KARACHI: Researchers, scholars, professionals and students gathered for a two-day international conference at Karachi University (KU) on Saturday where they discussed the recent developments in information and communication technology, their future possibilities and how they could impact human life.

Titled ‘First international conference on information science and communication technology’, the event was organised by the KU’s department of computer science in the ICCBS (International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences) auditorium.

Delivering a keynote speech on artificial intelligence at the inaugural session, Dr Jonathan Andrew Ware, senior professor of computing at the University of South Wales, United Kingdom, said that neural networks (a computer system modelled on the human brain and nervous system) had helped project artificial intelligence to the forefront of computational development.

Neural networks, according to him, are an attempt to do things with a computer in a similar way as our brain performs various tasks.

However, he pointed out that while neural networks had been applied successfully to help solve a wide range of real-world problems, their use had generated a reasonable amount of controversy.

Elaborating on this, he said neural networks “were in essence a black box in nature and when utilised with big data sources that were not always representative of the complete picture, they could result in unintended consequences”.

Professor Andrew, whose main research interest is the application of artificial intelligence techniques, also shed light on innovative and dynamic initiatives aimed at stimulating interest in computing and its related disciplines among young people.

He also talked about “strong and weak artificial intelligence” and described the latter as efforts aimed at finding solutions for specific individual problems whereas the former was about creating real, human-like intelligence in machines.

“Today, we have faster computers with more memory and more sophisticated techniques that can help use do complex processing,” he noted.

In his presentation, Dr Paulo P. Monteiro, University of Aveiro, Portugal, focused on reflectometry and communication systems beyond 5G and highlighted the challenges to be experienced with explosive growth of data traffic coupled with the explosion in the number of reflectometry systems.

Earlier, Dr Mohammad Shahid Shaikh of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Karachi section, informed the audience about the conference’s aims and objectives and hoped that students and practitioners would get maximum advantage from the event being attended by local and international experts.

“I believe that this conference will provide a platform to share thoughts, exchange ideas and to collectively figure out a way to chart our journey forward for even greater contributions to society,” he noted.

Dr Mohammad Sadiq Ali Khan, the chairman of KU’s computer science department, in his welcome address spoke about the topics to be discussed during the conference.

Dr Bhawani Shanker Chowdhry and Dr Badar Sami also spoke.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2019