C/C++ Workshop

      Freshies and Programming same old story like every year :p Most of them come to university studying chemistry, physics and mathematics and then they are told the importance of “ ; ” :D All programmers can relate to this.

          So like every year freshies were thinking like programming :o ! What are they gonna do to fight this monster and ACM knew that a C workshop is a must for freshness or anyone else who is interested.

Event:

         The workshop was already there in our event calendar, dates were to be finalized and then seeing the availibity of resources like labs, instructors etc. and also facilitating students before their first one hourly test we choose 11th to 13th November, 2014 the appropriate date.The next thing was to find the right kind of instructors and this level it turns out to be fellow students always turns out to be the best and ACM SEECS chapter has always helped students in helping each other. So instructors were two final year students Nauman Imtiaz and Asadullah Ilyas. The help there was a teaching assistant as well named Taihami Tariq.

          The whole council worked hard for this event success but some who really worked were Bilal Khan (president), Anam Wajahat and Muhammad Waseem Khan. The venue was a lab in SEECS as it will be convenient for all.

Students taking the workshop

      The participants were mostly freshies, but there were other students also from other batches. The good thing was that there were also participants from other schools of NUST.

          The content of course were Basics of C/C++ programming covering data types, selection structures , loops , basic view of pointers and also covering basics about functions. The fdaily session was of 2 hours. Our instructors tried their best to convey knowledge to participants. The feedback we got from participants after the workshop was quite overwhelming and welcoming as most of them learnt a lot.

          The fee was only Rs 50 for non-members while the event was FREE for ACM members! All the attendees also got certificates.

           Like every time the event turned out to be a success and we were proud of our best. And we will continue to help freshies fight the monster of programming, when they tackle it the first time. 

Written By: Muhammad Waseem Khan

CSEd Week

Introduction:

      Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is the major annual awareness program of the computing. CSEdWeek is a call to action to raise awareness about the importance of computer science education and its connection to careers in computing and other fields. It is held annually in recognition of the birthday of computing pioneer Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906). CSEdWeek 2013 is celebrated between 9-15th December.

      CSEdWeek aims to:

• Communicate the endless opportunities for which computer science education prepares students in higher education and careers;
• Provide information and activities for students, educators, parents, and corporations to advocate for computer science education at all levels;
• Eliminate misperceptions about computer science and computing careers. 

CSEd Week 2013

Events:

       Like last year ACM-SEECS celebrated CSEdWeek this year too with a lots of students participating in activities held during this week. Following events were held in CSED:-

1. Coffee with ACM
2. Code2Success
3. Hour of Code
4. Seminar on Augmented Reality
5. Closing 

Coffee With ACM:

      Coffee with ACM was aimed to test the participants’ general knowledge regarding

• Computer Science
• ACM
• Tech tools
• Tech brands/companies
• Tech movies

      It consisted of multiple choice questions, visuals which they had to identify within 20 seconds, writing a paragraph on the topic ‘Computer Science’. Coffee was arranged for all the organizers and participants at the end of the event by the SEECS tuc shop ‘Le Khokha’.

Code2Success:
        Code2Success was a programming competition in which each team were given 5 tasks within an hour. The tasks were divided according to the level of the students participating. e.g. final year students were given harder tasks as compared to the freshmen. Almost 20 teams in groups of two participated. Most of the students completed their task before the time ended. It was a good event though.

Student Coding in Code2Success

Hour of Code:

         Hour of Code was celebrated during this week on Wednesday. The students of university participated and developed apps for any device, python programming was also taught, SOS village children built small apps using online tutorials. About 60-70 people participated.

Seminar:

          ACM-SEECS arranged a seminar which most of students had been waiting for long in CSEdWeek. This seminar was conducted in association with Quadsource. It was on Augmented Reality using Unity3D and Kinect. Former members of ACM conducted this seminar.

Augmented Reality Seminar

Closing:

     After 4 days of pure computing competitions, seminars and teaching ACM-SEECS arranged a closing ceremony in which the winners of the competitions were given prizes. The remaining participants were given certificates. After that refreshment was served to all those who attended the ceremony.

Closing Ceremony

Written By: Noor Fatima.

Qualcomm Workshop

What is Qualcomm?      
     ACM SEECS chapter organized a workshop by Qualcomm. Qualcomm Incorporated is an American global semiconductor company that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services. 

Logo of the company

Event:
     It was a one day workshop. The workshop was conducted by Mr. Adeel Khalid who is currently employed in Qualcomm. In the workshop he gave introduction of Vuforia platform, a product of Qualcomm Connected Experiences, Inc. It enables augmented reality (AR) app experiences that are best in class and creative beyond definition. Vuforia platform was used for Coding for Android app and new features were added to it after which the app was run in android. Most of the students made small apps using Vuforia and created virtual images on the mobile phones. 

Augmented Reality App

        Sir Muhammad Muddassir Malik was also there to attend this workshop. 20 to 25 students attended the workshop and all the participants were given certificates after the successful completion of the workshop.


Written By: Anam Wajahat

Peer to Peer Mentor Ship

What is Peer to Peer?     

     This is a program offered to all SEECS students to get help and help others in course work. People who need help tell us about the subjects they want to be taught along with the venue and time they can get extra help in. Similarly peers who can help give us the relevant info and then we manage all.

      There were two parts of the Peer to Peer mentorship program

1. Advertising the concept to all the students in SEECS
2. Arranging for both peers to coordinate

      Advertising was done through SEECS Mail. Data from all the peers was collected using google forms

Event:

        Peer to peer was quite a successful event throughout the year and is still going on. Most of the students had their concepts cleared. Many peer taught in library and hostels. Peers were assigned to each other based on what subjects they want to study/teach and their common choice of venue and time. The statistics of this event are as below:

1. Peers Teaching: 32
2. Peers Taught: 50 and counting

Written By: Noor Fatima

Members Orientation

Event:

      So after the recruitment drive what’s nest? It’s ACM’s Orientation day for new general members. The event has its hype like every year. The pizza and caked as refreshment did played their part in creating the hype :p

Cake after the seminar

        On the other hand all the questions that a newbie had, like: "What is ACM?", "What good is it to us?" , "How many events are there gonna be?" , "What sort of events", "Is ACM famous?" , "Where do I fit?" and all the rest of them were answered on 9th of October 2013 at the SEECS seminar hall. 

       Apart from all this some interactive activities were also designed for our new members, mainly aiming at their interaction with our executive council and amongst themselves. The activities were quite helpful in providing the attendees some entertainment. On the other hand song’s of Justin Bieber from new members also provided a handful of entertainment :p

New General Members

         Further cards of general were also given to them. Overall this was quite an interactive and interesting activity, which the everyone enjoyed thoroughly. We will continue this orientation session in future as well. 


Written By: Muhammad Waseem Khan

Invited Talk on Strengthening Health Systems

Introduction:

          Dr Shariq Khoja is a seasoned researcher and high profile leader in the area of eHealth and eLearning. Dr. Khoja has worked as Director for the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) eHealth Resource Centre. He has experience of over 15 years leading Health systems initiatives in developing countries. Dr. Khoja currently leads eHealth initiatives in about 10 countries of South and Central Asia and East Africa. His research interests focus on creating evidence and policies to guide the implementation of eHealth in developing countries. Dr Khoja is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Shariq Khoja

Event:

          Dr. Shariq visited SEECS in the end of September. ACM-SEECS organized a seminar inviting him to deliver a speech on the role of E-Health in developing countries. The seminar was whether there was a role of E-health in future and also that advancement in Information and Communication Technology is often perceived as an opportunity to strengthen processes and efficiencies of health related activities. Despite high relevance and growing penetration, many of these solutions fail to impact health systems. The question for today is how well the developers and innovators understand health systems and its relevance to the health of the population. How can we collectively ensure that the eHealth solutions not only achieve technology standards, but also ensure impact on strengthening health system and population health?

           The seminar was very useful and many student students participated in this seminar. The seminar concluded with the result that e-health should be promoted to help more people as possible.

Students attending the seminar

Written By: Muhammad Bilal Khan

Membership Drive

Event:

      Our recruitment started immediately after the arrival of the new batch. It was a three day recruitment drive which started from Monday and concluded on Wednesday.

Membership Desk

      Before the start of the recruitment drive we had to publicize our event. The publicity was done use banners, social media and posters. We made events of on Facebook and posted it in different groups providing information about the drive. The posters were posted in different classes on notice boards. Emails were sent on the official mailing address of the students and also providing them a link of Google docs so if someone wanted to register beforehand. Also the website was updated about the recruitment telling about different events that will be going to take place in the coming year.

Membership Banner

      Banners were put up in the university during the recruitment drive. Most questions of the student like “What is ACM?", "What good is it to us?", "How many events are there going to be?", "What sort of events", "Is ACM famous?", "Where do I fit?" were being answered at the registration desk by the already ACM members. And most of the answers were that the IT, CS AND Software students would have access to digital libraries, speakers and workshops. Different events and competitions would be held so that they can make use of their computing skills anyway they can. Pamphlets were handed over to the students who registered so that they could tell their friends who didn't know about it.

ACM Pamphlets

         Last year we had we had about 70 registrations but this year our registrations crossed the 100 mark. Now we have a total of over 500 students who are members of ACM-SEECS chapter. The increase is due to our events which try to help the students in their academics as well as extra-curricular activities and our efforts to make everyone make feel comfortable in what they want to do.

Written By: Anam Wajahat

Short Course By Melanie Moller

Introduction

      Ms Melanie Moller visited SEECS. Ms Moller is an Executive Producer and Director, Sophrosyne Productions and Digital Media LTD. She is also a lecturer at De Montfort University, UK. She conducted workshops on human- machine communications in the digital age and mobile technologies, digital networking and social sharing.  

Workshop going on given by Ms Moller

Event

        During last summers, Ms Melanie Moller visited SEECS .It was a two day event, organized by the SEECS chapter of Association of Computer Machinery (ACM). During these workshops, first half was reserved to familiarize the attendees with the concept. Ms Moller strongly believed that it was essential that the participants get a hands-on experience as well. The second half of the workshop was dedicated to practical work. On the first day, attendees learnt to use the software used for modeling while on the following day they were given topics they had to research on and then give presentations.

         The participants found this event extremely informative and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Ms Moller giving seminar

Album can be viewed here.

Wriiten By: Farhaana Fatema