In the hard times when Karachi is soaked in Blood, and threat of terrorsit attacks are always there, floods have hit Pakistan again. At this time every good news seems to be a blow of fresh wind. At the time when world has one preception about us and that is something that starts with a T and ends with T as well, there are many who are working to bring glory home and creating positive image of Pakistan in through out the world. Dr. Umar Saif who is professor at LUMS has been named the Top Innovater in TR35 by MIT. The other is UN Police Officer Shahzadi Gulfam, who brought International Female Peacekeeper award 2011 to Pakistan.
About Officer Gulfam, Dawn Reported:
Shahzadi Gulfam, a deputy superintendent of police, is the first Pakistani woman officer to receive the prestigious award. She is deployed with the United Nations Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) as the UN Police (UNPOL) team leader posted in the Timor-Leste National Police Vulnerable Persons Unit in Dili, the capital.
Ms Gulfam was selected for the award by the United Nations Police Division in the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions, Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the International Association of Women Police (IAWP) International Scholarship Committee.She joined the Punjab police in March 1985. During her career, she performed equally well at the national and international level, according to an UNPOL press release. She was the first Pakistani woman to be deployed with the UN Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1997 and subsequently served in UN missions in Kosovo in 1999 and Timor-Leste in 2007.
“Shahzadi Gulfam has shown enthusiasm, diligence and zeal in her work with the Vulnerable Persons Unit in Dili,” UNMIT Police Commissioner Luis Carillho said. “Sadly in post-conflict Timor-Leste domestic violence is a common crime and victims often find it difficult to file complaints,” she said.
About Dr. Saif Pakistan Today says:
He is the first Pakistani scholar to have been selected for the prestigious TR35 award in the last decade, says a press release.
“The TR35 recognizes the world’s top 35 young innovators that are radically transforming technology as we know it. Their work – spanning medicine, computing, communications, energy, electronics and nanotechnology — is changing our world”, according to MIT Technology Review.
Dr Saif has been honoured for his work on technologies for the developing-world. Technologies developed by Dr Saif’s research group and startups are used by millions of people in the developing world, especially BitMate, that enhances the speed of Internet in the developing-world using peer-to-peer technology, and SMSall.pk, Pakistan’s largest SMS Social Network which has sent close to four billion SMS for users in Pakistan.
Dr Saif joins an elite group of researchers and entrepreneurs selected over the last decade. Previous winners include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, Jonathan Ive, the chief designer at Apple, David Karp, founder of Tumbler; Harvard Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik for his work on Quantum computers, and MIT Neuroscientist Ed Boyden, one of the inventors of the emerging field of optogenetics, which makes it possible to control neurons with light.
MIT Technology Review selects the top innovators after a rigorous evaluation process. The judges, who are leading experts in their fields from universities such as MIT, Stanford and Harvard, consider hundreds of high-impact researchers and entrepreneurs from all over the world, out of which top 35 are chosen for the award.
“This year’s group of TR35 recipients is driving the next wave of transformative technology and making an impact on the way we live, work and interact”, said Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of the MIT Technology Review.
Dr Saif has won numerous awards for his innovative technology solutions for the developing-world. He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2009. He is a recipient of the MIT Technovator Award, Mark Weiser Award, Digital Inclusion Award from Microsoft Research and the IDG Technology Pioneer Award.
Before moving to Pakistan, Dr Saif worked at MIT and received a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust.
Trackbacks /
Pingbacks