The IEEE ComSoc Lahore chapter, KICS UET Lahore, and the IEEE Punjab University student branch organized World Telecom Day on 16 May 2018. The event, held in the Seminar Hall of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University of Punjab, was attended by many high officials and experts from academia and industry. Among the speakers were: Mr. Kashif Bashir, Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Lahore chapter; Prof. Dr. Taqi Zahid Butt, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University of Punjab; Dr. Amjad Hussain, Chair of the IEEE Lahore Section; Dr. Vincenzo Piuri, Professor at the University of Milan, Italy; Dr. Bhawani Shankar, former chair of the IEEE Karachi Section; Dr. Momin Uppal, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Lahore; Dr. Syed Atif Mehdi from the University of Central Punjab (UCP) Lahore; Mr. Hassan Ali, Senior Manager, Mobilink Pakistan; Muhammad Javed Aslam, Executive Vice President-Technical, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL); Dr. Sheikh Faisal, KICS, UET Lahore; Mr. Moosa Nadeem, Director, Huawei Technologies, Pakistan; Mr. Jawad Khalid Mirza, Divisional Head, Information Security & Governance, Allied Bank, Pakistan; and Dr. Ubaid Ullah Fayyaz from KICS, UET Lahore..

The purpose of WTD was to highlight the importance of communications in our lives. The theme of this day was “Enabling the positive use of Artificial Intelligence for all”. The event began with a video message by Prof. Dr. Vincenzo Piuri, who is a full professor at the University of Milan, Italy. He emphasized the importance of telecommunications in today’s world. He also spoke about how we can serve humanity through better ICT technology. He thanked the organizers for conducting the World Telecom Day 2018.

Prof. Dr. Bhawani Shankar, former chair, IEEE Karachi Section, in his video message spoke about the achievements of the IEEE ComSoc Lahore Chapter. He spoke about the history and importance of telecommunications day.

Prof. Dr. Taqi Zahid Butt, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University of the Punjab, spoke about the history of telecom and the advancement in the telecommunications field. He shared his interesting and valuable personal experiences about the revolution of the mobile technology and telecommunication industry.

Mr. Kashif Bashir explained the history of world telecom day and showed glimpses of last year’s event through a video. He spoke about the ComSoc Lahore Chapter’s activities. and how world telecom day is helping the industry and academia. He also spoke about artificial intelligence and its significance in our future.

Dr. Momin Uppal from LUMS spoke about the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in wireless networks, Internet of Things, mobile edge caching and computing, and UAVs for wireless communication.

Dr. Syed Atif Mehdi from the University of Central Punjab spoke about the use of robotics in agriculture, and about the detection of fungus through artificially intelligent robots. He also spoke about progressive farmers,and shared his work on agro robotics and the use of drones for agriculture.

Eng. Hassan Ali from Mobilink Pakistan spoke about ARPU (average revenue per person) concepts being practiced at Mobilink. He also shared the plans of his company for the implementation of 5G.

Mr. Muhammad Javed Aslam, Executive Vice President Technical, PTCL, explained how PTCL is working on artificial intelligence with smart features, and the future of PTCL in Pakistan. He also shared the long history of his company. He encouraged students to study and do research in telecommunication, big data and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Shiekh Faisal from KICS UET Lahore spoke about machine learning, big data analytics, native language processing, tools for machine learning, traditional vs. big data, big data vendors, data analytics, and how artificial intelligence meets IoT.

Mr. Moosa Nadeem from Huawei gave a brief introduction of Huawei and spoke about historical milestones of Huawei in Pakistan. He also spoke about the vision and mission of the company, and about artificial intelligence technologies used in the Lahore safe city project.

Mr. Jawad Khalid Mirza spoke about the importance of cyber security, machine learning and artificial intelligence in the banking sector of Pakistan.

Dr. Amjad Hussain, Chair of the IEEE Lahore Section, gave the keynote of the event. He shared his personal experiences about the evolution of communications.

Dr. Ubaid Ullah Fayyaz from KICS-UET gave the closing keynote. He also thanked all guests and members of IEEE who attended this event.

A post panel discussion followed in which the distinguished speakers discussed their views on the impact of telecommunications today. The event concluded with the distribution of souvenirs and lapel pins by the Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Lahore Chapter. A celebration cake was also cut.