IBA and AKU collaborate to promote research in Data Science

October 3, 2022: The School of Mathematics & Computer Science, IBA Karachi, and the Department of Paediatrics & Child Health Aga khan University signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop the model proposed under the project title “Prediction of Outcomes Using Recurrent Neural Networks in Critically Ill Children. The MoU signing ceremony was held at AKU Department of Paediatrics & Child Health Faculty Office Building Ground floor Conference Room.

Dr. Shakeel Khoja – Dean of School of Mathematics and Computer Science (SMCS), IBA, and Dr. Fyezah Jehan – Chair of the Department of Paediatrics & Child Health, AKU, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective institutes. This collaboration aims to develop a deep learning methodology, namely a long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network (RNN) for the continuous assessment of critically ill pediatric patients and to predict the risk of mortality of critically ill children using the recurrent neural network system.

The SMCS, IBA team included Dr. Tariq Mahmood (Professor and Program Coordinator, MS CS and MS DS programs), Hira Zahid (Ph.D. Scholar Department of CS) & Mr. Usama Qadeer (Senior Executive - Industrial Linkages SMCS). AKU was represented by Dr. Naveed ur Rehman – (Project Lead), Dr. Qalab Abbas – (Project Co-Lead), Dr. Zainab Samad–(Chair, Department of Medicine); Director, Health Data Science Centre, AKU & Dr. Imran Nisar – (Vice Chair, Research; Department of Paediatrics & Child Health), Ms. Salima Sherali (Manager, Research and Grants Administration, Paeds), Mr. Haseeb Khan (Assistant Manager, Research and Grants Administration, Paeds) & Mr. Akber Madhwani (Sr. Coordinator, Department of Paediatrics & Child Health).

The event commenced with the attendees' introduction, after which Dr. Naveed Rehman & Dr. Tariq Mehmood briefly discussed the collaboration between the parties. Sharing his remarks Dr. Shakeel said that "The School of Mathematics & Computer Science is excited about establishing research links with the AKU". The ceremony ended with the souvenir distributions.