12 Year-old Khadija Niazi Takes AI and Physics MOOCs Online

[Riaz Haq]

Khadija Niazi, a 12-year old from Lahore, Pakistan, is taking online courses offered by a new wave of cyber-based educational platforms like Coursera and Udacity.  She was recently interviewed by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman at World Economic Forum 2013 at Davos, Switzerland.

 Khadija was the featured guest in a session on online education sponsored by Victor Pinchuk Foundation. She was joined on stage at WEF by Bill Gates, Larry Summer, Daphne Koller (Coursera co-founder), Rafael Reif (President of MIT), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia founder), Peter Thiel and other dignitaries.

Coursera and Udacity offer massive open online courses (MOOCs) in a variety of subjects to large numbers of students from around the world. MOOC courses are often taught by professors who have been teaching for years at elite universities in the United States. Top academic institutions are in the forefront of online
learning. For example, Harvard and M.I.T. have joined hands to introduce
EdX, which offers free online courses from each university.
About 753,000 students have enrolled, with India, Brazil, Pakistan and
Russia among the top 10 countries from which people are participating, according to NY Times. 

Khadija attends a local school in Lahore. She was only 10 years old when she first took the Artificial
Intelligence online course on Udacity. She managed to finish the course
and, the following year, Khadijah completed Udacity’s Physics course
with highest distinction. She now plans to take courses in Astrobiology.

Enabling virtual education is the high-speed broadband expansion led by PTCL which has propelled Pakistan to
become the fourth fastest growing broadband market in the world and the
second fastest in Asia, according to a recent industry report.

Source: OECD Global Education Digest 2009

The quickest and the most cost-effective way to broaden access to
education at all levels is through online schools, colleges and
universities. Sitting at home in Pakistan, self-motivated learners can
watch classroom lectures at world's top universities including UC Berkeley, MIT and Stanford. More Pakistanis can pursue advanced degrees by enrolling and attending the country's Virtual University
that offers instructions to thousands of enrolled students via its
website, video streaming and Youtube and television channels.

The concept of virtual instruction is finding its way to K-12 education as well. Increasing number of Pakistanis are drawn to the Khan Academy channel on YouTube making Pakistanis among its top users. Virtual Education for All is a local Pakistani initiative extending the concept to primary level.

All of these technological developments and open courseware initiatives
are good news for making education available and accessible to satisfy
the growing needs in Pakistan and other emerging countries around the
world seeking to develop knowledge-based economies of the 21st century.

Here's a video of Khadija's interview with Tom Friedman at Davos:



Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistan's Youngest Computer Prodigy

Khan Academy Draws Pakistanis

Pakistan Virtual University Wins Top OCW Award 

Pakistan Rolls Out 50Mbps Broadband Service

More Pakistan Students Studying Abroad

Inquiry Based Learning in Pakistan

Mobile Internet in South Asia

Allama Iqbal Open University

Online Courses at Top International Universities

Pakistan Virtual University

Pasi Sahlberg on why Finland leads the world in education

Intellectual Wealth of Nations

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a Time magazine story of how 12-year-old Khadija Niazi coped with Youtube shutdown in Pakistan:

On Sept. 17, the Pakistani government shut down access to YouTube. The purported reason was to block the anti-Muslim film trailer that was inciting protests around the world.

One little-noticed consequence of this decision was that 215 people in Pakistan suddenly lost their seats in a massive, open online physics course. The free college-level class, created by a Silicon Valley start-up called Udacity, included hundreds of short YouTube videos embedded on its website. Some 23,000 students worldwide had enrolled, including Khadijah Niazi, a pigtailed 11-year-old in Lahore. She was on question six of the final exam when she encountered a curt message saying “this site is unavailable.”

Niazi was devastated. She’d worked hard to master this physics class before her 12th birthday, just one week away. Now what? Niazi posted a lament on the class discussion board: “I am very angry, but I will not quit.”

In every country, education changes so slowly that it can be hard to detect progress. But what happened next was truly different. Within an hour, Maziar Kosarifar, a young man taking the class in Malaysia, began posting detailed descriptions for Niazi of the test questions in each video. Rosa Brigída, a novice physics professor taking the class from Portugal, tried to create a workaround so Niazi could bypass YouTube; it didn’t work. From England, William, 12, promised to help and warned Niazi not to write anything too negative about her government online.

None of these students had met one another in person. The class directory included people from 125 countries. But after weeks in the class, helping one another with Newton’s laws, friction and simple harmonic motion, they’d started to feel as if they shared the same carrel in the library. Together, they’d found a passageway into a rigorous, free, college-level class, and they weren’t about to let anyone lock it up.

By late that night, the Portuguese professor had successfully downloaded all the videos and then uploaded them to an uncensored photo-sharing site. It took her four hours, but it worked. The next day, Niazi passed the final exam with the highest distinction. “Yayyyyyyy,” she wrote in a new post. (Actually, she used 43 y’s, but you get the idea.) She was the youngest girl ever to complete Udacity’s Physics 100 class, a challenging course for the average college freshman.

That same day, Niazi signed up for Computer Science 101 along with her twin brother Muhammad. In England, William began downloading the videos for them.

Read more: http://nation.time.com/2012/10/18/college-is-dead-long-live-college/

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a Christian Science Monitor report on Youtube ban's first anniversary in Pakistan:

YouTube has been banned in Pakistan for a year now, underscoring the rising influence of Islamist hardliners and intolerance for free speech in the country.

The ban came after YouTube refused Pakistan's demand that it remove “the Innocence of Muslims” clips, outtakes from an attempt at making an anti-Islamic film that enraged many Muslims, from its website.

Islamists, backed by different religious parties came out to protest in the thousands, and started riots across Pakistan, leaving at least 20 people dead. Protestors also attempted to attack the US Embassy in Islamabad. The government eventually blocked access to YouTube last September, appeasing the protestors. A year later, despite calls to end the ban from free speech activists and business interests, the ban remains.

“The Pakistani government has been blocking Internet content under the pretext of national interest, religion, and morality,” says Hassan Belal Zaidi at the independent Internet rights advocacy group Bytes For All, based in Islamabad. “But it is actually trying to block any parallel discourse on the Internet and curtail freedom of expression of minorities... both political and religious, which speak against their persecution that happens quite often in Pakistan, and are not covered by mainstream media."
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Youtube hasn’t been the only case of social media censorship in Pakistan. Facebook and Twitter have been banned for hosting what the government deemed blasphemous material. And websites promoting separatism in the restive province of Balochistan and those criticizing the powerful Pakistani Army are also regularly blocked.

It’s not a complete crackdown: Internet rights activists say many Pakistanis are getting around the ban in new and creative ways.The digital block can easily be circumvented, they say, by using proxies and virtual private networks.

“Software such as Hotspot Shield, Spotflux, or TOR Browser as well as a host of online proxy servers are being used to access YouTube in the country. Many Pakistan-specific mirror sites have also been set up to allow people here to access content on Youtube, directly and indirectly,” says Mr. Zaidi.

Though university students who cannot access proxies while on university servers are losing out, everyone from Internet experts to the former president’s son provide advice online on how to circumvent the ban.

“Anyone using iOS and looking to get around the YouTube ban I suggest downloading VPN One Click,” tweeted the former president's son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, chairman of the Pakistan People's Party, the party that was in power when the YouTube ban was enforced last year.

One possible silver lining, say some observers, is that the ban and problems associated with using proxies has prompted a rise in alternative local websites. One example is www.tune.pk, which now has more than 25,000 registered users. “We cannot beg someone to erase the videos we do not like, instead we made our own space,” reads a statement on the website run as a private enterprise out of Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan. The website says the site regularly monitors content and removes any material that it feels is not suitable for a Pakistani audience.

That self-censorship is not satisfying to activists. Bytes For All, the advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit against the government's YouTube ban in the Pakistani courts, saying it curtails the fundamental rights of Pakistanis. The group's lawyer says the case is slow going because the government is terrified of inflaming religious sentiments and the possibility of more violence.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2013/0919/Pakistan-s-YouTube-ban-1-y...

[Riaz Haq]

14-year-old computer security researcher from #Pakistan listed in #Google Hall of Fame http://bit.ly/28VnIqc via @techjuicepk

Muhammad Shahzad, a 14-year-old security researcher from Pakistan, has been enlisted in the Google Hall of Fame for reporting several vulnerabilities in their web applications and also getting them fixed.

Don’t let his age fool you though. Muhammad Shahzad may look like an average teenager but he is actually quite an accomplished ethical hacker. Shahzad was exposed to the enticing field of hacking after his father’s email account was compromised. Since then there has been no looking back. He started to spend most of his time looking for vulnerabilities in softwares and over the course of time taught himself to be a security researcher.

Shahzad also reported the notorious Android 4.4 Lock Bypass bug two years ago, just a few days after it was detected by someone else. Nonetheless, he was acknowledged appreciated by Google for doing so. Since then, he has been finding and reporting security vulnerabilities including different vulnerabilities in their acquisition’s websites. To honor his work, Google has inducted him into the Google Hall of Fame.

Shahzad’s portfolio is more decorated than most people in the tech industry. Before being listed by Google, he was also featured in the Hall of Fame’s of Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Twitter. He has also worked as an intern at Plan9 and a Web Designer and Penetration Tester at DezignBurg. He has also submitted an application for Plan9’s Launchpad Incubator for his own startup idea. Owing to his expertise in the field of Security Research and Ethical Hacking, he has been invited by NUST and UET, Pakistan’s leading universities, to appear as a guest speaker. He was also included in our annual feature “TechJuice’s 25 High Achievers Under the Age of 25”. For the future, he has targeted an MS in Information Security at MIT.

Google has always promoted people to report bugs and vulnerabilities in their products and help better them. Their Hall of Fame features over 1000 people who have contributed in making Google products safer. Very recently, Google revealed that they have given out $550,000 to Android security researchers.

[Riaz Haq]

Coursera celebrates AI Appreciation Day


https://www.zawya.com/en/press-release/companies-news/coursera-cele...

Learners in emerging markets, including India, Egypt, Pakistan, and Brazil, make up more than half (52%) of GenAI enrollments on Coursera as the learning platform is bridging the opportunity gap by expanding AI-powered translations to include more than 4,600 courses and 55 Professional Certificates in up to 21 popular languages, including Arabic, Hindi, and Spanish.

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HEC Pakistan success story | Coursera


https://www.coursera.org/enterprise/resources/casestudy/hec

Paving the way for Pakistan’s digital knowledge economy

Through a successful and transformative partnership with Coursera, HEC has ushered in a wave of impactful education, breaking barriers and shaping the educational landscape in Pakistan.

Access to quality education:

200+ universities gained access to Coursera’s library of courses, including COMSATS University Islamabad and University of Central Punjab.

Over 267,000+ courses completed with students logging over 1.4 million learning hours.

More than 45,000 learners achieved deep-skills specialized certifications from internationally recognized institutions, the most popular specializations being Communication, Data Analysis, and Leadership and Management.

Enhanced teaching through curriculum integration:

Faculty enhanced their curriculum by integrating Coursera content into projects and materials.

Students applied their newfound expertise, translating it into freelancing opportunities.

Profound learner satisfaction:

HEC conducted a learner survey which garnered 10,000 responses:

96% of respondents credited Coursera for enriching skills development, with steep trajectories in digital literacy.

99% expressed a desire to continue expanding their learning.

Over 60% received tangible career incentives, such as recognition or advancements, through Coursera courses.

“We’ve encountered our top Coursera learners leveraging their skills for success,” Tanveer continues. HEC’s survey encapsulates this notion, with 47% of freelancers saying Coursera courses helped to increase their earnings. “These individuals, based in Pakistan, capitalize on learned skills, securing freelancing opportunities and projects, earning in US dollars due to their global online presence.” Maqadas Manzoor, a learner who benefitted from HEC’s support, attests to Coursera’s positive influence on his freelance career. “Enrolling in Coursera has been a transformative experience for me. I enrolled in IBM’s full stack cloud computing course and got my certificate, which gained me valuable knowledge. I have since acquired projects from a cloud computing and web application services company.” This partnership between HEC and Coursera helped introduce flexible, specialized online education tailored to Pakistan’s needs, bringing world-class learning within reach across demographics. As Dr. Jamil, Member IT at HEC, attests, “Our initiative with Coursera ensures that Pakistani youth gain industry-ready skills affordably and at scale. The positive response from students indicates that we are on track to achieve HEC’s goals.” HEC credits Coursera for enabling it to deliver meaningful change on a national scale – one learner at a time.