A delegation comprising of PSDF (Punjab Skills Development Fund) students and officials of KICS UET Lahore visited Punjab Safe City Authority (PSCA) office, Punjab Police Integrated Command, Control and Communication Centre on 21st March 2019.

The students were from the Networking and Telecom program. They were taken on to visit the safe city where they checked the functions of the safe city very carefully. The delegation was also briefed about the activities of safe city. Later Director KICS Prof. Dr. Waqar Mahmood and Manager ARIL Lab KICS Imran Ali Shah also joined the delegation there.

Since solar PV technology is an investment which can go till next 20 to 25 years or so it needs regular maintenance cost that is a highly important factor to optimize the incentives. It needs to focus on that the dust accumulation on the surface of panels affects the performance in the same way as it is done in a cloudy ambience. Therefore, the cleaning methods prevailing in the world happen to be either much expensive or not time-tested therefore the need of local O&M appears to be much vital in this regard.

Another important issue is the water conservation, which is currently utilized in huge amount while doing manual cleaning (however not very frequent), whereas the cost of labor put an extra burden to the plant owner. In this scenario, the design of an autonomous solution to provide best cleaning results and reasonable cost is key milestone in this project. AERIL’s automatic controlled process will work in comparison to conventional cleaning methods providing a reasonable pay-back time and satisfying return on investment to stakeholders.

The cleaning commercial projects and their costs are quite high. Thus this project of AERIL will bring in affordable cost. Today the worth of solar technology is high and it is going to have the biggest share in future and increasing growth of solar industry also signifies the requirement of solution for the only maintenance issue of solar system throughout its life. In present scenario, no such product is available in the local market; therefore, it will solve the local industry problem of maintenance for solar systems.

The product is laced with various enticing and rich features which will add values to it include:

• Easy to operate
• Lesser Men hours will be required
• Low water consumption
• Self-sustainable & Energy efficient
• Portable & Cascade able

The clear-cut goal of this project or product is to improve the water efficiency, reduce operation cost, mobility and portability.

Where University of Engineering and Technology Lahore is famous for producing the top class engineers, so is its institute ‘Al-Khawarazmi Institute of Computer Science (KICS)’ which was launched way back in year 2002 with the help of government of the Punjab. It was initiated with an objective of conducting research and development activities in the areas of information and computational technology (ICT) in collaboration with local industries and international research and academic organizations. With the rapid and ongoing achievements, features and research activities – KICS has undoubtedly emerged as a big noticeable feather in UET’s cap on which the university feels proud by highlighting its activities and research works.  

KICS UET very aptly and enthusiastically works on its vision to become a leading research and advance technology organization in critical areas of national interest. The institute keeps providing the country with trained resources for development of high-tech products and services. With the continuous help of the institute, Research and Development culture is being promoted in the country through technology innovation and industrial collaborations. KICS enjoys mammoth collaborations with industry and these collaborations bring up lucrative projects which turn out to be fruits for the economy of Pakistan.

The institute conducts research and development activities in the field of ICT making handsome amount of collaborations with not only local but also with international research and academic organizations. Soon after its inception, KICS became the premier research and advanced technology organization. Additionally, the institute is surely a leading resource of research and development. It enacts a pivotal role in taking the country towards knowledge-based economy and competitive industrialization. Since it is a research center, it keeps providing the country with trained resources for development of high tech products and services.

KICS’ researches on various subjects are always in demand and in talks and the center is famous for its research activities as well, this is why it keeps getting conferred with numerous distinctions. The latest to its feather include being one of the top ICT research centers in Pakistan selected as resource center in a joint study by HEC and IDB and being selected as Pioneer Research Organization in Pakistan by a joint survey of Knowledge Platform and British Council with the endorsement of HEC.

Research facilities at KICS include Research Labs, Advanced Technology Centers, Training and Technology Incubation. The institute enjoys the distinction of running 25 research labs which are working on various lucrative and attention-fetching research projects and they are the one which become parts of country’s economy. Most of the projects are backed by HEC, Pakistan.

The labs functioning at KICS work on research activities such as Communication Technologies, Software Systems, AI Technologies, Power Systems, Language Engineering and Technology Incubation.

The mainly focused research projects include Urdu Search Engine (Ignite Rs.33.6M), Access to Urdu Content (HEC Rs.27.42M), Development of RADAR VHF (Joint initiative with Bismillah Electronics), Concealed Weapon Detection (HEC NRPU), Implementation of Standard Security Framework for IoT , Development of Next Generation IoT Firewall , Security Audit Tools for IoT OS, Hardware and Frameworks, Hybrid Power Monitoring and Control System, Prototyping and deployment of Gun shot detection, Sound Classification and object localization for “Punjab Safe City Authority (PSCA)” Lahore. (5.4M), Buried body detection for life saving in disaster situation, Professional Training Program (Data Science, AI, Image Processing, Text Processing, Android Development, Game Development, IoS…), Design, development, implementation and support services of ERP and Non ERP solutions in UET and it’s all campuses, Designing 3D Games, Automatic Surveillance System for Video Streams (Ignite Rs.26M), A Semantic Engine for Text Management using Ontology and Knowledge Engineering (HEC TDF, Rs.7M), Virtual Brain: Brain Modeling with Brain Computer Interface for Robot Navigation (HEC 5.2M), VR based Neurogaming For Mindfulness In Children (HEC TDF 4.79), Brain Controlled Wheelchair (HEC TDF, 6.7M), Human Mind Gauge: Computational Model of Brain & its applications using Brain Computer Interface, Comstech- (TWAS, 15000 USD), iFruitfly Detector, Structure Recognition System, Unmanned Power Grid Remote Control Devices & Monitoring Systems for MEPCO (MEPCO, 6.8 M), Common Delivery Points (CDPs) Central Data Acquisition from System – CCDAS (WAPDA, 1.5 M), Software Development for Customized Invoice Processing Automation System (IPAS) for :Sapphire Electric Power Company Rs.2.0MOrient Power Rs.2.0M, Energy Extraction by safe disposal of Municipal Waste using Nanotechnology (HEC-TDF 6.60 M), Design and Development of an Automatic, Robotized and Portable Cleaning System for Solar Photovoltaic Plants (HEC-TDF 1.88 M), Design and Development of Capacity Tester for Valve Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) Batteries (HEC-TDF 1.41 M), Implementation of optimal energy consumption and distributed energy      generation strategy (HEC-NRPU 7.61 M), Energy Efficiency Advisor Program (GIZ, Rs.10 Million) , PLC Courses (PSDF), Establishment of  Air Conditioning Unit Testing Lab at UET Lahore (Rs.84 Million, Punjab Energy Department) , Gadget (Test Bench) Development for Water Pump/Agricultural Tube Well Energy Efficiency Measurement and Improvement (HEC-TDF, Rs.5.99), Training Courses on PLC (PSDF, Rs.1.2M per Annum), raining Courses on Instrumentation (PSDF, Rs. 3.6 M per Annum), Double axis tracking system for PV Panels and Parabolic Trough, Tracking system for heliostat mirrors, Drive train for electrical vehicle, Development of drive for BLDC Motor, Sensor fusion and embedded controls for hybrid vehicle, Urdu Search Engine, National (Ignite, Rs. 33M), Local Language Speech Interfaces for Banking Sector (HEC, Rs. 4.02 M), Automatic Postal Address Recognition and Parcel Routing(HEC,Rs.4.62M), Text-to-Speech for Urdu: Understanding Intonation,(DAAD,€30K), Crime Detection: Video Surveillance and Gunshot Detection, Crime Prevention: Crowd Analytics and Social Media Analytics, Crime Mitigation: Forensic Animation and Professional Trainings, Urdu Data Analytics, Urdu Language Processing , Collaborative Robots, Exoskeletonm and Active Prostheses.

HUTIC (Huawei UET Joint Telecom IT Center) was another feather to KICS’ success cap. It was launched in 2003 with collaboration with Huawei Technologies. Today it is Huawei Authorized Information and Network Academy (HAINA). A number of professional training courses are being conducted at KICS such as HCNA, HCNP, HCS-IVS, CCNA, CCNP, HCNP, CCSU and to name a few.

A state of the art professional center of KICS UET was launched in Model Town to deliver professional trainings two years back.  KICS’ Pearson Lab is committed to conduct exams like CISCO, Microsoft, GMAT, Saui Commission of Health Specialist, Oracle and many others.

The institute’s main distinction is to conduct international conferences where foreign universities delegations together with local delegates come under one roof along with industry. The conferences like ICOSST (International Conference on Open Source Systems and Technologies) and ICECE (International Conference on Electronics and Communication Engineering) every year fetch a lot of attention from researchers, government and private sectors and people from all walks of life. Invited talks, workshops, roundtables, seminars, paper presentations and industrial exhibitions are the main parts of these international conferences.  ICOSST has been conducted by KICS for last 12 years.

325 people work at the institute including PhDs and MS. KICS’s funding sources include HEC and many local and international organizations.

Research culture is everywhere in the entire institute and it is its research activities and projects which make KICS prominent in the country. It is UET’s most integral part.

KICS UET arranged an invited talk on ‘Resilient Network Load Balancing for Data Centers’ on 12^th March 2019 in Seminar Hall at KICS, UET Lahore. The speaker of this talk was Dr. Syed Mohammad Irteza who has BS, MS and PhD degrees in Computer Science from LUMS. His broad research interests lie in networks and systems with a focus on datacenter networking. Irteza has published in top-tier networking conferences such as ACM SIGCOMM and IEEE INFOCOM, as well as prestigious journals such as IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking. He is such a brilliant teacher as well, as he has taught undergraduate computer science courses at Air University, FAST-Islamabad and LUMS. Besides, he has also served in many famed software companies for 4 years. Irteza has also been awarded with awarded the best in-session presenter award at IEEE INFOCOM 2017 in Atlanta, USA, and was an invited attendee at the Research Summer School 2014 at Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK.

Since data centers provide the backbone for online services such as web search and social networks thus to deliver high bandwidth to such services, modern datacenters are often structured as multi-rooted tree topologies, resulting in multiple paths between every pair of servers, this talk was all about this topic which he covered splendidly. His talk grabbed the eyeballs and the participation including researchers, faculty members and others got attracted towards his presentation.

A Symposium on ‘Open Education in Pakistan’ was held in Seminar Hall at KICS (Al-Khawarazmi Institute of Computer Science), UET Lahore on 12^th March, 2019. It was organized with close collaboration between KICE UET Lahore and Mechatronics. The intention to conduct this mammoth symposium was to extend the awareness and usefulness of open systems to all the knowledge workers, faculty members, students and researchers. A good participation was witnessed at the occasion and everyone took deep interest in this unique event.

This symposium was arranged under the umbrella of Open Education Consortium that conducts programs of this ilk across the globe. This organization has been advocating open systems for the last three years. This year it is celebrating Open Education Week 2019 by organizing a symposium on Open Systems.

The event was laced with presentations on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in Pakistan, Open Access (OA), Open Educational Resources (OERs), Open Textbooks to MOOCs and Engineering. The speakers who delivered talks on these topics included Dr. Sajid Iqbal (Department of Mechatronics & Control Engineering), Ms. Maliha Bukhsi (Department of Mechatronics & Control Engineering), Dr. Ammad Hassan Khan (Department of Transportation Engineering), Dr. Ammad Hassan Khan (Department of Transportation Engineering) and Dr. Ijaz Miraj (National Library of Engineering Sciences).

Prof. Dr. Waqar Mahmood (Director KICS UET) delivered a presentation on ‘MOOCs in Pakistan’. He emphasized on the importance of this new trend which has been accepted largely around the world. Millions and millions of students have turned towards it by enrolling themselves into horde of programs being offered by the famous universities in the world. Dr. Waqar then talked about the platforms offering MOOCs by universities such as Coursera, Udemy and many others.

The event winded up with the distribution of the shields among the speakers.

An MOU signing ceremony was held at Institute of Arts and Culture (IAC) in Raiwind, Lahore. The memorandum of understanding was inked between IAC and KICS (Al-Khawarazmi Institute of Computer Science), UET Lahore on 11^th March, 2019. A delegation consisting of Director KICS Prof. Dr. Waqar Mahmood, Manager SSR (KICS) & Asociate Professor Computer Science Prof. Dr. Usman Ghani, Assistant Manager Game Studio UET Hammad Ali Butt and others attended this ceremony. From the side of Institute of Arts and Culture, Vice Chancellor Prof. Sajida Haider Vandal, Pro Vice Chancellor Prof. Pervaiz Vandal, Dean of Art Prof. Zafar Iqbal and Assistant Professor Agha Reza were present at the agreement ceremony.

Dr. Waqar Mahmood and Prof. Sajida Haider Vandal (Vice Chancellor IAC) signed the agreement in presence of the officials from both sides.

Talking at the occasion, Prof. Sajida shared her deep concern regarding the art and culture in the country. She also mentioned that with the help of other universities and colleges, IAC had been spreading awareness among the students for arts. Thus, the same the institute was looking from UET, mentioned the Vice Chancellor.

Dr. Waqar Mahmood also seconded her views and agreed to help the institute in the manners required for the awareness of the art in UET, Lahore.

The MOU was signed to develop and conduct training and degree programs mutually. Game Development programs will be conducted mutually according to this agreement. Initially, diplomas in game development will start soon. KICS UET’s team’s expertise will be utilized in these programs.

Al-Khawarazmi Institute of Computer Science (KICS) UET Lahore organized an inspirational talk on the subject of ’10 Great Habits of a True Muslim’ a few days back in Seminar Hall of KICS. A number of students, faculty members and others attended this talk and liked it thoroughly. Dr. Waqar Mahmood (Director KICS) also attended it. Muhammad Azeem was the speaker who is laced with more than 30 years of corporate experience working at middle management level in top notch companies of Pakistan. In his long repertoire, he has the big names like Avari Hotel, Dane Foods Limited, Presson Descon Ltd and Packages Limited. Currently he is serving as a Senior Manager in Treet Corporation Limited.

Mr. Muhammad Azeem has a passion for learning and he holds an M.Phil degree in Supply Chain Management from Superior University and a Diploma in Business Management from LUMS.

According to the glorious teachings of Islam, a Muslim should adopt all good habits and avoid bad habits to get the pleasure of Allah SWT. In his talk, he spoke about the 10 great habits which a Muslim should adopt in his or her life to obtain success, peace and tranquility both here and hereafter.

An MOU was signed between Al-Khawarazmi Institute of Computer Science (KICS) UET Lahore and Punjab Safe City Authority to overcome traffic violations and detection of the criminal activities to overpower them. Since the traffic violations has increased a lot in the country and in particular in Punjab and with the efforts and laws implementations the rate of these violations have decreased noticeably, the projects to be done under this MOU will further manage the traffic rules and violations. Same is the case with crimes in the region of Punjab, thus the project to be done under this agreement will minimize the criminal activities to a larger extent.

The research teams at KICS UET will develop software (two projects) – Video Analytics and Crowd Analytics to overcome the traffic violations and crime control. With the help of Video Analytics software, auto detection of the criminal activities will be done and a complete analysis report to be delivered to work on.

With the help of Crowd Analytics software, the traffic rules breaking and violation will be noticed and captured. The analytics report will help the authorities to take an action against the violators.

At MOU signing ceremony, the team from KICS UET Lahore consisting of Prof. Dr. Waqar Mahmood (Director KICS), Dr. Tahir (Manager NWN Lab KICS), Dr. Usman Ghani (Manager SSR and CVML Labs KICS), Umar and Hammad Hassan (Team Lead at NWN Lab KICS) were present at the occasion.

Dr. Waqar Mahmood and Akbar Nasir Khan (COO Punjab Safe City Authority) signed the agreement.