So we tried something new at NUST.
You know how you don't study anything at all the whole semester? Then just one day before the exam, you forget everything else in the world. You sit down at your study table. Open the book for the first time. At first, you try to cram everything. Then you realize that you don’t have enough time for that. So you just leave all the introductions, conclusions, and other filler material aside. You just get down to business. Just cover the most important topics with a few examples. You have loads of coffee, drinks and power bars. You pull an all-nighter. Then in the morning, you turn up for the exam with droopy eyelids and a disheveled look? Well it's basically that! But at the teacher level instead of the student level. This wasn’t about preparation for an exam, but about delivering a course as quickly as possible.
So we tried something new at NUST.
It’s called block teaching. Thank you very much. The key idea is that we invite the experts and top-notch professionals from industry, research institutions, and other universities, and put them in a room with our students for the whole day for a couple of weeks. At the end, we see who survived this ordeal. I was first introduced to this method of teaching while I was pursuing my PhD at Tohoku University. Over there, such courses were called intensive courses. And boy were they intensive! But as a PhD student, I was always looking for such courses. Because who has time to go to their classes the whole semester as a PhD student? No! I would rather have a couple of intensive weeks during the summer or winter break and get the required credits for my degree. There were two intensive courses where I had a really good time and I wish that we could try something like that at NUST as well.
The first course was called Advanced Robotics. In this course, ALL professors at the Robotics department of Tohoku University gave us lectures of about 3 hours each. In those 3 hours, all they did was tell us about their latest projects and research papers.. So just because of that one course, all of us now knew the cutting edge research topics in several areas of Robotics and AI. We got to know the recent trends in Nanorobotics, MEMS, Space Robotics, Rehabilitative Robots, Human-Robot Interaction, Wearable Robotics, Soft Robots, Industrial and Collaborative robots etc. Brilliant! Bravo! What a great idea that was! Hats off to the one who came up with it.
The second course that I really loved was System Integration. In this course, our university had invited the team of Mitsubishi that was leading the development of SpaceJet MRJ-90. SpaceJet was being developed as a competitor to Boeing and Airbus and Mitsubishi was trying to capture the mid-level market in the aircraft industry. So in that course, we learnt about all the systems that go inside the plane and how they are integrated with harmony so that everything works at the same time. We learnt how the mechanical design, analysis, electronics, sensors, instrumentation, controls, and AI is developed for an aircraft and what needs to be done to integrate all these systems together. Not just that! We also learnt how the market surveys are done, how to identify the niche, how to market your product, how to stay competitive in terms of price and quality etc. So we weren’t just told about the technical side of things, but we also learned a lot about the business side of things. And again! All of this was being taught by the leaders of the industry who were actively working on the project that they were telling us about. Wow! That was exciting! That was fun! We learnt so many important things in just a couple of weeks. Even at the time while I was taking that course, I was wishing, I was hoping, that one day we could try something like that in Pakistan.
So we tried something new at NUST.
Now let me take you back to September 2022. One fine morning, we received an email that a delegation from Coventry University is going to visit NUST and they have requested a meeting with the leading researchers in AI at NUST. So our department was asked to nominate two such faculty members for that meeting. And sure enough, two of our brightest faculty members, who were doing excellent research, were nominated for this meeting. I was the junior-most faculty member of the department having just defended my PhD a few months ago. So I didn’t even think that I could be considered for such meetings. I would need to wait, maybe 4-5 years, before I could be considered as an option for such meetings.
But on the day of the meeting, just 30 minutes before the meeting actually, I got a phone call from one of the nominees. Their kid had fallen sick at school and they needed to go there to pick the poor kid up. No one else was available so I was asked to attend the meeting in their place. I was told in explicit terms that this meeting is just a formality, we don’t expect much from it, we don’t even know these Coventry people actually. So just go there and have a cup of tea. If they ask you something, just say a couple of sentences about the projects that we have been working on. I said fine! I'll go! No problem! Just take care of your kid please.
So there I was in that meeting. Sure enough, the cream of NUST was there. People with 10-15 years of experience in AI, full professors, having dozens of high impact factor research papers, and millions of rupees in funding. They were all there. The meeting was very short. It only lasted for about 20-25 minutes. First the delegation from Coventry introduced themselves. Then they gave us 2 mins each to describe our own research projects. As our leading professors started describing their research in their well-rehearsed, professional and courteous tone, it was getting hard for me to keep my eyes open. Cuz it was soooooooo boring! I decided then and there that when my turn comes, I am not gonna be like those senior professors. I am gonna be different. I am gonna try something new.
But before doing it, I did a little risk analysis. If I do something different from others, what’s the worst that could happen? Well first of all, NUST HQ would stop inviting me to such high-end meetings. Well that’s fine. They hadn’t even invited me there in the first place. I wasn’t even supposed to be there. What else could happen? Well my department could get a strongly worded email and my HoD would sit me down for a “counseling session” for about 20-30 minutes and I ll be told to behave more "professionally" and show more “grace” in the future. Well I could take those 30 minutes. What else? Well the Principal could invite me to his office, glare at me and tell me that I have embarrassed him and have let the whole school down. I would be told to follow the seniors, toe the line, do as they do. Well that could last for about 10 minutes. 10 horrible minutes. But I could take that too. So I decided to go for it. I was gonna do something different from others.I was gonna show some passion and emotions.
So when my turn to speak came, I went on this unhinged rant. I was flailing my arms around. My pitch was rising and falling at a rapid rate. The tone kept changing as I got more excited. I was literally banging the table to make my points while I was describing my projects. Project 1! Project 2! Project 3! Bang! Bang! Bang!!
Suddenly everyone woke up from their slumber. Heads quickly turned towards me and the stares soon turned into glares. I started getting these looks: “Who are you boy?!” “What are you doing?!” “What are you doing rookie?!” But I had my eyes fixed on the head of the Coventry delegation. This small old lady called Prof. Elena Gaura. Her eyes had turned wide and her mouth was half open in amusement. I wasn’t sure whether she was impressed or was she enjoying the situation at my expense. Anyway I decided to follow my instincts and kept going. Soon the storm was over as my 2 minutes were up and we saw a return to normalcy. Back to status-quo. The world was as it had always been. And I was getting drowsy again.
But the moment the meeting was over, Prof. Elena walked straight up to me and asked for my card. I took the card out of my pocket and gave it to her with a huge grin on my face. Yes!! The plan has worked! The risk has paid off!!
I had just tried something new at NUST. And it worked perfectly!
Just a couple of days later, I got an email. Not from Prof. Elena as I had expected. But from Prof. James Brusey. Prof. James told me that he got my contact from Prof. Elena (well of course!) who spoke highly of me as someone interested in Reinforcement Learning and Robotics. He said that he would very much like to make my acquaintance. And introduced himself as someone with dual interests in wireless sensing and robotic control. He suggested that we have an online meeting and see where things go. So a few days after that, we had an hour-long online meeting and things started moving from there.
He visited Pakistan in March 2023 to deliver a workshop for HEC in collaboration with the British Council. During that visit, both he and Prof. Elena took some time out from their busy schedule to visit NUST. Prof. James told me how excited he was to finally see me in the flesh. Anyway, they both delivered an hour-long lecture to our students. Prof. Elena talked about IoTs, sensor networks and the role of women in STEM. Whereas, Prof. James delivered his talk on Reinforcement Learning. I picked him up from his hotel in my own car and brought him to NUST. That was the first time we met in-person and I was surprised to see how tall he was.
Before the lecture, I brought him to our Principal for a short meeting and we started discussing how to collaborate with each other for mutual benefit. Create win-win situations if you will. The Principal told him about this new initiative at NUST called block teaching and Prof. James latched onto it immediately. He expressed his desire to teach a course on Reinforcement Learning during his next visit to Pakistan in June 2023. Actually on our way to NUST, we had been discussing the recent advances and applications of Reinforcement Learning. I told him about how we tried to offer this course during the current semester but it had to be dropped since there were a lot of pre-requisites for it which many students did not meet. I told him how students sent me messages about their disappointment when the course was dropped and they wondered when it was going to be offered again. And I was getting messages not just from SMME but from other schools as well. Having known this background information, when the opportunity of block teaching was presented by the Principal, Prof. James took it immediately and proposed to teach Reinforcement Learning as a block teaching course in June.
We were going to do something new at NUST.
Soon enough June rolled around. Prof. James and Elena were to visit NUST from 05th-09th June. I was chosen as the lead coordinator for the Reinforcement Learning course from NUST’s side. So I had to make all the arrangements. This included a lot of things. Like floating the information to all the relevant departments and student groups. Marketing it on a regular basis so that everyone gets to know about it. Designing the poster and certificates for the course, getting them approved from all parties and getting them printed well ahead of time. Answering all the queries about this course on email and whatsapp. Getting all the data from the applicants of this course (135x in total). Coming up with a rubric for evaluation of these applicants and getting it approved from the authorities. Shortlisting the students according to the approved rubric and contacting the shortlisted students (33x in total). Arranging the lab where the course is supposed to be held. Coordinating everything with Prof. James, the students, and NUST authorities. Arranging the closing ceremony and tea party for the students on the last day of the course. Everything needed to be ready by Friday, 2nd June, cuz our esteemed guests were arriving on Monday, 05th June. So the week before 5th June was a week from hell for me.
But that’s the price you pay for doing something new at NUST. I was willing to pay that price.
The second week from hell was the week of the course itself. The classes were held everyday from 10am-5pm with only a break of one hour in the middle for lunch. In this one week alone, we covered topics including an overview of Reinforcement Learning, Finite Markov Decision Processes, and Monte Carlo Methods. We had hands-on activities on software resources including Gynasium, Openrnl, and Stablebaseline. At the end of the course, students were asked to make projects and give a short 3 minute presentation about their project. At the end of this grueling ordeal, 26x students completed the course successfully and they were given certificates jointly by Coventry University and NUST.
Mind you, that’s not all we were doing during that week. I was also made lead for the Master Student Placement (MSP) program where 5x MS students of NUST would go to Coventry for a 3-month long fully-funded internship at Coventry University and they will carry out a portion of their thesis there. If they do perform well, they will be offered fully funded PhD positions at Coventry. Then there was also a small matter of opening 2x joint NUST-Coventry labs and 16x PhD scholarships. All in all, these initiatives are worth about 128,000 GBP (~46M PKR). Arranging everything for these initiatives, shortlisting students for these scholarships, conducting their skills test and interviews all in one week was a massive challenge. I had to work 20 hours a day with only 2-3 hours of sleep that week but Alhumdulillah we pulled it off. Everything happened as we wanted it to happen with the will of God Alhumdulillah. But that is a story for another day.
For now, rest assured that we are trying something new at NUST. And everyone is having a great time doing it.