Business & Commerce Technology

With AI Summit 2019, 10Pearls Celebrates the Progress of AI in Pakistan

AI Summit 2019, an initiative of 10Pearls, aims to celebrate the progress of AI in Pakistan. The Summit’s inaugural ceremony was held at 10Pearls Karachi, and was attended by leading tech enterprises, start-ups and students.

10Pearls, an end-to-end digital services company, launched AI Summit 2019, a pioneering conference and expo to facilitate the growth of AI in Pakistan. The inaugural ceremony of which was held on August 24, 2019 at 10Pearls Karachi, while the mega event will be held at ITCN Asia on September 17, 2019.

The purpose of the inaugural ceremony was to provide an exclusive platform for all AI enthusiasts to come together with like-minded individuals and companies to give exposure to AI products created by Pakistanis.

The ceremony was attended by more than 170 people, which included professionals and students, it kicked off with Sana Hussain, Director Human Capital, 10Pearls, giving a brief introduction about the Summit and 10Pearls University (a section of 10Pearls dedicated solely to promote new technologies and tech skills to anyone who wishes to learn).

The keynote was conducted by Veqar-ul-Islam, Chief Executive, Jaffer Business Systems (of Jaffer Group) in which he talked about how enterprises can scale and reach their maximum potential using a simple approach.

“Complexity creates problems; keeping things simple is a tactic which can solve a lot of issues,” Islam shared.

Ten selected exhibitors were also announced (out of more than 120 applications received) who will get the chance to showcase their AI-based products at the ITCN Asia, reaching out to thousands of potential investors, partners and other tech enthusiasts.

In addition to this, interactive product demos of unique and innovative AI products were also showcased. These products, all made by Pakistani tech evangelists, covered all walks of life. From improving the traffic management in urban cities to better predictive analysis for crime investigations to early cancer detection, the products showcased how artificial intelligence can improve businesses and even society as a whole.

Speaking about Aqua Agro, one of the products showcased, Ramla Kaleem, CEO, Aqua Agro, said, “Our product uses IoT gadgets, which are deployed in farms for data collection and analysis, offering helpful prediction services.”

The ceremony also included an engaging panel discussion on how AI is transforming businesses. The panel, moderated by Mesum Raza of Karachi AI, included Muneeb Maayr, Founder, Bykea, Muhammad Hassan Raza, Cloud Solution Architect, Microsoft, Sajid Banday, Solution Architect at Inseyab Consulting and Zeeshan Aftab, Co-Founder, 10Pearls. The discussion covered many points such as which businesses will benefit the most from AI and at what point in time, identifying core problems, and the challenges and opportunities that AI holds in future.

“We need AI to understand whether the rule or algorithm for a certain business process will have an impact on the overall productivity or not?”, Maayr raised the question, while Aftab emphasized that, “A key area to explore is capacity building for AI resources, educating the youth and shaping the future.”

Apart from the demos and panel discussion, a tech talk on the opportunities around computer vision and deep learning was also conducted by Khurram Sultan, a PhD scholar at the IBA. The inaugural concluded with a hands-on workshop on Data Analysis using Python. Arranged by Karachi.AI and conducted by Ali Raza Bhayani, Founder, Python Software Foundation Pakistan, the workshop explained data interpretation and discussed quantitative thinking with data visualization and data migrations. Attended by 150 students and professionals, the workshop was a huge success with certificates awarded to all the participants.

Moving forward, the registrations for the AI Summit 2019 at ITCN Asia (Expo Center Karachi) will be opening this week.

Partnerships

10Pearls partnered with various organizations to launch AI Summit 2019. At the Summit’s inaugural, all the partners were provided the platform to share their vision and work in Artificial Intelligence. These included Anas Ayubi, Co-Founder, Pakistani.AI (Strategic Partner of AI Summit 2019) and Nashtran Khalid, Manager, HR, NIC Karachi (Event Partner). An MoU was also signed between ITCN Asia and 10Pearls to make their partnership official. Umair Nizam, VP Ecommerce Gateway Pakistan (the organizer of ITCN Asia conference) signed the MoU on ITCN’s behalf.

Jehan Ara, President, P@SHA (Summit’s Community Partner) and Nest I/O, spoke about the importance and role of AI and the partnership between P@SHA with 10Pearls to launch AI Summit 2019. These included Karachi.AI as the knowledge partner of the AI Summit; Pakistani.AI as the Strategic Partner;  and NIC Karachi as the Event Partner. An MoU was also signed between ITCN Asia and 10Pearls to make their partnership official. Umair Nizam, VP Ecommerce Gateway Pakistan (the organizer of ITCN Asia conference) signed the MoU on ITCN’s behalf.

Source – Pro Pakistani