Comment by Riaz Haq on June 23, 2023 at 1:57pm

Joint Statement from the United States and India (part on AI cooperation) | The White House


https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/0...


President Biden and Prime Minister Modi welcomed the establishment of a joint Indo-U.S. Quantum Coordination Mechanism to facilitate collaboration among industry, academia, and government, and our work toward a comprehensive Quantum Information Science and Technology agreement. The United States welcomes India’s participation in the Quantum Entanglement Exchange and in the Quantum Economic Development Consortium to facilitate expert and commercial exchanges with leading, like-minded quantum nations. The United States and India will sustain and grow quantum training and exchange programs and work to reduce barriers to U.S.-India research collaboration. The leaders welcomed the launch of a $2million grant program under the U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment fund for the joint development and commercialization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and quantum technologies, and encouraged public-private collaborations to develop high performance computing (HPC) facilities in India. President Biden also reiterated his government’s commitment to work with U.S. Congress to lower barriers to U.S. exports to India of HPC technology and source code. The U.S. side pledged to make its best efforts in support of India’s Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) joining the U.S. Accelerated Data Analytics and Computing (ADAC) Institute.


Both President Biden and Prime Minister Modi acknowledge the profound opportunities and significant risks associated with AI. Accordingly, they committed to develop joint and international collaboration on trustworthy and responsible AI, including generative AI, to advance AI education and workforce initiatives, promote commercial opportunities, and mitigate against discrimination and bias. The United States also supports India’s leadership as Chair of the Global Partnership on AI. The leaders applauded Google’s intent to continue investing through its $10 billion India Digitization Fund, including in early-stage Indian startups. Through its AI Research Center in India, Google is building models to support over 100 Indian languages.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 25, 2023 at 10:28am

Pakistan sets an audacious goal for AI in education system – Cryptopolitan

https://www.cryptopolitan.com/pakistan-audacious-goal-ai-education-...

TL;DR Breakdown

Pakistan's Ministry of IT & Telecom has drafted an ambitious policy to integrate AI in its education system, aiming to transform into a knowledge-based economy.
The government plans to train a million IT graduates in AI and related technologies by 2027, recruiting 10,000 new trainers for the task.
By 2026, the policy seeks to fund 1,000 AI-led R&D initiatives and register over 2,000 AI-related patents.
Pakistan, in an audacious push for technological growth, has charted an ambitious course for the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its education system.

The country’s Ministry of IT & Telecom has forged a policy aimed at catalyzing the rise of AI, signaling its readiness to adapt to the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

In its pursuit to transform into a knowledge-based economy, Pakistan is gearing up to invest in and nurture human capital proficient in AI and related technologies.

Transforming the educational landscape with AI
Central to Pakistan’s AI policy is the goal of instilling AI competencies in the country’s workforce. As per a survey conducted by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication in 2022, a scanty portion of the IT and computing workforce – less than ten percent – were found to be adept in AI and allied technologies.

In a determined stride to bridge this gap, the government has declared its commitment to training one million IT graduates in AI and related technologies by the year 2027.

This monumental effort will necessitate the recruitment of at least 10,000 trainers who can deliver high-impact education in AI and associated fields, as stated in a draft of the National Artificial Intelligence Policy.

Not limiting its vision to education alone, the ministry has also set forth ambitious objectives related to research and development, and intellectual property.

By 2026, the policy stipulates the funding of at least 1,000 AI-led R&D initiatives in academic and private sectors. Furthermore, Pakistan aims to register over 2,000 AI-related patents by the same year.

A pragmatic approach toward digital currencies
As Pakistan strides toward an AI-enhanced future, it maintains a cautious stance toward the domain of digital currencies. The country’s Finance Minister, Aisha Ghaus Pasha, recently announced that cryptocurrency will never be legalized in Pakistan.

A stringent ban on digital currencies is being put into effect, with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Information Technology Ministry tasked with its implementation.

The ban on cryptocurrencies, although seemingly restrictive, has its roots in pragmatic considerations. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body founded by the G7, has advised against the legalization of cryptocurrencies.

By aligning with the FATF’s directives, Pakistan seeks to secure a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and avert inclusion in the FATF’s gray list of countries with unsatisfactory Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing practices.

The grand vision underpinning Pakistan’s National AI Policy embodies a comprehensive strategy to capitalize on the potential of AI to boost the nation’s economy and improve the lives of its citizens.

The policy offers a roadmap for the responsible and effective adoption of AI, aiming for long-term and sustainable benefits. It sets forth a plethora of developmental initiatives to stimulate AI-led innovation and facilitate industry-academia collaborations.

Through progressive, evidence-based, and forward-looking measures, Pakistan aims to usher in a transformative era of AI-enabled growth. The country’s focused efforts to empower its young population with AI skills and foster a dynamic AI economy underscore its resolve to harness the next frontier of technological opportunities.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 28, 2023 at 5:03pm

Top European Research Labs Select Three teams of Secondary school students-- One Each Netherlands, Pakistan and the US--For Own Accelerator Beam Experiments at CERN and DESY


https://home.cern/news/press-release/cern/three-teams-secondary-sch...


Geneva and Hamburg, 28 June 2023. In 2023, for the second time in the history of the Beamline for Schools competition, the evaluation committee selected three winning teams. The team “Myriad Magnets” from the Philips Exeter Academy, in Exeter, United States, and the team “Particular Perspective”, which brings together pupils from the Islamabad College for Boys, the Supernova School in Islamabad, the Cadet College in Hasanabdal, the Siddeeq Public School in Rawalpindi and the Cedar College in Karachi, Pakistan, will travel to CERN, Geneva, in September 2023 to perform the experiments that they proposed. The team “Wire Wizards” from the Augustinianum school in Eindhoven, Netherlands, will be hosted at DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Hamburg, Germany) to carry out its experiment.


Beamline for Schools (BL4S) is a physics competition open to secondary school pupils from all around the world. The participants are invited to prepare a proposal for a physics experiment that can be undertaken at the beamline of a particle accelerator. A beamline is a facility that provides high-energy fluxes of subatomic particles that can be used to conduct experiments in different fields, including fundamental physics, material science and medicine.

---
“Congratulations to this year’s winners – may they have good beams, collect interesting data and generally have the time of their lives,” says Christoph Rembser, a CERN physicist at the ATLAS experiment and one of the founders of Beamline for Schools. “Every year I am astonished by how many young people submit very creative, interesting proposals. In 2014, we weren’t sure at all whether this competition would work. Ten years and 16 000 participants later, I am proud to say that it is obviously a resounding success.”

The fruitful collaboration between CERN and DESY started in 2019 during the shutdown period of the CERN accelerators. This year, the German laboratory will host its fifth team of winners.


------

The Pakistan team “Particular Perspective” will measure in detail the beam composition of the T10 beamline of the CERN Proton Synchrotron accelerator. The experiment set-up they designed will make it possible to differentiate between different particle species and measure their intensity.

“I am grateful to BL4S for having provided me with an opportunity to represent my country, Pakistan, and its budding community of aspiring physicists. This is a chance for us to experience physics at the highest level and will inspire people with interests similar to ours to reach greater heights,” says Muhammad Salman Tarar from the “Particular Perspective” team.

-------

The “Wire Wizards” team’s experiment focuses on detector development. The Dutch students designed and built a multi-wire proportional chamber (MWPC), a gas detector able to measure the position of a particle interacting with it, and they plan to characterise it using the electron beam available at DESY.

“The BL4S competition provides us with a unique educational experience that will be a highlight in our time as students,” says Leon Verreijt from the “Wire Wizards” team.

The winners have been selected by a committee of CERN and DESY scientists from a shortlist of 27 particularly promising experiments. All the teams in the shortlist will be awarded special prizes. In addition, one team will be recognised for the most creative video and 10 teams for the quality of physics outreach activities they are organising in their local communities, taking advantage of the knowledge gained by taking part in BL4S.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 3, 2023 at 7:35am

Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate) - Pakistan, India | Data


Bangladesh 54%

Pakistan 54%

India 74%

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.EMP.VULN.ZS?locations=PK-IN-BD


------------

Sandeep Manudhane
@sandeep_PT
Why the size of the economy means little
a simple analysis

1) We are often told that India is now a $3.5 trillion economy. It is growing fast too. Hence, we must be happy with this growth in size as it is the most visible sign of right direction. This is the Quantity is Good argument.

2) We are told that such growth can happen only if policies are right, and all engines of the GDP - consumption, exports, investment, govt. consumption - are doing their job well. We tend to believe it.

3) We are also told that unless GDP grows, how can Indians (on average) grow? Proof is given to us in the form of 'rising per capita incomes' of India. And we celebrate "India racing past the UK" in GDP terms, ignoring that the average Indian today is 20 times poorer than the average Britisher.

4) All this reasoning sounds sensible, logical, credible, and utterly worth reiterating. So we tend to think - good, GDP size on the whole matters the most.

5) Wrong. This is not how it works in real life.

6) It is wrong due to three major reasons
(a) Distribution effect
(b) Concentration of power effect
(c) Inter-generational wealth and income effect

7) First comes the distribution effect. Since 1991, the indisputable fact recorded by economists is that "rich have gotten richer, and poor steadily stagnant or poorer". Thomas Piketty recorded it so well he's almost never spoken in New India now! Thus, we have a super-rich tiny elite of 2-3% at the top, and a vast ocean of stagnant-income 70-80% down below. And this is not changing at all. Do not be fooled by rising nominal per capita figures - factor in inflation and boom! And remember - per capita is an average figure, and it conceals the concentration.

8) Second is the Concentration of power effect. RBI ex-deputy governor Viral Acharya wrote that just 5 big industrial groups - Tata, Birlas, Adanis, Ambanis, Mittals - now disproportionately own the economic assets of India, and directly contribute to inflation dynamics (via their pricing power). This concentration is rising dangerously each year for some time now, and all government policies are designed to push it even higher. Hence, a rising GDP size means they corner more and more and more of the incremental annual output. The per capita rises, but somehow magically people don't experience it in 'steadily improving lives'.

9) Third is the Inter-generational wealth and income effect. Ever wondered why more than 90% of India is working in unstructured, informal jobs, with near-zero social security? Ever wondered why rich families smoothly pass on 100% of their assets across generations while paying zero taxes? Ever wondered how taxes paid by the rich as a per cent of their incomes are not as high as those paid by you and me (normal citizens)? India has no inheritance tax, but has a hugely corporate-friendly tax regime with many policies tailor-made to augment their wealth. Trickle down is impossible in this system. But that was the spiel sold to us in 1991, and later, each year! There is no incentive for giant corporates (and rich folks) to generate more formal jobs, as an ocean of underpaid slaves is ready to slog their entire lives for them. Add to that automation, and now, AI systems!

SUMMARY
Sadly, as India's GDP grows in size, it means little for the masses because trickle-down is near zero. That is because new formal jobs aren't being generated at scale at all (which in itself is a big topic for analysis).
So, our Quantity of GDP is different from Quality of GDP.


https://twitter.com/sandeep_PT/status/1675421203152896001?s=20

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 5, 2023 at 1:13pm

Aatif Awan
@aatif_awan
1/ Starting from Pakistan's heartland & now expanding to the world's farm (Brazil), what a journey it's been for the
@FarmdarOfficial
team. Congrats to them on launching AgromAI, a fintech venture in Brazil that leverages AI & geospatial data to create agri financial solutions

https://twitter.com/aatif_awan/status/1676570789913542657?s=20

-----------------


Aatif Awan
@aatif_awan
2/ Think insurers having highly accurate, individual farm-level intelligence to underwrite crop insurance. Imagine banks using the same information to provide credit to farmers. At $170+ billion, Brazil is one of the top agri markets. Crop insurance alone is at ~ $2B annually


-------------


Aatif Awan
@aatif_awan
3/ What's amazing is that the tech is built in Pakistan by Pakistani product and engineering talent. And it's finding traction in one of the largest markets for agritech


------------------


Aatif Awan
@aatif_awan
4/ Really proud of the Farmdar founders
@MBukhari80
,
@MujiManghi
, Ibrahim Akbar Bokhari and the entire Farmdar team on this huge milestone. Congrats team!

We hope this will inspire many other "Made in Pakistan, For the World" products

-----------

Pakistan’s Farmdar Has Just Launched a New FinTech Startup in Brazil

https://www.techjuice.pk/pakistans-farmdar-has-just-launched-a-new-...

https://twitter.com/FarmdarOfficial/status/1676487324614402050?s=20

Named ‘AgromAI’, Farmdar’s fintech startup in Brazil will use artificial intelligence (AI) and geospatial data to provide financial services
Pakistan based agri-tech startup ‘Farmdar’ has just announced the launch of its new fintech venture. What’s unique about this new expansion is the fact that it is based in Brazil; a new industry in a new country, sounds exciting right?

Named ‘AgromAI’, Farmdar’s new fintech startup will utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and geospatial data in order to provide financial services, but how would it do so?

Well, according to Farmdar co-founder and CEO Muzaffar Manghi, Latin America is going through a severe climate change, therefore both rainfall and temperatures are evolving at a massive speed, putting both insurers and agricultural business at risk.

AgromAI, using its geospatial data and artificial intelligence systems, will make sure that financial institutions and insurers can avoid and respond to these risks. Having individual farm-level intelligence, these insurers and institutions will have the best insurance risk management in place, allowing an increased productivity and growth in Brazil’s agricultural sector.

“Pakistani technology will be used by some of the largest businesses in the world, and with more developed markets as a stomping ground,” said CEO Muzaffar Manghi while talking about the new startup.

“We are extremely proud to export our artificial intelligence and data-backed products developed solely by Pakistani engineers. This is a testament to the innovation of Pakistani talent and their potential to make a contribution to the global agritech industry,” said Farmdar in its official press release.

Agriculture makes up for a large part of the Brazilian economy, with the country being the world’s third-largest exporter of agricultural products and an agricultural production valued at $170+ billion, whereas Brazil’s crop insurance market, the primary target for AgromAI, accounts for over $9+ billion annually.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 6, 2023 at 8:12am

The West needs to get real about India | The Strategist

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-west-needs-to-get-real-about-...


by John McCarthy, ex Australian Ambassador to India

The first is that India’s economic promise—particularly as an eventual rival to China—is overblown.

Doubts about the extent of India’s promise have been around for a couple of decades—in fact, ever since some commentators started suggesting that India would one day outstrip China.

These doubts were cogently expressed by Harvard academic Graham Allison in a recent essay in Foreign Policy. Allison, inter alia, suggested that we need to reflect on several ‘inconvenient truths’:

We have been wrong in the past about the pace of the rise of India—namely in the early 1990s and the middle of the first decade of this century.
India’s economy is much smaller than China’s—and the gap has increased, not decreased. In the early 2000s, China’s GDP was two to three times as large as India’s. It is now roughly five times as large.
India has been falling behind in the development of science and technology to power economic growth. China spends 2% of GDP on research and development, compared with India’s 0.7%. On artificial intelligence, the figures are startling. For example, China holds 65% of AI patents, while India holds just 3%.
China’s workforce is more productive than India’s. The quality of their respective workforces is affected by poverty and nutrition levels. As one example, according to the 2022 UN State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, 16.3% of India’s population was undernourished in 2019–2021 compared with less than 2.5% of China’s population.
The second argument is that India’s worldview is quite different to that of most Western countries.

India rightly sees itself as a force in international affairs. It aspires to be a powerful pole in a multipolar world. It adheres to a doctrine of strategic autonomy. It is guided by what it thinks is best for India, not by alliances or what others want of it.

India’s China-driven strategic congruence with the US is not the same as a quasi-alliance relationship. India doesn’t operate within a framework of mutual obligation. It doesn’t expect others to come to its aid and it won’t join someone else’s war.

In a recent Foreign Affairs article entitled ‘America’s bad bet on India’, an American academic of Indian origin, Ashley Tellis, argues that New Delhi would never involve itself in any US confrontation with China that did not threaten its own security.

The Tellis piece has weight because he was a main intellectual force behind the ‘nuclear deal’ concluded in 2008.
--------

The problem is that Modi’s government can only lend itself to highly qualified identification with democratic principles.

Elections in India are generally fair, and Modi’s sway is vigorously contested by the main opposition party, by Congress and by regional parties. That’s good.

However, Modi remains an unabashed Hindu supremacist whose political machine largely disregards the aspirations of Muslims and other minorities. It reacts vengefully to criticism and scores badly on most of the international indexes that measure democratic freedoms. To some, India is an illiberal democracy; to others, it’s an electoral autocracy. But, for sure, it is not a liberal democracy.

Western interests dictate that we put grunt into our relationship with India with energy and determination. It is unquestionably an increasingly important country. But we must have realistic expectations of India and deal with as it is, not as we might like it to be. Otherwise, we risk disappointment.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 6, 2023 at 10:01am

Will India Surpass China to Become the Next Superpower?
Four inconvenient truths make this scenario unlikely.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/24/india-china-biden-modi-summit-...

by Prof Graham Allison, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government

First, analysts have been wrong about India’s rise in the past. In the 1990s, analysts trumpeted a growing, youthful Indian population that would drive economic liberalization to create an “economic miracle.” One of the United States’ most thoughtful India analysts, journalist Fareed Zakaria, noted in a recent column in the Washington Post that he found himself caught up in the second wave of this euphoria in 2006, when the World Economic Forum in Davos heralded India as the “world’s fastest-growing free market democracy” and the then-Indian trade minister said that India’s economy would shortly surpass China’s. Although India’s economy did grow, Zakaria points out that these predictions didn’t come true.

Second, despite India’s extraordinary growth over the past two years—when India joined the club of the world’s five largest economies—India’s economy has remained much smaller than China’s. In the early 2000s, China’s manufacturing, exports, and GDP were about two to three times larger than India’s. Now, China’s economy is about five times larger, with a GDP of $17.7 trillion versus India’s GDP of $3.2 trillion.

Third, India has been falling behind in the race to develop science and technology to power economic growth. China graduates nearly twice as many STEM students as India. China spends 2 percent of its GDP on research and development, while India spends 0.7 percent. Four of the world’s 20 biggest tech companies by revenue are Chinese; none are based in India. China produces over half of the world’s 5G infrastructure, India just 1 percent. TikTok and similar apps created in China are now global leaders, but India has yet to create a tech product that has gone global. When it comes to producing artificial intelligence (AI), China is the only global rival to the United States. China’s SenseTime AI model recently beat OpenAI’s GPT on key technical performance measures; India has no entry in this race. China holds 65 percent of the world’s AI patents, compared with India’s 3 percent. China’s AI firms have received $95 billion in private investment from 2013 through 2022 versus India’s $7 billion. And top-tier AI researchers hail primarily from China, the United States, and Europe, while India lags behind.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 6, 2023 at 10:01am

Will India Surpass China to Become the Next Superpower?
Four inconvenient truths make this scenario unlikely.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/24/india-china-biden-modi-summit-...

by Prof Graham Allison, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government

First, analysts have been wrong about India’s rise in the past. In the 1990s, analysts trumpeted a growing, youthful Indian population that would drive economic liberalization to create an “economic miracle.” One of the United States’ most thoughtful India analysts, journalist Fareed Zakaria, noted in a recent column in the Washington Post that he found himself caught up in the second wave of this euphoria in 2006, when the World Economic Forum in Davos heralded India as the “world’s fastest-growing free market democracy” and the then-Indian trade minister said that India’s economy would shortly surpass China’s. Although India’s economy did grow, Zakaria points out that these predictions didn’t come true.

Second, despite India’s extraordinary growth over the past two years—when India joined the club of the world’s five largest economies—India’s economy has remained much smaller than China’s. In the early 2000s, China’s manufacturing, exports, and GDP were about two to three times larger than India’s. Now, China’s economy is about five times larger, with a GDP of $17.7 trillion versus India’s GDP of $3.2 trillion.

Third, India has been falling behind in the race to develop science and technology to power economic growth. China graduates nearly twice as many STEM students as India. China spends 2 percent of its GDP on research and development, while India spends 0.7 percent. Four of the world’s 20 biggest tech companies by revenue are Chinese; none are based in India. China produces over half of the world’s 5G infrastructure, India just 1 percent. TikTok and similar apps created in China are now global leaders, but India has yet to create a tech product that has gone global. When it comes to producing artificial intelligence (AI), China is the only global rival to the United States. China’s SenseTime AI model recently beat OpenAI’s GPT on key technical performance measures; India has no entry in this race. China holds 65 percent of the world’s AI patents, compared with India’s 3 percent. China’s AI firms have received $95 billion in private investment from 2013 through 2022 versus India’s $7 billion. And top-tier AI researchers hail primarily from China, the United States, and Europe, while India lags behind.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 6, 2023 at 10:04am

Will India Surpass China to Become the Next Superpower?
Four inconvenient truths make this scenario unlikely.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/24/india-china-biden-modi-summit-...

by Prof Graham Allison, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government

when assessing a nation’s power, what matters more than the number of its citizens is the quality of its workforce. China’s workforce is more productive than India’s. The international community has rightly celebrated China’s “anti-poverty miracle” that has essentially eliminated abject poverty. In contrast, India continues to have high levels of poverty and malnutrition. In 1980, 90 percent of China’s 1 billion citizens had incomes below the World Bank’s threshold for abject poverty. Today, that number is approximately zero. Yet more than 10 percent of India’s population of 1.4 billion continue to live below the World Bank extreme poverty line of $2.15 per day. Meanwhile, 16.3 percent of India’s population was undernourished in 2019-21, compared with less than 2.5 percent of China’s population, according to the most recent United Nations State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report. India also has one of the worst rates of child malnutrition in the world.

Fortunately, the future does not always resemble the past. But as a sign in the Pentagon warns: Hope is not a plan. While doing whatever it can to help Modi’s India realize a better future, Washington should also reflect on the assessment of Asia’s most insightful strategist. The founding father and long-time leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, had great respect for Indians. Lee worked with successive Indian prime ministers, including Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, hoping to help them make India strong enough to be a serious check on China (and thus provide the space required for his small city-state to survive and thrive).

But as Lee explained in a series of interviews published in 2014, the year before his death, he reluctantly concluded that this was not likely to happen. In his analysis, the combination of India’s deep-rooted caste system that was an enemy of meritocracy, its massive bureaucracy, and its elites’ unwillingness to address the competing claims of its multiple ethnic and religious groups led him to conclude that it would never be more than “the country of the future”—with that future never arriving. Thus, when I asked him a decade ago specifically whether India could become the next China, he answered directly: “Do not talk about India and China in the same breath.”

Since Lee offered this judgment, India has embarked on an ambitious infrastructure and development agenda under a new leader and demonstrated that it can achieve considerable economic growth. Yet while we can remain hopeful that this time could be different, I, for one, suspect Lee wouldn’t bet on it.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 6, 2023 at 2:20pm

Pakistani student uses AI to combat propaganda on social media

https://mmnews.tv/pakistani-student-uses-ai-to-combat-propaganda-on...


Muhammad Umar, A Pakistani student at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), has made a significant contribution in detecting propaganda on social media platforms, especially in cases where there is a mixture of low and high-resource languages.

Umar, who is from Pakistan and speaks Urdu as his first language, is one of many people who are contributing to the large amounts of research and time being spent on languages other than English for preservation, education, and language modelling.

Umar, who holds a Master of Science in natural language processing (NLP), is aware of the influence that language has on public conversation and the way that opinions are formed.

“Propaganda is a pervasive tool used to manipulate public opinion, and it is a growing concern in the digital age, especially in bilingual communities where little to no work has been done to detect it. Most propaganda detection work has been done on high-resource languages, such as English, leaving low-resource languages largely unexplored,” said Umar, who is part of the university’s first cohort of NLP graduates.

Umar noted that code-switching, which involves mixing multiple languages in the same text, is common in low-resource language communities and can make propaganda detection more challenging.

“In linguistics, code-switching refers to the practice of alternating between two or more languages or language varieties in a single conversation or text. In the context of my thesis, code-switched social media text specifically refers to social media text that uses a mixture of different languages, including English and Roman Urdu.”

Despite graduating, Umar is continuing his research and hopes to submit a paper related to detecting propaganda techniques in code-switched text at the 2023 Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) conference, one of the primary high impact NLP and artificial intelligence conferences for NLP research.

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