STAFF REPORT KHI: Pakistan has a great potential in multiple fields especially information and communication technology, higher education, modern research, science and technology, management skills and leadership characteristics and if it is exploited effectively, it can land the country amongst the developed states with dignity.
These were the remarks of experts during the recent International Multitopic Conference (IMTIC12) organized by the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) in collaboration with the Allborg University, Erasmus Mundus Mobilty for Life, Higher Education Commission, ICT RandD and Pakistan Science Foundation.
This year the conference received 205 submissions – confirming a trend of increasing interest in IMTIC – coming from over 30 different countries.
The speakers also stressed the need for raising awareness of state-of-the-art research, locally and internationally and providing a platform for Pakistani researchers to express their ideas and research interest and effectively developing professional relations with the experts working in their areas.
In his welcome address, Prof. Dr MA Uqaili, Pro Vice Chancellor, MUET, said that purpose of the IMTIC was to provide opportunities to national and international researchers and practitioners to present the most recent advances and future challenges in the fields of computer and software engineering, electronics, telecommunication, control, multimedia information systems, Green ICT, Energy management, Wireless networks, simulation and modeling.
Prof. Shabbir Khan, who is currently working at NUST as an adjunct faculty and building a new document format for a Silicon Valley startup, said that it is in each and every one of our gene to be creative – to solve difficult problems that confront us on a daily basis on this planet.
Prof. B. M. Azizur Rahman who leads the research group on Photonics Modelling at City University, London, gave his key note on “Photonics, a key enabling technology”.
He said that impact of electronics can be felt in all aspects of our lives and this is clearly evident from the number of papers being presented in this conference. Photonic is a comparatively young technology, and it manipulates faster photons rather than electrons as in electronics, but this technology is rapidly evolved.
Prof. Rahman was the first to develop vector-field finite element method for optical waveguides and subsequently they have developed finite element based junction analysis method and the beam propagation method, which are numerically more efficient than most of the commercial packages, which are predominantly finite difference based. The Finite Element Method uses integral formulation, can consider more efficient irregular shaped elements and can also consider slanted or curved dielectric interfaces to represent practical photonic devices more accurately.
Prof Dr Andrew Kemp, Group Leader, Wireless Sensor Network Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Leeds, UK, the wireless sensor network paradigm has emerged as a highly valuable research area for good reason.
Prof Rob Reilly, President IEEE Education Society and serving as research scientist at Center for Educational Computing Initiatives, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave his keynote on “Learning, Assessment, and Becoming an Engineering Education Leader.
Prof. Neil White, Head of School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK, delivered his keynote on “Energy Harvesting and Wireless Sensor Networks”. He said that the portability of modern-day electronic systems in common use, such as mobile phones, MP3 players puts increasing demands on the batteries used to power such systems.
Prof, Dr Asadullah Shah of Department of Computer Science, Kulliyyah of ICT, IIU Malaysia, said that social networking is unquestionably one of the most vital and influential aspects of todays society. The users of social networking have become so involved in websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Mysapce and others that these websites have become a part of their daily routine.