Sunday, May 15, 2022

Karachi Girl Students Win Top Prize at International Science Competition Held in Atlanta, Georgia

Two Pakistani girl students from Karachi have won the first physical science award of $1,500 each at Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF 2022) held May 7 through 13 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Ume Kulsoom and Talia Kusloom, the winners from Pakistan, are 12th grade students at Pak-Turk School in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi. 

Pakistani Student Participants at ISEF 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Source: Maarif Foundation

Ume and Talia Kulsoom topped in the physical science category with their project titled "Vegan Leather Obtained from Cedrus Deodara (deodar tree)", according to an announcement by the Society for Science which organized the event. Regeneron ISEF is the world’s largest international science competition held annually. Each year, nearly 1,800 high school students from more than 63 countries participate to showcase their work.  

The winning project from Pakistan was completed under the supervision of Hira Bashir, a science teacher at the Pakistan-Turkey Maarif International Schools College in Karachi. "Our intelligent students believe in the green world and in the conservation of resources, which encouraged them to come up with this unique idea," the school said.

The ISEF is an annual event organized by the Society for Science and Engineering, a non-profit group headquartered in the US. The organization describes the event as "the world's largest international science competition," bringing together approximately 1,800 high school students from more than 63 countries each year. The Maarif Foundation has 28 schools and colleges across Pakistan that provide quality education to thousands of students in several cities, including Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. 

Aqsa Ajmal, a graduate of Pakistan's National University of Science and Technology, was among six finalists for Lexus Design Award 2020 for industrial design. She won 3 million Yen (over $25,000) in funding and mentorship in an exclusive program in New York City under the guidance of prominent design leaders from a variety of design fields.

Pursewit Sewing Machine. Source: Lexus


The Mayet Family from Karachi, Pakistan won AI Family Challenge World Championship held in Silicon Valley, California on May 20, 2019.  The family's entry called "Cavity Crusher" uses artificial intelligence algorithm to monitor a child's brush time and determine their oral health habits to notify parents accordingly. It was organized by Iridescent, a global technology education nonprofit organization that empowers underrepresented young people to become self-motivated learners, inventors, and leaders.

In 2018, A team of undergraduate students representing Peshawar won a silver medal in a genetic engineering competition organized by the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation in Boston, Massachusetts.

Growing numbers of young Pakistanis are now participating and winning in international science and engineering competitions. Examples include Stanford Design ContestAI Family Challenge World Championship and International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition. These wins offer increasing evidence of Pakistan's expected demographic dividend.



Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Pakistani Students Win First Place in Stanford Design Contest

Pakistanis Win AI Family Challenge in Silicon Valley

Pakistani Gamer Wins ESPN E-sports Player of the Year Award

Pakistan's Expected Demographic Dividend

Pakistan's Research Output Growing Fastest in the World

AI Research at NED University Funded By Silicon Valley NEDians

Pakistan Hi-Tech Exports Exceed A Billion US Dollars in 2018 

Pakistan Becomes CERN Member

Pakistani Tech Unicorns

Rising College Enrollment in Pakistan

Pakistani Universities Listed Among Asia's Top 500 Jump From 16 to 23 in One Year

Pakistani Students Win Genetic Engineering Competition

Human Capital Growth in Pakistan

Pakistan Joins 3D Print Revolution

Pakistan Human Development in Musharraf Years


9 comments:

samir sardana said...

The Role Model for Indian Muslims

This is what happens when you have your own nation !

Whatever be the state of corruption and nepotism,at least the STATE,has a noble intent - although some corrupt people,subvert its effectiveness

In India,the Hindoo state,is Anti-Islam and Anti-Muslim. Further,the state has no money fir its own - let alone,the Muslims and Dalits and Kashmiris !

Indian Muslims move from Babri to Gyan Vapi to .....

And these fools still have faith,on the Indian CON-INSTITUTION ! The Indian Constitution is designed to keep the Brahmin/Bania in power.A Muslim who CANNOT see that,and the worth of the lies,of the Indian State and Chaiwala - has NO CONNECT WITH ALLAH (no matter how much he prays)!

The latest scam is GYAN VAPI !

It is said that some ape called Shiva dug a pond with his trishul cane down personally for the same ! Y DID THE APE NOT SAVE THE TEMPLE OF HIS LINGA ?

THE MUSLIMS DID NOT HAVE THE "GYAN",NOT TO HAVE SANSKRIT SCRIPTURES AND HINDOO CARVINGS,ON THE MOSQUE WALL !

THE HINDOOS DID NOT HAVE THE "GYAN",NOT TO MAKE A TEMPLE NEXT TO A MOSQUE

THESE FOOLS CALL IT GANGA-JAMUNA-SARASWATI (SARASWATI WHICH DISAPPEARED IN PAKISTAN)

THIS IS THE OSMOTIC EFFECT OF HINDOOISM,ON "INDIAN MUSLIMS"

WHAT IS THE HOPE OF THE "INDIAN MUSLIMS" ?

THE CON-INSTITUTION ! DO THE INDIAN MUSLIMS DESERVE DOOM ?

ASADUDDIN OWAISI THINKS THAT THE HINDOO ILLITERATES,HAVE READ THE AMBEDKAR HOLY BOOK AND WILL GIVE THE MUSLIMS THE RIGHTS UNDER THE SAME ??!!

UTOPIA OR MADNESS ? dindooohindoo


samir sardana said...

Education is the success story,of Pakistan

It is manifested in the quality of engineers,in IT,Manufacturing and Textile

It is the model for all Islamic nations - wherein Islamic tradition and Orthodoxy,can coexist with scientific education,and a so-called corrupt system !

With technology,Skype,Mobiles,Digitisation and Education Innovation - Pakistan can set the world on fire

The discipline imposed by Islamic rules,merged with educational rigor,leveraged by tech = MAGIC !

It is the role model for Indian Muslims !

Partition and make an independent nation - and lead to Islamic salvation !

Else,Hindoos will keep digging mosques and find monkeys,rats and lizards (since they pray to them) and claim that it was a temple,in the past - and demolish the mosque !

The Indian Muslims are in a siege - and still believe in the CON-INSTITUTION !

THE Court was sleeping in

Bhagalpur riots
Babri demolition
Godhra
Acquittal of Chaiwala in Godhra
Acquittal of Babri accused
SC judgement on Rama temple

.... Now GyanVapi

Still these Indian Muslims - want to knock on the Court and the CON-INSTITUTION.dindooohindoo

samir sardana said...

SCIENCE !

REASON !

COGITO ERGO SUM

Ghazali's maxim that reason alone - only serves to kill reason - is obsolete,for Indian Muslims - who have NEITHER REASON nor FAITH !

Asaduddin Owaisi is still punting on the Court for Gyanwapi !

The Indian Muslims are foolish who do not see the patterns ! Jahangirpuri/Bulldozing/Muslim lynchings..... the pattern of events to build fear,intimidation and the seige mentality of the Muslims - so that THE REAL BLOW COULD BE DELIVERED - via the Gyanvapi !

THE MUSLIMS CANNOT SEE THE PATTERN OF EVENTS - EVERY TIME BEFORE A TELLING BLOW IN INFLICTED ON THE MUSLIMS ! THEY NEED TO PLAY BACARRAT AND ROULETTE ! ALL TIME AND LIFE IS PATTERNS - AND THE MANIPULATIVE PLANS OF CHAIWALA ARE ALSO PATTERSN AND NON-BINARY LOGIC PATTERNS

MUSLIMS HAVE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HINDOOS THINK OF "ISLAM" AND "MUSLIMS"

And the whole world will be filled with “mleccha behaviour” (means Islamic behavior) and notions and “ceremonies, and sacrifices” (Like in the Cresent and Hindooo India) will cease, and joy will be nowhere and “general rejoicing” (like Deeewali and Holeee) will disappear. And without doubt all men will adopt the behaviour of the mlecchas, “become omnivorous”(eat Gau Mata) without distinction, and cruel in all their acts, when the end of the Yuga will come And, O king, overwhelmed with covetousness, “men will kill Brahmanas” and appropriate and enjoy the possessions of their victims. And the regenerate ones (that is Brahmins), “oppressed by Sudras” (id.est., the Muslim Sudras),and afflicted with fear, and crying Oh and Alas,will wander over the earth “without anybody to protect them” And the earth will “soon be full of mlecchas” (an Islamic World in Asia and Africa and EU), and the Brahmanas will “fly in all directions for fear of the burthen of taxes”

WHEN THE WILL INDIAN MUSLIMS GET SCIENTIFIC REASONING AND LOGIC

FOLLOW GHAZALI AND BLEND REASON WITH FAITH ! dindooohindoo

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistani students win laurels in international competition

https://www.dawn.com/news/1701749/pakistani-students-win-laurels-in-international-competition

The success of Pakistani students who study in schools without walls in the global Huawei competition shows that there is no alternative to dedication and hard work, deputy chief executive officer of Huawei Pakistan Ahmed Bilal Masud said on Tuesday.

He was speaking at a ceremony to honour Sateesh Kumar, Bhagchand Meghwar and Iqra Fatima, winners of the Sixth Huawei ICT Competition 2021-2022.

They were able to beat competitors from different parts of the world at the Global Final of the event held in Shenzhen, China.

The participants were informed that Mr Kumar belonged to a remote village of Tharparkar that is not even listed in maps while Bhagchand Meghwar hails from a village in Dadu district.

“This proves that now, nobody in Pakistan can say that they lack resources, internet at homes or there was not enough support to make a name,” Mr Masud said, adding that, “these gentlemen did not even have walls in the schools they went to for initial learning.”

Similarly, he said the third member of the winning team was a female. “When she can fight the odds why not others,” he added.

Ms Fatima belongs to Bahawalpur and studied in Bahawalpur University, while the other two members had studied in Mehran University Jamshoro. Every year the competition is announced by Huawei, starting from the local level to encourage fresh students and fresh graduates to excel in information technology (IT) services.

Out of around 12,000 applicants in Pakistan in 2021, six were selected and Huawei managers formed two teams – team 1 and 2 for Pakistan. Sateesh Kumar led team 1 which continued its winning streak to beat competitors in the global final. The competition attracted 150,000 hopeful students from more than 2,000 universities in 85 countries and regions around the world.

The first prize in the competition was $20,000 for the winning team, along with mobile phones for each participant. Public Relations Director Wu Han said the success of the 2021 competition has shown that there was huge potential of growth among Pakistani youth.

Riaz Haq said...

At the award ceremony of the Huawei ICT Competition 2021-2022 Global Final held by Huawei Pakistan on Tuesday, a Pakistani team consisting of Sateesh Kumar, Iqra Fatima, and Bhagchand Meghwar, was awarded the first prize of 20,000 USD along with a mobile phone for each team member.



http://en.ce.cn/Insight/202207/27/t20220727_37911036.shtml

The competition, which was concluded in Shenzhen, China, attracted 150,000 students from more than 2,000 universities in 85 countries and regions. After national and regional competitions, 130 teams from 43 countries and regions faced off in the global final. Two teams from Pakistan participated in the Network Category of the Practice Competition with Team One clinching the 1st prize, and Team Two grabbing the 3rd prize.
 
Osman Ahsan Sheikh, Muhammad Abdullah Ahsan Sheikh and Aqsa Amir represented Team One ‘Homevism’, which comprised students from NUST. Team Two ‘Boltay Haroof’ from LUMS was represented by Umer Farooq, Tabish Rafiq and Areej. In the Innovation Competition, Team Boltay Haroof won the 2nd prize, while Team Homevism seized the 3rd prize.
 
Mr. Ahmed Bilal Masud, Deputy CEO of Huawei Pakistan, congratulated the winners and affirmed their infinite potential. On the occasion, he highlighted, “the competition is a great opportunity for Pakistani youth. Through this event, young Pakistanis have gained a deeper understanding of ICT and have a platform to make a name for themselves in the ICT industry.”
 
The star student of the winning team, Mr. Bhagchand, addressed the ceremony, saying “the Huawei ICT Competition served as a platform that allowed us to compete with and win against teams at regional and international levels for Pakistan.”
 
Sateesh Kumar, a Mehran University bachelor who came from a small town in Sindh, was motivated by his teacher to take part in the competition. He said it was an amazing initiative by Huawei, offering equal opportunities to engineering students all over Pakistan to showcase their talent, whether they’re from large bustling cities or small remote towns.
 
The next installation of the global event, The Huawei ICT Competition 2022, will be held under the theme ‘Connectivity, Honor, Future’. It will run from August to December and is a large part of Huawei’s commitment to nurturing the next generation of ICT leaders across the world.
 


Riaz Haq said...

A Babar Azam cover drive question appears in Pakistani physics book, PIC goes viral


https://zeenews.india.com/cricket/wait-what-a-babar-azam-cover-drive-question-appears-in-pakistani-physics-book-pic-goes-viral-2509933.html

Here's the question: "Babar Azam has hit a cover drive by given kinetic energy of 150J to the ball by his bat. a) At what speed will the ball go the boundary if the mass of the ball is 120g? b) How much kinetic energy footballer must impart to a football of mass 450g to make it move at this speed?" says the question that has been widely shared on social media platforms."

The picture of this question in the book has gone viral on the internet with some fans even trying to find the answer.

https://twitter.com/shaun_tait32/status/1569662589462024192?s=20&t=aCuR3uBniZCRXfdFJJqBKQ

(Picture shows the following kinetic energy = 0.5x mass x velocity squared. 120 grams ball driven with 150 joules energy achieves 50 meters/sec speed)

Riaz Haq said...

What is ChatGPT? The AI chatbot talked up as a potential Google killer
After all, the AI chatbot seems to be slaying a great deal of search engine responses.

https://interestingengineering.com/science/chatgpt-ai-chatbot-google-killer

ChatGPT is the latest and most impressive artificially intelligent chatbot yet. It was released two weeks ago, and in just five days hit a million users. It’s being used so much that its servers have reached capacity several times.

OpenAI, the company that developed it, is already being discussed as a potential Google slayer. Why look up something on a search engine when ChatGPT can write a whole paragraph explaining the answer? (There’s even a Chrome extension that lets you do both, side by side.)

But what if we never know the secret sauce behind ChatGPT’s capabilities?

The chatbot takes advantage of a number of technical advances published in the open scientific literature in the past couple of decades. But any innovations unique to it are secret. OpenAI could well be trying to build a technical and business moat to keep others out.

What it can (and can’t do)
ChatGPT is very capable. Want a haiku on chatbots? Sure.

How about a joke about chatbots? No problem.

ChatGPT can do many other tricks. It can write computer code to a user’s specifications, draft business letters or rental contracts, compose homework essays and even pass university exams.

Just as important is what ChatGPT can’t do. For instance, it struggles to distinguish between truth and falsehood. It is also often a persuasive liar.

ChatGPT is a bit like autocomplete on your phone. Your phone is trained on a dictionary of words so it completes words. ChatGPT is trained on pretty much all of the web, and can therefore complete whole sentences – or even whole paragraphs.

However, it doesn’t understand what it’s saying, just what words are most likely to come next.

Open only by name
In the past, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have been accompanied by peer-reviewed literature.

In 2018, for example, when the Google Brain team developed the BERT neural network on which most natural language processing systems are now based (and we suspect ChatGPT is too), the methods were published in peer-reviewed scientific papers, and the code was open-sourced.

And in 2021, DeepMind’s AlphaFold 2, a protein-folding software, was Science’s Breakthrough of the Year. The software and its results were open-sourced so scientists everywhere could use them to advance biology and medicine.

Following the release of ChatGPT, we have only a short blog post describing how it works. There has been no hint of an accompanying scientific publication, or that the code will be open-sourced.

To understand why ChatGPT could be kept secret, you have to understand a little about the company behind it.

OpenAI is perhaps one of the oddest companies to emerge from Silicon Valley. It was set up as a non-profit in 2015 to promote and develop “friendly” AI in a way that “benefits humanity as a whole”. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other leading tech figures pledged US$1 billion (dollars) towards its goals.

Their thinking was we couldn’t trust for-profit companies to develop increasingly capable AI that aligned with humanity’s prosperity. AI therefore needed to be developed by a non-profit and, as the name suggested, in an open way.

In 2019 OpenAI transitioned into a capped for-profit company (with investors limited to a maximum return of 100 times their investment) and took a US$1 billion(dollars) investment from Microsoft so it could scale and compete with the tech giants.

It seems money got in the way of OpenAI’s initial plans for openness.

Profiting from users
On top of this, OpenAI appears to be using feedback from users to filter out the fake answers ChatGPT hallucinates.

According to its blog, OpenAI initially used reinforcement learning in ChatGPT to downrank fake and/or problematic answers using a costly hand-constructed training set.

Riaz Haq said...

Two Titan submersible passengers were prominent science philanthropists in Pakistan

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02100-y

Two of the passengers who died when the Titansubmersible imploded on its way to explore the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic belonged to a family that are prominent philanthropic funders of science in Pakistan.

Shahzada Dawood, and his son, Suleman Dawood, were part of the Dawood Foundation, which set up a university, girls’ school and museum, all with major focuses on science.

“The tragic loss of father and son is, first and foremost, a human tragedy and a tragedy for the family,” says environmental scientist Adil Najam, who also studies philanthropic giving in Pakistan. “We have also lost someone with a real, personal and abiding interest in science. It is a tremendous loss of a champion for science.”

“This is a huge tragedy for Pakistan,” adds Atta-ur-Rahman, a chemist at the University of Karachi and a former minister for science. “The [Dawood] family has made enormous contributions to education and science during the last five or six decades.”

The Dawood family’s foundation established the Dawood University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi; the Karachi School of Business and Leadership; the MagnifiScience Centre, Pakistan's first contemporary science museum also in Karachi. Dawood public school provides high quality science education for girls, Najam says.

Members of the Dawood family posted a statement to the foundation website about the deaths of Shahzada and Suleman. “We are truly grateful to all those involved in the rescue operations. The immense love and support we receive continues to help us endure this unimagineable loss.” The statement also said: “At this time, we are unable to receive calls and request that support, condolences and prayers be messaged instead.”

Both Rahman and physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy of the Black Hole Institute, a science and cultural centre in Islamabad, say that the Dawood Foundation is a rare example of much-needed science-philanthropy. Many young people are trying to leave Pakistan because of an economic crisis and a lack of opportunities. Around 800,000 people left in 2022 to seek work abroad. Between 400 and 750 people from Pakistan, as well as Egypt and Syria died last week when a boat capsized off the Mediterranean Sea on its way from Libya to Europe, according to media reports.

The Dawood family foundation has tried to address these problems by creating opportunities for science education. Rahman adds that there is much more that needs to be done. “We need to rethink our national policies, so that we can use this huge pool of talent for our own socio-economic development,” he says.

Riaz Haq said...

Athar Osama PIF Facebook post

Today we embark upon a 6-month long learning journey with 60 Pakistani Teachers and 6 Indonesian Teacher Trainers on Holistic Science Teaching.

This is an innovative approach to Teaching Science in a manner that is connected with other branches of knowledge such as History, Philosophy, Ethics, Religion and the Liberal Arts being piloted, to our knowledge, for the first time in the Muslim World.

Over 3 years, we will 6 workshops in Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Arab World - very different cultures, education systems, languages but the same objective: Train Teachers to create Curious Classrooms!

6-8 Grade Science Teachers may register to attend a future workshop at
http://pif.org.pk/scienceteaching/


World Science Collaborative Ltd, in collaboration with, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), The Aga Khan University – Institute of Education Development (AKU-IED), South East Asian Ministerial Organisation (SEAMEO), Indonesia, and Qatar University, Qatar, as well as partners Khawarzimi Science Society (KSS), Lahore; Pakistan Innovation Foundation, Pakistan, and STEMx – STEM School for the World, Islamabad presents a unique workshop to enable teachers to explore and learn how to teach science holistically.

In our society, teaching of science is often extremely siloed and compartmentalised whereby the science teacher delivers the content in the classroom but does not relate what is being taught to the real world nor brings forth (or draws upon) the diverse body of knowledge available in disciplines such as history, philosophy, religion and ethics. In doing so, he/she runs the risk, at the very least, of leaving the scientific learning unconnected, or much worse, leaving the students more confused than informed.

It is absolutely critical, therefore, to teach science holistically i.e. connect the learning in the classroom with the real world, for example, by:

* Bringing together knowledge from diverse sources and disciplines such as science, history, philosophy, religion, and ethics?

* Using hands-on experiments and play to bring inspiration and insight in the science classroom?

* Planning lessons that adequately address the curious minds of students and encourage critical inquiry?

* Addressing Big Philosophical Questions that stem from scientific discoveries such as Big Bang, Multiverses, Genetics, Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, etc.

The Holistic Teaching of Science Workshop is OPEN to ALL Teachers of Science in Middle School (Grades 6-8) at any public, private, or religious (madrassa) school who struggles with teaching modern science in the classroom and wants to do better.

The Holistic Science Teaching Online (Hybrid) Workshop is 1 of 6 Workshops that will be carried out in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Qatar between Dec 2022 and July 2025.