universities in furthering the development of Sugar; specifically, university students will engage in purposeful projects while advancing their own research and education. At the same time, we will be establishing the basis of a software development community within Pakistan that is focused on science education. Our long-term goal is a sustainable ecosystem of development and deployment within Pakistan, with rich ties to the international free-software development community. Within that ecosystem we expect to raise the next generation of scientists and engineers in Pakistan and have a significant impact on the skills and attitudes to creativity and problem-solving that these young learners develop. Expected outcomes of the program include the creation of new jobs and local opportunities for entrepreneurship that will open up from services in porting, testing, deployment, training, and support of the Sugar learning platform.

Bio: Walter Bender is technologist and researcher who has made important contributions in the field of electronic publishing, media, and technology for learning. Bender is on leave as a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab which he led as executive director between 2000 and 2006. More recently, Bender served as president of One Laptop per Child for Software and Content where he coordinated the development of software and content including the Sugar interface for the XO-1 Children’s Machine computer. After leaving OLPC in 2008, Bender founded Sugar Labs to continue development of Sugar.

Acknowledgments: Special thanks to Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) for facilitating the video broadcast of this talk.

As students and researchers of Pakistani origin abroad, we often wondered how we can help the Pakistani universities in fostering the tradition of academic colloquia in the face of challenging security issues faced by Pakistan which may prohibit researchers from visiting Pakistan even if the financing was available? Could technology help? Could we invite researchers to give talks to Pakistani universities and interact with students over video conferencing?

Born out of this desire was the STEP Lecture Series initiative started in October 2009. The lecture series brings interactive talks by distinguished researchers, academics, and entrepreneurs to universities in Pakistan via video conferencing. The aim of the lecture series is to foster the tradition of academic colloquia, and help bridge the ‘knowledge divide’ by introducing university students in Pakistan to the emerging trends and cutting edge research, and in the process, inspire these students to take on challenging problems.

In the academic year 2009-2010, we organized seven talks in the areas of computer science, electrical engineering, and entrepreneurship. Our last speaker for the 2009-2010 lecture series was Prof. Jeanette Wing who is the President’s Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She shared her vision about computational thinking to Pakistani students and encouraged them to think out-of-the-box in addressing problems. In February 2010, Aristedis Karalis from MIT gave a highly interactive talk on wireless electricity to approximately 400 students and faculty in attendance. Thanking the speaker, one of the faculty member in attendance wrote “last evening it was around 150 students who listened to your lecture at FAST-NU, Islamabad. Your talk stimulated a lot of of-camera discussion yesterday.” Other speakers included Prof. Derek Chiou of University of Texas at Austin who spoke on the challenges in simulating computer systems; Prof. Adrien Treuille of CMU who talked about modeling and controlling complex dynamics; Dr. Sonesh Surana from University of California at Berkeley who discussed the challenges in enabling wireless telemedicine; Saad Fazil from VentureBeat who expressed his thoughts on technology blogging and entrepreneurship; and Kellee Santiago from University of Southern California and a TED2010 fellow who articulated about her passion of game design.

The idea of a lecture series using video conferencing cannot be successful without the active participation of the students and faculty in the universities. We have found that for maximum participation and enthusiasm, it is necessary to have a faculty contact at the participating universities, who can publicize the talk in his or her respective university. Nevertheless, we have seen increased participation by Pakistani universities and students in the seven talks we have organized so far. The average total attendance is over 200, and it exceeded 400 for the talk on wireless electricity. More than 15 universities across Pakistan have participated in at least one of the talks. The list of participating universities include Air University, AKU-IED, Bahria University Islamabad, BZU Multan, FAST-NU Islamabad, GIK Institute, IBA Sukkur, IMS Peshawar, King Edward Medical College, LUMS, NUST MCS, NUST SEECS, University of Gujrat, University of Sargodha, UET Taxilla, and SZABIST Islamabad,

When we were brainstorming to organize the lecture series, we weighed the possibility of live video talks versus the lectures already available on the Internet. We went for the live lecture series because live lectures create an atmosphere of group learning and thinking which is not easily replicable when watching stored video streams. Further, since multiple universities will participate in the lecture series, we hoped that it would generate interaction among the students in these universities, and we have seen it happening.

Logistical Challenges

The organization of the lecture series posed challenging timezone, technical, and logistical issues. The time difference between the US east coast and Pakistan is 9 hours (during daylight savings). Since many of our speakers are based in the US, the time difference means that the speaker on the US east coast should start the talk by 9am EDT (which is 6pm in Pakistan). Even then, some universities expressed us their reservation that they do not prefer to have students stay on campus in the late evening due to security reasons. Therefore, we usually request our speakers to start their talk preferably by 8am EDT or latest by 9am EDT. However, the early morning talks can be a bit taxing for the speakers.

In the last few years, the Government of Pakistan has invested in deploying a high speed network backbone linking major universities in all four provinces. The network is known as the Pakistan Educational and Research Network (PERN). The PERN network also connects to educational network backbones in the Europe and the US. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has also installed video conferencing infrastructure across public sector universities in Pakistan, and has setup a highly available video conferencing server that can allow a high quality video conference of up to 40 participants. We use this video conferencing infrastructure for the STEP lectures. The speaker and the participating universities ‘dial-in’ to the HEC’s video conferencing server, are able to view the speaker and other participants, there by creating a live experience. Occasionally, there are issues with the noise, but HEC’s video conferencing staff has become increasingly adept in managing these glitches. Another issue is that some universities do not have adequate backup facilities for power and can get disconnected during a power shutdown. We have requested HEC to setup an audio bridge for this purpose.

When we started the lecture series, I was cautious and apprehensive about its success. Now, with a successful year behind us, I am greatly optimistic. Live video lectures to multiple universities across different time zones and countries are unheard of in the academic world, but STEP lecture series has proven that it is possible. Moreover, a live video talk by researchers and entrepreneurs and an interactive Q&A session exposes students to new areas and new ways of thinking and is a great way to bridge the knowledge divide. Such an interaction helps students overcome the language barriers and shed their shyness, and it also exposes the speakers to students across the world. I hope that such interactions can be expanded to include other countries. It is my belief that such interactions will make this world a better place.

How can you help?

We are in the process of finalizing the speakers for the 2010-2011 lecture series. We will like to expand the scope of the lecture topics and invite speakers in areas of physical and astronomical sciences, economics, arts, and international relations. You can help. If you know of a potential speaker, who will be willing to give a talk, please contact us at editors@nextstepforward.net. Especially, if you are a Pakistani student, researcher, or academic studying or working in the universities, you can help establish the initial contact with the speaker and contact us to set up the video talk.

If you are a researcher or entrepreneur and will like to donate your time to motivate young students and help them think innovatively and creatively by giving a talk, please get in touch with us.

Acknowledgements

The STEP lecture series would not have been possible without the active support of Dr. Shahab Baqai and Dr. Abdullah Sadiq. We are also very grateful to Dr. Saad Qaiser and Dr. Naveed Rao for advertising the talks in their universities and for being enthusiastic about this idea. Lastly, we are very grateful to the video conferencing team at the Higher Education Commission in Pakistan, who work behind the scenes to ensure a smooth delivery of the talk.

Title: Wireless Electricity

Where:
Air University
FAST-NU Islamabad
LUMS Department of Computer Science (Room 10-404 SSE),
MCS
NUST SEECS

When: February 25, 2010, at 6:00 pm Pakistan Standard Time (8:00am EST)

Abstract:
Consider the plethora of modern devices which vitally depend on short-lived, environmentally unfriendly, costly batteries or whose performance and mobility are restricted by their attachment to a cord. Imagine now a world where these apparati can instead receive their power wirelessly. We have developed a technology, based on STRONGLY-COUPLED resonant induction, enabling power (from mW to KW) to be transmitted across medium-range distances (from cm to m) very efficiently (typically from 20% to 95%). The exact achievable distance depends on the size of the device, the targeted efficiency (maximum tolerated wasted power) and, in general, the particular application. Moreover, far-field radiation interference can be employed to further increase the achievable efficiency or reduce the produced radiation. Our power transmission technology utilizes low frequencies and the harmless magnetic field, thus it can comply with international safety regulations. This technology has been implemented into real-world electronic devices by WiTricity Corporation, and relevant pre-recorded demos will be shown.

Bio:

Aristeidis Karalis is a founder of WiTricity Corp. (2007), and was a member of the MIT research team that developed both the theoretical basis and experimental validation of this novel method for wireless energy transfer. Aristeidis is a Post-Doctoral Associate in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. He received his Sc.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2008. He received his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and his B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. Aristeidis is a co-author of nine scientific articles and six patents. He was awarded the Paris Kanellakis Fellowship and the Ioannis S. Latsis Fellowship as a student at MIT.

Acknowledgments: STEP is very grateful to Dr. Shahab Baqai at LUMS for his continued support and help in organizing the lecture series. Special thanks to Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) for facilitating the video broadcast of this talk.

Title: Enabling Sustainable Rural Wireless Telemedicine

Where: LUMS Department of Computer Science, Auditorium A-16, NUST SEECS, Air University
When: November 12, 8:30pm Pakistan Standard Time (7:30am Pacific daylight time)

Abstract:
With one ophthalmologist per over 100,000 people in India, there is a critical need to improve the utilization of eye doctors. In this talk, we discuss our work in deploying a long distance wireless network that enables high quality video-based telemedicine between rural eye clinics and centrally located doctors at the Aravind Eye Hospitals. In particular, we take a close look at the issues of financial and operational sustainability.

Bio:
Dr. Sonesh Surana focuses on the design and implementation of low-cost information and communication technologies (ICT) and related power infrastructure for developing regions. He received his PhD in Computer Science with the TIER research group at UC Berkeley in 2009. As part of TIER, he co-developed new WiFi-based long-distance technology enabling inexpensive targeted rural broadband coverage, and demonstrated high bandwidth point-to-point links as long as 380 Kms, a new world record. He also led the deployment of this technology for a live video-based rural telemedicine network at the Aravind Eye Hospital in South India, managing a range of non-profit, government, university and private stakeholders. This network, now financially and operationally sustainable, provides coverage to 500,000 people in areas with no other option for eye care. It has enabled over 100,000 remote patient examinations in three years, and 20,000 of those patients have received their sight back due to early diagnosis. He has done ICT work in Romania, Rwanda, India and Venezuela. He advises several non-profit development organizations and is also the co-founder of QVSense Inc, a company focused on building photovoltaic power management hardware solutions.

Acknowledgments: STEP is very grateful to Dr. Shahab Baqai at LUMS for his continued support and help in organizing the lecture series. Special thanks to Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) for facilitating the video broadcast of this talk.

Correction: An earlier version of this post mistakenly posted the time for the talk as 7:30PM Pakistan Standard Time. The correct time for the talk in Pakistan is 8:30PM.

Image credits: http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/06/06_telemedicine.shtml

The first talk in this series titled, New Approaches to Modeling and Control of Complex Dynamics, will be given by Dr. Adrien Treuille of Carnegie Mellon University on October 15, 2009 at 7:30 PM Pakistan Standard Time (9:30 AM EDT). The talk will be streamed live to LUMS Department of Computer Science, Mil College of Signals (MCS), and Air University.  Below is the abstract of the talk and a short biography of Dr. Treuille.

Title: New Approaches to Modeling and Control of Complex Dynamics
When: October 15, 2009 at 7:30 PM Pakistan Standard Time.
Where: LUMS Department of Computer Science, Mil College of Signals, and Air University
Abstract: Complex phenomena such as animal morphology, human motion, and large fluid systems challenge even our most sophisticated simulation and control techniques. My overarching research goal has been to develop fundamentally new methods to approach such high-dimensional and nonlinear problems. This talk presents my work solving these problems across a wide range of phenomena, including a new model-reduction approach to fluids that is orders-of-magnitude faster than standard simulation methods and enables interactive high-resolution fluid simulation for the first time.
Another example is a continuum approach to crowd dynamics which efficiently reproduces empirical aspects of large crowd behavior that would be difficult or impossible to achieve with traditional agent models. The talk will also cover work on several other phenomena including human animation, animal morphology, and protein folding. Such new algorithmic approaches advance not only our ability to simulate and control complex systems but also our understanding of the systems themselves.

About the Speaker: Adrien Treuille is an Assistant Professor in the computer graphics group at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his PhD under Zoran Popovic in the computer graphics group at the University of Washington, and was a postdoc in the Baker Group under Zoran Popovic and David Baker. He was one of the creators of Foldit, the computer game where users contribute to science by folding proteins. He pursues research in the simulation and animation of very high-dimensional nonlinear phenomena like animal morphology, human motion, and large fluid systems. One thread of his research addresses the complexity of such systems by developing model reduction tools that generate compact representations. A complementary thread seeks to control such systems, which means learning to set inputs to produce desired effects. He is also deeply interested in the implications for science and engineering of these techniques, from fluid dynamics to laying down a joint cognitive and biomechanical basis for animal motion. Dr. Treuille was recently
named one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35 by MIT Technology Review.

Image credits: http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/model-reduction/ and http://www.technologyreview.com/TR35/Profile.aspx?TRID=818

Outdated and Incorrect Curriculum

In a household survey conducted by Gallup Pakistan in May 2009, 70% of the respondents said that they send their children to government-run schools. These schools are often faulted for imparting incomplete, incorrect, and rot education to children. The school textbooks prescribed by the provincial and federal textbook boards are part of the problem. The description of the relevant material in science and math textbooks is at times inadequate whereas the social sciences, religious, and Pakistan studies textbooks have been used by the successive governments to further their political agendas.

Making textbooks available online will allow educational experts both inside and outside Pakistan to easily scrutinize their content for clarity, correctness, and completeness. The feedback received from educational experts will greatly help to improve the quality of these textbooks.

Distribution Problems

At the start of a school year, parents of school going children have to scramble to buy class textbooks. It is often the case that bookstores are unable to meet the demand of textbooks at the start of school year. At times, there may be a genuine shortage of books but more often than not, bookstores, book printing and distribution businesses take advantage of the start of school year and either hoard or do not print and make available enough copies of the textbooks. Further, bookstores may sell books at a price which is significantly higher than the regular price of the books. Desperate parents are either forced to wait for the new copies to arrive or are forced to buy the photocopies of the textbooks at a higher price.

Having textbooks available online is likely going to break the hoarding of textbooks by the printing and distribution businesses. Increasingly, Pakistani households are connected to the Internet which makes it plausible to access textbooks online. Further, students without Internet access can possibly obtain soft copies of the textbooks from other students.

Pakistani’s abroad

Pakistani parents living abroad often wonder how to teach their children about Urdu and the history of their country and subcontinent. While some parents make an effort in obtaining the relevant subject texts from Pakistan, it is not possible for every parent living abroad. Having textbooks available online, especially the social sciences and Urdu textbooks, will allow Pakistani parents living abroad to teach their children Urdu script, language, and the history of their country and subcontinent.

Bridging Differences

Part of the reason for the existing misconceptions between India and Pakistan lie in the historical narrative imparted in the social sciences and history textbooks. The textbooks often present a negative caricature of the other country and its leaders. If the history textbooks of both countries are made available online, the students in both countries can easily compare the assertions being taught to them in their class to what is taught in the same class in other country. As a matter of fact, in India, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), which may be considered an equivalent of a text book board, has freely made available the textbooks for each subject from class I-XII online. Pakistani textbook boards should follow in the footsteps of their Indian counterparts, and make the textbooks for class I-XII freely available online, as well.

Conclusion

Making textbooks available will allow independent experts to review the content and presentation of textbooks and help improve the quality of these textbooks. Moreover, it will help address the textbook distribution problems that happen at the start of every school year. Such an initiative is a step towards providing free education to every Pakistani citizen. Lastly, with Indian class textbooks already available online, making Pakistani textbooks available online will allow Indian and Pakistani students to compare and contrast the historical narrative. This may lead towards a quest for finding a truthful and balanced historical narrative, clarification of misconceptions, and a better understanding of each other’s viewpoint.