Ahmed Sultan Salem, a visiting associate professor of electrical engineering, received the 2017 KAUST Distinguished Teaching Award. Salem was one of six finalists nominated for the inaugural award and has been with KAUST since 2011. He teaches a range of EE and applied mathematics courses and his research interests include energy harvesting and cognitive radio technology. Why it matters: Recognizing teaching excellence can help incentivize high-quality education and mentorship in technical fields crucial for advancing Saudi Arabia's research and development goals.
Salem AlMarri, the first Emirati Ph.D. graduate from MBZUAI, developed a video anomaly detection (VAD) system for his thesis. The VAD system can detect subtle anomalies in video, such as suspicious interactions, to help police prevent crimes and save lives. AlMarri's work was carried out under the guidance of Karthik Nandakumar, Affiliated Associate Professor of Computer Vision at MBZUAI. Why it matters: This research showcases the potential of AI in enhancing public safety and security in the UAE, demonstrating practical applications of computer vision in law enforcement.
MBZUAI PhD student Salem AlMarri, also a Dubai Police officer, has been appointed to the Dubai Youth Council for 2023-2025. AlMarri's research focuses on using AI to combat crime and improve emergency response times, aiming to contribute to the UAE's AI strategy. In 2019, he was recognized as one of the UAE’s up and coming scientist at the Her Highness Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Program for Excellence and Community Intelligence. Why it matters: This appointment highlights the UAE's focus on empowering young talent in AI to drive innovation and address local challenges in public safety and smart city development.
The Symposium on Data Mining and Applications (SDMA 2014) was organized by MEGDAM to foster collaboration among data mining and machine learning researchers in Saudi Arabia, GCC countries, and the Middle East. The symposium covered areas such as statistics, computational intelligence, pattern recognition, databases, Big Data Mining and visualization. Acceptance was based on originality, significance and quality of contribution.
Fudan University's Zhongyu Wei presented research on social simulation driven by LLMs, covering individual and large-scale social movement simulation. Wei directs the Data Intelligence and Social Computing Lab (Fudan DISC) and has published extensively on multimodal large models and social computing. His work includes the Volcano multimodal model, DISC-MedLLM, and ElectionSim. Why it matters: Using LLMs for social simulation could provide new tools for understanding and potentially predicting social dynamics in the Arab world.