Feature

IEEE Foundation President &
IBM Research Director visits BRACU

Md. Shamsul Kaonain

IEEE Foundation President Dr. Richard J. Gowen and IBM's Director at Research Dr. Kris Srikrishnan visited BRAC University on 31st August. IEEE BRAC University Student Branch invited Dr. Gowen and Dr. Srikrishnan, who were in Bangladesh for a very brief period, to share their experiences with students of BRACU.

The guests were welcomed to BRACU by Professor Jamilur Reza Choudhury, the Vice Chancellor of BRACU.

At the beginning of the session, Shiblee Imtiaz Hasan, Secretary of IEEE BRACU Student Branch, made a brief presentation highlighting the various activities carried out by the branch in 2009.

This was followed by a brief outline of the activities of Centre for Research on Bangla Language Processing (CRBLP) of the university, which was presented by Dr. Mumit Khan, Chairperson, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, BRACU and Head of CRBLP. CRBLP has been working on generating speech from Bangla Text. Text to Speech (TTS) system for the Bangla language can help tackle the illiteracy problem, empower the visually impaired and increase the possibilities of improved human-machine interaction.

The experience sharing session followed afterwards, where Dr. Gowen talked about the goals of the IEEE Humanitarian Technology Program and explained how IEEE could play a major role to bridge the gap amongst the needs of the community, Current services provided and available technology. He informed the audience that IEEE has developed a wiki where everyone can share their Humanitarian Project Ideas with the goal of solving local problems with existing technology. Dr. Srikrishnan talked about the humanitarian activities undertaken by IBM which includes joint projects with IEEE. He explained why IBM works on solving problems rather than creating general products. At the end of the experience sharing session, Dr. Gowen and Dr. Srikrishnan expressed delight at being able to visit a university in Bangladesh, and said they looked forward to future cooperation with BRACU.

The session concluded with a 'Vote of Thanks' by Md. Shamsul Kaonain, member of the IEEE BRACU Student Branch.

Professor Jamilur Reza Choudhury, Vice Chancellor, BRACU, chaired the session. Dr. Sayeed Salam, Chairperson, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, BRACU, Dr. A.K.M. Azad, Branch Counselor, IEEE BRACU Student Branch, Nabila Naushin, Chairperson, IEEE BRACU Student Branch and other executive body members of the IEEE BRACU Student Branch were also present.