Tim Thompson - Archer English Consulting
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Clients
  • Workshops
  • Publications
  • Tim's Blog

Networking Thursdays - Volume 18

5/25/2017

0 Comments

 
Jauwairia Nasir likes to think of herself as a researcher in pursuit of impact with a nomadic soul. She received her M.S. degree in electrical engineering (robotics) from KAIST where she co-founded the International Students and Scholars Academic Council. She has been in various leadership and networking roles in Korea and Pakistan in causes related to international students, education, women, cultural exchange, Pakistan, and misconceptions about Islam.

I believe that one good thing leads to another. At the end of my third year of undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, my friend Fahad and I were part of the team that won the biggest robotics competition in Pakistan. Ironically, we only participated in the competition because it was a requirement of our course. However winning led us to have a particularly strong interest in robotics.

The problem was that we couldn’t find an appropriate professor who could supervise us for our final year project since our university did not have a specialized robotics program or a professor with robotics specialization at that time. Then Fahad attended a seminar by Dr. Yasar Ayaz, a young enthusiastic robotics and AI professor at another university. Fahad suggested that we contact him about supervising us. Dr. Ayaz seemed like the right choice but the decision was still difficult because he was affiliated with another university and, in some cases, that can disqualify students from winning the best final year project award because as widely known but not explicitly stated, the award only goes to groups who have their project supervisors from within the university. Looking back now, not even for a single moment did we regret our decision to work with him. His undying spirit and motivation led us to publish international conference papers as undergraduates, become the first Pakistani undergraduate students to publish an ISI indexed Thomson Reuters journal paper, get nominated for a gold medal, and to have our algorithm cited and extended in a PhD thesis at MIT recently. Not only this, his continuous guidance led us to eventually win full scholarships in universities with top robotics programs.

I have recently finished with my Master’s degree from the Robot Intelligence Technology Lab at KAIST under Professor Jong Hwan Kim, who is known as father of football robotics and ubiquitous robotics. Working at this lab further provided me with laurels I could never have imagined, like my work appearing at World Economic Forum 2016, networking opportunities with top scientists, startup/PhD opportunities, and interviews with top AI companies like Google Deepmind, Apple, etc. Hence, I’d say that meeting Dr. Ayaz was one of the best things that happened to us and it opened many doors for opportunities and success.


If you have a networking story to share, please send it to [email protected].
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Tim's Thoughts

    Here are some short ideas that probably don't deserve to be published but I felt were worth sharing.  

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Freelancing
    Miscellaneous
    Networking Thursdays
    Presentation Skills
    Writing

    Archives

    June 2023
    November 2022
    September 2021
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

Copyright Tim Thompson 2022