The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the way societies live and function. It has become a catalyst for a significant change in Pakistan’s digital scenario. Working from home, video conferences, online classes, and payments and purchases using cards and cell phones are increasingly becoming the new norm.
The question arises: Is Pakistan fully prepared to use digital technologies and platforms to manage businesses and operations from home? Can Pakistan convert this current unavoidable situation into an opportunity for radically changing its use of digital technologies?
We invite you to join us for the seventh session of LUMS Live with our distinguished panelists from the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE) at LUMS; Dr. Ihsan Ayyub Qazi, Dr. Zartash Afzal Uzmi, and Dr. Maryam Mustafa, who will share insights on the digital aspects of the current situation and how prepared we are to deal with them.
Date: Thursday, April 23, 2020
Time: 4:00 pm
The session will be moderated by Mr. Adeel Hashmi and broadcast live via the LUMS Facebook page.
During the session, please use the live stream's comments bar to ask questions or email your questions to ask@lums.edu.pk. After the session, please give us your feedback and suggest topics or guests for future discussions here.
Profiles of Panelists
Dr. Ihsan Ayyub Qazi – Chair, Department of Computer Science, School of Science and Engineering, LUMS
Dr. Ihsan Ayyub Qazi is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Syed Babar Ali School of Engineering and Science, LUMS. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh, USA in 2010 and worked as a Visiting Research Scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, USA in 2017. His research interests are in cloud computing, ICT for development, online privacy, and public policy. He is a recipient of the prestigious Google Faculty Research Award, Facebook Research Award, and the ACM SIGCOMM CCR best paper award for his works on designing technologies to make the internet more affordable and faster for low income groups and combating fake news among low digital literacy populations. He has published extensively in leading computer science conferences and journals.
Dr. Zartash Afzal Uzmi - Associate Professor, Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, School of Science and Engineering, LUMS
Dr. Zartash Uzmi is an academician, a researcher and an entrepreneur. He has been a LUMS faculty since 2002 after receiving his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He is the founder of various initiatives at the University including the LUMS Space Observatory, the 4G/5G lab and the LUMS Centre of Entrepreneurship (now NIC, Lahore). Dr. Uzmi is also the Co-founder of Confiz and Pakwheels, the leading software platforms of Pakistan. He has been instrumental in building a strong bi-lateral channel between the industry and the top academia of the country, serving on several advisory and selection boards. Presently, he also serves on the Prime Minister’s National Task Force on IT and Telecom.
Dr. Maryam Mustafa - Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, School of Science and Engineering, LUMS
Dr. Maryam Mustafa has a PhD in Computer Science from the Technical University of Braunschweig. Her work is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on areas like cognition, perception and anthropology to inform the design of digital technologies for the developing context. More recently, Dr. Mustafa’s work has focused on the gendered design of technologies to promote equitable access for women in Pakistan. Her work has appeared in premier HCI conferences including the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems and ACM Interactions. Her work has been funded by the Gates Foundation and the United States National Science Foundation.
