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Showing posts from March, 2014

Musi Ali's Journey to PhD

If you believe in yourself and work hard enough nothing is impossible! Dr. Mustansar Ali Ghazanfar is a young researcher in the field software and IT (machine learning and data mining). He is an inspirational example for young Pakistani students living in remote villages having poor schooling and background. His primary education is from a remote area of Sialkot (Govt. primary school Zafarwal, Narowal), where the schools do not even have basic facilities; such as buildings, furniture, fans, pure water, white/black board, toilets, etc. He with his fellows used to sit on mat (a thick hard cover that is used to store goods for transport) rather than chairs regardless of the weathering conditions. Sometimes, the only shelter they had was trees during bad weathering, that provide cooling during summer and their small branches served as lights and heating source. Furthermore, the teaching standards were really poor—the course was in Urdu, the teachers got no formal tra...
I was busy in my office, writing a software program to predict the stock market future trend using the historical data. The prediction problem is multifaceted and really hard, as the trend depends on a number of factors rather than the historical data; for example, on the news, blogs, social media campaign, a nd politics for example the stock market gambler can intentionally turn the whole market upside down to exploit some shares . The clock struck 12.00 noon, and to relax a bit, I opened the BBC website and was shocked to read that: “Malala has been gunshot by unknown people in Swat region ”. It was really disturbing--- Malala YusufJai , a young 14-years old bright student and activist, is considered as a national brilliance as she has earned international fame for  raising voice against Taliban oppression  in Swat. She became the voice of all Swati girls by writing a diary in the BBC Web-site, famous for her pen name “Gul Makai.” Who is responsib...