Student Wins Best Artificial Intelligence Research Award. . No Help From Nigeria

Kuala Lumpur — Muhammad Abdulkarim, a Nigerian from Yobe State, received the best student paper award at the Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence conference in Singapore for his research project which uses artificial intelligence tools to prospect for oil in shallow and deep waters. The conference was attended by eminent scientists from all over the world. Besides Abdulkarim, the only other awardee is a professor from Switzerland.



"When I saw how the first presenters were grilled as if by an examination panel," Abdulkarim said, "I was intimidated and scared. But when I finished my presentation and answered all the probing questions of other researchers and everybody stood up and applauded, I couldn't help giving gratitude to Allah for His help. Finally, when my name was called as the recipient of the best paper award, my tear bags burst and tears freely ran down my cheeks."

Abdulkarim, a PhD student of Universiti Teknologi Petronas Malaysia was the only African at the conference which was attended by scientists from New York Institute of Technology, University of Tulsa, University of Bedfordshire, University of Surrey and many others.

"When I got there, it was immediately apparent to me why the conference rejected many papers - some of them written by professors with decades of experience in the field," Abdulkarim said of his first impression. "The participants didn't take claims by presenters lightly; markers were even provided in case there's the need to show your work. And they asked every question imaginable."

Abdulkarim was a junior lecturer with the University of Abuja in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science before leaving for Malaysia for a doctorate programme at the Department of Computer and Information Sciences of Universiti Teknologi Petronas.



"I am a research fellow in the Electro-Magnetic (EM) research group. The EM research group members are mainly into deep and shallow water technology and enhanced oil recovery. My research domain is actually electrical and electronics engineering, but my specific area is data mining which deals with application of artificial neural network techniques for modeling seabed logging environment," Abdulkarim said.

[size=18pt][b]No help from Nigeria

Abdulkarim said that rather than getting help from his university when he told them he was going for a PhD, he was discouraged. "I faced many challenges before coming to Malaysia. As a lecturer with University of Abuja, I had to take a study leave but when I applied, the HOD of my department said I should defer my admission, it took the intervention of the then DVC, Professor Nwabueze to extricate me from the obstacles the HOD placed on my path. After that, I applied for the ETF sponsorship through the university and Professor Nwabueze assured me that my name was on the list of those getting it, however, his tenure as DVC ended. Up until now, my application for ETF has not been approved. They have also refused to pay my salary.

"Malaysians on the other hand pay me almost N200,000 a month just for my research work, besides paying for materials, conferences and workshops. Further, while my country which needs me the most only discourages me, I've received offers of research collaboration from all the continents of the world except Africa. After the conference, professors from renowned laboratories were eager to give me their cards and promising incentives if I joined them.[/b][/size]



Some wanted to know if I intended going back to Nigeria. At the last count, there were 10 professors that wanted me to work with them after my PhD. They're precisely from Germany, Japan, Sweden, Iran, Jordan, USA, New Zealand, Taiwan, Czech Republic and Switzerland.

"I really need to say here that even though I am not a Malaysian, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, being the number one in oil and gas research in Malaysia, gave me all the necessary and enabling environment to operate and achieve this success. They sponsored all the workshops that I attended on learning how to use some simulators, they also paid for my training anywhere I wished to go. Therefore, on my own side, I also make sure I don't disappoint them."

What makes his research unique?

"I think my research won the prize because the EM wave I am working with has no color, we can also not see it; and since it produces no sounds, we can't hear it. It has no scent and no taste, so we can't smell or taste it. But I believe that with mathematics, one can work miracles. So I determined to intelligently find the mathematics and statistics surrounding SBL environment and then computerize it since I am a product of three departments."

How does his research make life easier?

"This research is a marine exploration and it can help humanity immensely as it has to do with energy. Everyone knows the importance of hydrocarbon or petrol and gas (to a lay man). These are major sources of energy today. Therefore, any technique that can facilitate the detection of this commodity is very essential to humanity.

This technology can also help Nigeria in many ways. We have a lot of both deep and shallow waters in Nigeria and Nigeria is blessed with a lot of unidentified hydrocarbon reservoirs. This research is all about offshore remote detection of the presence of oil and gas reservoirs.

"Furthermore, researchers have already speculated that shallow reservoirs are about to dry up; therefore it is very necessary for the oil industries to start thinking of how to search for deeper targets. And I am happy to inform you that our research group has already successfully developed some powerful new design transmitters using nano materials that can be used for that purpose. Due to the non-disclosure agreement that I signed, I do not want to say much in this respect but sincerely, we have gone far."


http://allafrica.com/stories/201112010353.html

Congrats dear.

brain drain, to malaysia for that matter.

well, i guess he plans to cross over to europe or the US later.


but i hope he didnt offend too many people when leaving nigeria because if in future he decides to return, he might still need their assistance.

he'll soon see what's up.

good luck to him sha- not my business.

^^^ If Nigeria wont help him, why not get brain-drained to where you know your brain and labor will mean something significant. And may possibly make a change.

This is nice. I like his determination, despite the fact that he didn't relent despite all the discouragement. All his 'discouragers' should be ashamed of themselves right now.

This is the same way that this silly Nigeria has lost lots of brains. All you see is them glorifying empty brains and giving national awards to cretins. Smh!

This same Nigeria would in the future look for this technology, and would probably pay heavily, when tĦey could have done a lot for him/invested in him before now. Kudos to the Malaysian school that helped him acheive his dreams. Nigerian government would proudly claim this is one of theirs now, and the most annoying part is that the school where he lectured will start claiming to have foistered this. Good thing he exposed them first. Good ridance to bad rubbish!!

Oops! Typing errors in first paragraph.

If Nigeria wont help him, why not get brain-drained to where you know your brain and labor will mean something significant. And may possibly make a change.

well, since he made a decision to start maligning his former co-workers in the media, he should just hope he doesnt need their assistance in the future, that's all.

the HOD asked him to defer [not cancel] his admission, which he refused to do.

end of.

not sure how this concerns nigeria as a whole.

was it jonathan who disturbed him?

Congrats to him and thanks to him for flying our flag high. Don't know what to say about the bad-belle HOD.

Yeske!:

Congrats to him and thanks to him for flying our flag high. Don't know what to say about the bad-belle HOD.

Sometimes it helps to see things from another man's point of view. What would you do if you were a HOD of a department with just barely enough staff strength and one of your brightest brains tells you he wants to leave? Of course you'll try your best to hang on to him.

I'm not sticking my neck out to completely exonerate the HOD but there often is much more to any story than first meets the eye.

texazzpete:

Sometimes it helps to see things from another man's point of view. What would you do if you were a HOD of a department with just barely enough staff strength and one of your brightest brains tells you he wants to leave? Of course you'll try your best to hang on to him.

I'm not sticking my neck out to completely exonerate the HOD but there often is much more to any story than first meets the eye.

i see your point, but theres no gainsaying it - the guy would have been wasted in that institution.

this is a fallout of the fact that tertiary institutions are dying

texazzpete:

Sometimes it helps to see things from another man's point of view. What would you do if you were a HOD of a department with just barely enough staff strength and one of your brightest brains tells you he wants to leave? Of course you'll try your best to hang on to him.

I'm not sticking my neck out to completely exonerate the HOD but there often is much more to any story than first meets the eye.

+1

Congrats bro, you've done well, even against all odds.

No be malaysia he dey?

He will soon see.

Even in america you cant just abscond like that thinking you'll just vanish into thin air.

He better mend whatever bridges he's breaking with his unguarded statements.

When the gods want to punish a Country, it closes their ear to genuine request

So what's the positive impact this gana make? How many Nigerians out there? What's the state of science and IT here bak home? These things are "rubbish"

Enemy within your birthplace are always much than outside place.

many congratulations!!! i don't agree with the trying to keep your best hands, it's simply selfishness; or a way of scuttling his progress. if he had waited would he have achieve this? the answer is no, as they have done to many, if his salary is not paid & he protests he could be sacked so what happens, regret & seeking employment, but now far better offers are begging for his signature. my advice is if you find urself in such sitution don't be fooled with you're our best, if that oppotunity passses they will treat you like shit, you might end up blaming urself('have seen it happen to people).

Until i hear from the HOD, i will not blame the man at all especially if he is HOD of EEE. All Electrical Engineering departments in all Nigerian Universities, both Private and Government, are short-staffed. In fact 50% of them do not have Lecturers of the level of Professor in their department.

The guy should be careful. It is not fair.

Anyway, i congratulate him for his achievement. I am proud of him.

texazzpete:

Sometimes it helps to see things from another man's point of view. What would you do if you were a HOD of a department with just barely enough staff strength and one of your brightest brains tells you he wants to leave? Of course you'll try your best to hang on to him.

I'm not sticking my neck out to completely exonerate the HOD but there often is much more to any story than first meets the eye.

You have a good point but the section of the article quoted below makes it obvious why Africa will continue to suffer brain drain. The tone of this brilliant chap may not appear patriotic or be to the liking of some Nigerians but he may just be saying it as it is. An optimum research environment will always appeal to him given that he is working towards attaining a PHD. Research grant is also useful as well since it free's him to concentrate fully on his studies.

I applied for the ETF sponsorship through the university and Professor Nwabueze assured me that my name was on the list of those getting it, however, his tenure as DVC ended. Up until now, my application for ETF has not been approved. They have also refused to pay my salary.

"Malaysians on the other hand pay me almost N200,000 a month just for my research work, besides paying for materials, conferences and workshops. Further, while my country which needs me the most only discourages me, I've received offers of research collaboration from all the continents of the world except Africa. After the conference, professors from renowned laboratories were eager to give me their cards and promising incentives if I joined them.

The writer of the article below, Ibraheem Dooba, raises similar issues. He is also in Malaysia and attending the same Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS to the PHD student who is the subject of the main topic i.e Muhammad Abdulkarim.


http://saharareporters.com/article/etf%E2%80%99s-sponsorship-lecturers-not-working


ETF’s Sponsorship Of Lecturers, Not Working
Posted: November 27, 2010 - 13:18
By Ibraheem Dooba
ETF sponsorship of lecturers of universities, colleges of education and polytechnics to either study in Nigeria or abroad is not working. This is not because of good intentions or implementation lapses on the part of the ETF but because the benefitting institutions which should encourage it are frustrating the efforts – but that is assuming that the people populating those institutions are sane or know what they’re doing.

As you would realize presently, they are not; nor do they know what they’re doing.

The training of higher education teachers is nothing original, many nations have done it before us and even successive governments in Nigeria have attempted it before, albeit haphazardly. But because we’re not serious with such policies, they all fizzled out – and that’s the direction our universities and colleges are inexorably pushing this ETF initiative.

We wonder why we can’t get a single thing right.

Let’s take the example of a country that got it right – Malaysia.  In the 70s and 80s, Malaysia’s educational sector was almost barren.  “The human resource was limited,” Professor Nik Mustafa vice chancellor of University Putra Malaysia told me.

“Our universities didn’t have the capacity to accommodate or train the man power we needed,” he continued, “so the government decided to sponsor a large number of Malaysians abroad.  Of course the oil money helped a lot.”

At a time, there were more than 5,000 Malaysian students in United States alone. “We’re the largest foreign student body in the US at that time,” Nik said.

Many more were sent to the UK, Australia, and Canada.  Those who were sent abroad were so many that it’s difficult to find a Malaysian lecturer who doesn’t have a degree or two from overseas.   Because the policy was pursued rigorously, the early 90s ushered in an era of Malaysians who were bouncing home with heads full of ideas and theories on how to better their country.   Added to that confidence was the fact they were tutored and supervised by the best in the respective fields; some were actually Nobel laureates.

Thus the universities became an exciting places of learning, “our capacity expanded,” Nik said, “we did not only have enough lecturers to teach and research at home, we’re also sought after by foreign organizations.  For example, I was in Italy working for a UN organization while at the same time a staff of UPM.  Such networking was good for our country.”


In the middle 90s the government wanted more universities.  So it invited private entities and some government companies to establish universities.  Thus in 1997, PETRONAS, the government oil company (their equivalent of NNPC) gave birth to Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS; from the energy company, TENAGA Nasional (their equivalent of NEPA) they have UNITEN and from Telecom Malaysia (their equivalent of NITEL), they have Multi Media University.  Some of these names may sound silly to you.  Personally I think the names were not well conceived but these are world class universities.  Actually, you have to visit them to believe this assertion. Even Europeans are beginning to come for studies in Malaysia now.  The aforementioned universities are either owned by government companies or government companies that were later privatised.  But government also facilitated the establishment of completely private universities like Limkokwing, Stamford, Lagenda, UNISEL, SEGI College and many others.

All these were possible because the government invested heavily in manpower development.  I once read Dr. Kabir Mato’s article in which he advocated for more universities.  Using statistics to support his call, he said about one million Nigerians are qualified for admissions into the universities but our schools have places for less than one third of them.  But then a question arises which cries for an answer: if we create more universities, who’ll teach the students?

Grab any lecturer from any university in Nigeria and ask him about work load, and he’ll tell you they’re understaffed.  One recently told me that “in a class of 46 students, I’ve 300 students.”

Many of the courses are not accredited because the universities do not have qualified staff to teach them.  For example, the Department of Statistics at University of Abuja does not have a single PhD.  The MBA programme was rested because the university does not have the capacity to accommodate the programme.

Thus members of staff in various universities were overjoyed when ETF stepped in to correct this hopeless situation.  But the institutions concerned will have none of it.  It’s either they’re unfairly selective in choosing the staff to sponsor (like Kaduna Polytechnic) or they are completely averse to sending staff for further training (like University of Abuja), which ironically needs the assistance more than any other.  Since the sponsorship started in 2007, not even one lecturer of the university has benefited from the scheme.  This is not because the money is not available, no; ETF has cumulatively allocated more than a 100 million naira to the university.

But there are some shining examples, like Bayero University Kano.  Because of the support BUK lecturers studying abroad get, they’re the princes among Nigerian lecturers. (I’m talking about Jega’s time; I don’t know how they fare now.) FUT Minna is also doing well in this regard.  Last week alone, they sent eight lecturers for postgraduate studies in Malaysia under the ETF scheme.

Exactly how stupid, clueless and cruel the leadership of some of these institutions are will be revealed next week.

To be continued,

This is the kind of good news we need to challenge the rest of us to do our best to make fellow Nigerians walk taller.

congrats man.I advise you dont go back there else the HOD and the rest will hate you and make life unbearable.Move on to USa or Europe.

LOL @ the replies of needing his Nigerian superiors in future.

when you pass someone, you've passed them. He's gone global.

Whats the big deal. Why are you blowing his trumpet.I won a much higher award in the same field.

the federal govt and universities should do more to sponsor talented individuals who will help in the educational sector.

this brain-drains should stop, like someone said, it will come to a time when nigeria will need the technology which this guy has come up with and we will end up paying billions of dollars.

we should be the ones exporting this kind of technology to other countries, thereby giving us huge balance of trade.

all the same, congrats to the guy.

good for him

This is just one guy and you're complaining of brain drain, do you know how many brilliant nigerian doctors leave nigeria every year the figures are astronomical and this is all due to goverment that doesn't take education seriously. I'm sure the guy will never come back to naija again at least if i were him that's what i will do sha.

Nigerians are the countries worst enemy.
There are thousands of people like that prof who are brought down by fellow Nigerians out of jealousy, wickedness or the rampant "pull them down" syndrome which is driven by low self esteem issues.

Even right here on NL, the hypocrites have taken root. They are always first to scream loudest, but the ones at the forefront of killing progress with lies and sophistry. Can someone ask that hypocrite called Gbawe, why he has continuously lied that http://www.afrosciencecommunity.com is a scam? A website that is meant to give freely to the poor?
Ask them and you will find abundant reason why Nigeria is not developed; his likes parade the place making vast and vacuous speeches to no end, but when it comes to the time to practicalise words, they turn into full fledged bloodsuckers.

Have u seen how intelligent these people blowing up bombs can be? Boko said western education is not good yet one of their own has become a global scientist. Am really happy for him and hope he becomes a positive influence on his people.

Good for him.

Individual congratulations to the guy as this does not change teh situation of the over 150m Nigerians trapped in the geographical entity.

Ileke-IdI:

"Malaysians on the other hand pay me almost N200,000 a month just for my research work, besides paying for materials, conferences and workshops. "I really need to say here that even though [size=14pt]I am not a Malaysian[/size], Universiti Teknologi Petronas, being the number one in oil and gas research in Malaysia, gave me all the necessary and enabling environment to operate and achieve this success.

Meanwhile so-called progressives are increasing tax-funded university fees to N300,000 while paying minimum wage of N18,000 to their workers
Na so we want take go from third world to first
This guy is lost to the developed world and I will be surprised if he ever makes Nigeria's national (dis)honour awards- Pity.

Naija don suffer. So now or brainiacs are now going to Malaysia.

This is a fantastic achievement and there r loads of other Nigerians doing themselves and us proud. Unfortunately our universities have become glorified community colleges in many cases. What the universities need to start doing is raising finance for their institutions by having fund raising dinners, invite the eminent former graduates to dig deep, have seminars etc. We can't wait on useless government to turn things around. Anyway kudos to d guy, its always heart-warming to naijas doing big things