This year, 23 researchers from the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) have become well-known by ranking in the top 2% of researchers worldwide and are currently receiving attention from all around the world. According to the QS University Rankings 2023, NUST is now ranked 334 worldwide, 74 in Asia, and 1 in Pakistan.
The Impact Ranking 2022 places NUST in the top 200 universities in the world. Over the past three years, there has been a steady rise in the number of NUST researchers who rank in the top 2 percent of the globe. Elsevier, an international leader in the information and analytics industry, publishes the data used for ranking.
For instance, NUST recently started the Formula Electric Racing NUST (FERN) program, which aims to enhance and make NUST’s racing electric vehicle the first in the world.
Many of these have also been acknowledged for their career-long influence. FERN has been able to bring the multi-billion dollar Electric Vehicle manufacturing giant, Tesla Inc. as its innovative partner. Though FERN has secured many other international partners as well, this is by far the biggest achievement of the program.
The researchers are ranked according to a variety of factors, such as citations, the Hirsch index, authorship positions, etc. Twelve different disciplines, including artificial intelligence, signal processing, materials, chemical, mechanical, biomedicine, robotics, cyber security, computer science, design and manufacturing, humanities, and mathematical methods in fluid mechanics, are represented by the researchers, who come from seven different NUST institutions.
A group of NUST undergraduates who recently created Pakistan’s first autonomous drone while representing Pakistan in several international contests and exhibitions is one of the 23 researchers that participated in that recent study. They are inspiring the world with their innovation and diligence and have won numerous competitions across the globe.
Muhammad Hassan Khan, Hafiz Hamza Jalil Qureshi, Ali Shair Muhammad Bhutta, Muhammad Taaha Rana, and numerous more students worked on the drones. They constructed these drones in 2016 while they were CEME fourth-year mechanical engineering students.
As soon as their product was finished, they began participating in and winning national technology competitions. They made their first-ever overseas appearance at the 2018 IMechE UAS Challenge, which was held in the UK. Following their victory in that contest, they frequently began to take part in several international contests.
Since 2018, the group has won nine international prizes, promoting Pakistan all over the world. These include the Best Safety Award and the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Challenge 2021. The challenge judges made comments applauding the team’s originality and common sense.
Zain and Abdullah, two NUST Software Engineering and Computer Science Junior Year students, have developed an AI-powered photo editor that enhances and auto-tunes your selfies using on-mobile Artificial Intelligence. Both students started launching apps during the second year of their degree and later on opened their startup which was first incubated by Technology Incubation Center, Nust.
The Blur app offers DSLR-style editing and can blur out the background of your photographs with a single swipe. It offers automatic human detection along with a variety of beauty effects to make photo editing simple. The app is now trending on the Google Play Store and has received more than 100k downloads in a relatively short amount of time after its release.
The esteemed researchers recognized this year include Dr. Noreen Sher Akbar, Dr. Meraj Mustafa, Dr. Mubasher Jamil, Dr. Salman Raza Naqvi, Dr. Faisal Shafait, Dr. Adeeb Shahzad, Dr. Shahid Iqbal, Dr. Muhammad Moazam Fraz, Dr. Iftikhar Ahmed, Dr. Irfan Ahmad Rana, Dr. Irfan Hussain Gul, Dr. Muhammad Usman Akram, Dr. Haider Abbas, Dr. Hassan Ali Khattak, Dr. Tayyaba Noor, Dr. Farooq Ahmed Tahir, Dr. Abdul Ghafoor, Dr. Muhammad Jawad Khan, Dr. Safia Akram, Dr. Tahir Abdul Hussain Ratlamwala, Dr. Tahir Mehmood, Dr. Syed Ali Hassan, and Dr. Muhammad Ishaq.
The esteemed researchers recognized for their career-long impact include Dr. Noreen Sher Akbar, Dr. Mubasher Jamil, Dr. Meraj Mustafa, and Dr. Faisal Shafait.
In another laudable development, researchers at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) have completed full functional testing of “NTiny-E”, the country’s first truly indigenously designed microprocessor.
In a news conference on Monday, NUST Pro-Rector for Research, Innovation, and Commercialization Dr. Rizwan Riaz disclosed this. Principal SEECS Dr. Ajmal Khan and Dr. Rehan Ahmed, head of the NTiny design and development team, were with him.
This is a significant accomplishment given that Pakistan has thus far been unable to fully leverage on the global demand for semiconductor technology. The capacity to domestically develop microprocessors could be the first step toward securing a piece of the $595 billion global semiconductor market that is expected to be in 2021.
