IBA and AKU collaborate to promote research in Data Science

October 03, 2022: School of Mathematics and Computer Science (SMCS), IBA and the Department of Paediatrics & Child Health, Aga khan University (AKU) 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 Department of Paediatrics & Child Health, AKU.

Dr. Shakeel Khoja, Dean SMCS, IBA, and Dr. Fyezah Jehan, Chair, 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 paediatric patients and to predict the risk of mortality of critically ill children using the recurrent neural network system.

The IBA-SMCS team included Dr. Tariq Mahmood, Professor and Program Coordinator, MS CS and MS DS programs; Hira Zahid, PhD Scholar, Department of CS; and 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; and Mr. Akber Madhwani, Sr. Coordinator, Department of Paediatrics & Child Health.

The event commenced with the attendees introduction, after which Dr. Rehman and Dr. Mahmood discussed the collaboration between the parties. Sharing his remarks Dr. Khoja said that "The School of Mathematics and Computer Science is excited about establishing research links with AKU". The ceremony ended with a souvenir distribution.