2018 Annual Conference Program

Association of Muslim Scientists, Engineers and Technology Professionals (AMSET)  
Annual Conference at ISNA Annual Convention 2018, Houston, TX
Saturday -Sunday, Aug 31-Sept 3, 2018

Session 1 Career and Business Career Opportunities in Cloud Computing and Data Sciences

• Abdul Wahab – Cloud Computing and Applications for Jobs of the Future: In today’s day and age, we are being mesmerized every moment with new IT technologies which is taking innovation to a whole new level. One buzz word which we cannot avoid is “CLOUD COMPUTING”. This talk will discuss:o   What is Cloud Computing?
  o   Why Cloud Computing?
  o   Is it easy to learn/Is it right for me?
  o   Different options available in the market.
  o   How do I get started?
• Mo Medwani – Artificial Intelligence with Applications in Deep Learning, Data Science: The session will focus on job opportunities in the area of artificial intelligence in a wide ranging technology landscape. The speaker will explain the scope of this field and its application to various technology areas. He will also share information about where the job opportunities are in this field. This lecture will offer the right Roadmap, Guidance for Personalized Search, and Milestones that will be helpful for job seekers in the area of AI and Data Science.

Speakers: Wasim Baig, Abdul Wahab, Mo Medwani
Moderator: Wasim Baig
Time & Location: Saturday, September 1, 2018, 11:15 – 12:45 PM, Room -340AB

Session I “AMSET Motivational Session” 

Welcome and introduction to AMSET – Dr. Sohel Anwar is AMSET President.

• Dr. Samir Iqbal – Nanotechnology for Early Cancer Diagnosis ‐ The miniaturization of computers and electronic gadgets has been a result of advances in nanotechnology. We can now reproducibly make nanoscale devices that can interface living systems at molecular scales. Many devices and approaches have emerged in recent years that utilize nanoscale features and microfluidics to interface, detect and identify molecular biomarkers and diseased cells. Such devices provide quick and dependable analysis capabilities of very minute biological samples that are important for early diagnostics. Early diagnostics of diseased cells, especially when these are very few in numbers, can mean increased survival rates and better quality of life for cancer patients. The nanotechnology-based frameworks can be used to measure viscoelastic, mechanical, electrical and chemical behaviors combinatorically to faithfully transduce important molecular and cellular anomalies to meaningful signals. This talk will share some insights about cancer diagnosis with nanoscale sensors. An overview of molecular detection, isolation and sorting of diseased cells with nanotechnologies and microfluidics will be provided.
• Hasina F. Huq – Biosensor Research and Graduate Education: This talk will focus on bio-sensor related research and graduate education in this area. Nitride composite nanomaterials are currently at the forefront of semiconductor research due to their wide variety of applications. The Nitrides (e.g. AlGaN and GaN) when used as thin films are characterized by superior performance at smaller scale, low levels of toxicity, and good atomic bonding. Therefore they are attractive to be implemented as thin-films in devices for medical monitoring, environmental awareness, telecommunication, RF systems, and optoelectronics even at quantum scale to reach wider regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. In this research, the AlGaN/GaN based devices are used as biosensors, Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), and High Electron Mobility Transistors.

Panel discussion and audience participation
Speakers: Dr. Samir Iqbal; Dr. Hasina Huq; Dr. Sohel Anwar;
Moderator: Sohel Anwar
Time & Location: Saturday, September 1, 2018, 2:00 – 3:30 PM, Room -340AB

Session 2. “Climate Change and Its Impact: An Islamic Perspective”

AMSET needs you – Sohel Anwar, PhD is AMSET Vice President.

• Dr. Awadh Amir Binhazim – Mitigation and Adaptation Measures for a Global Water, Food, and Energy Security under a Changing Climate: For the last few decades, engineering has produced marvelous machines and devices. With the increasing understanding of living cells, there are possibilities of developing biological machines where engineering precision meets the variability of life. Can order emerge from such variability and chaos? If so, then one can envision machines with unprecedented capabilities, including memory and learning, self‐healing, and decision making. How should such machines be viewed in light of Islamic principles?
• Dr. Abdullah Faiz Rahman  – Islamic Perspectives on Global Climate Change: Today, Intel makes more transistors per year than the number of leaves on trees in the whole world. It has been a fantastic voyage, but unfortunately, the journey is ending: We have made the transistors as small as possible, making them smaller will be hard. This is when Dr. Alam discovered bioelectronics – an emerging field that uses electronic sensors to explore biophysics and biotechnology. As he began to explore using nanobiosensors, the book of life written in DNA, the elegant complexity of a simple bacteria, the emergence of antibacterial resistance and the techniques to combat them, implantable electronics to monitor the vital signs and chronic symptoms, a new world opened before his eyes and the endless possibility have been mesmerizing. In this talk, he will tell the story of what he learned and how that has transformed his views of the world.

Speakers: Dr. Awadh Amir Binhazim, Dr. Abdullah Faiz Rahman; Dr. Syed M Shah
Moderator: Dr. Syed M. Shah
Time & Location: Sunday, September 1, 2018, 12:16 – 1:15 PM, Room -340AB

Career and Business Session 2 Resume / Interview Skills Building and Networking 

• Dawood Ahmed – IT Jobs: How to Sharpen Resumes and Interview skills: There is a great opportunity for those who are new to IT industry, fresh graduates or seniors who want to jump in IT or who are not sure which technology to choose. This talk will offer a glimpse of the most common and hot technologies in IT, help understand the roles and responsibilities in each field, answer questions and provide suggestions and tips. Also, it will explain how to find FTE in IT, plus how to deal with consulting firms and finally how to succeed in any field. The following topics will be covered: Birds-eye view of different IT fields (Business Analyst; Business Intelligence; DEVOPS; Coding; Data Science); FTE job search in IT; How to deal with consulting firms; Tips on how to succeed.
• Fawad Khan  – Networking via LinkedIn: This session will focus on networking through LinkedIn which can be used effectively by job seekers. Various aspects of this tool will be discussed to network with the prospective employers and hiring managers.

Speakers: Dawood Ahmed; Abdul Wahab; Wasim Baig
Moderator: Dawood Ahmed
Time & Location: Saturday, September 1, 2018, 4:00 – 5:30 PM, Room -340AB

Session 3 Cybersecurity: Impact on American Muslims

All About AMSET – Syed M. Shah, PhD is AMSET Past President.

• Latifur Khan – Big Data Stream Analytics for Cyber Security: Data streams are continuous flows of data. Examples of data streams include network traffic, sensor data, call center records and so on. Data streams demonstrate several unique properties that together conform to the characteristics of big data (i.e., volume, velocity, variety and veracity) and add challenges to data stream mining. In this talk we will present an organized picture on how to handle various data mining techniques in data streams. In addition, we will present a number of stream classification applications such as adaptive website fingerprinting, textual stream analytics (political actor identification over textual stream) and attack trace classification. This research was funded in part by NSF, NASA, Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), NSA, IBM Research, HPE and Raytheon.
• Muneer Baig – Cybersecurity – Threat for all Ages and All Businesses: In recent days, months and years many of us have heard the news of breaches that have led to a compromise of “DATA”, to be exact “Personal or Corporate Data”. Cyber criminals are all about stealing data as that is the currency of the 21st century. Protecting our information is our responsibility, it is about our future and financial viability. Understand the threat and realizing the potential of an impact on our businesses and personal lives is the first step in the defense against it.

Panel discussion and audience participation
Speakers: Dr. Latifur Khan, Muneer Baig
Moderator:
Time & Location: Sunday, September 2, 2018, 3:40 – 4:40 PM, Room -7

Career and Business Session 3 Business Development / Entrepreneur Workshop and Business Networking 

• Khurram Ali – This workshop will focus on entrepreneurship and business development. The speaker will share his experience in business development and entrepreneurship and provide guidance to those interested in starting a new business. This forum will also offer an opportunity to network with business / technology entrepreneurs at various levels.

Speakers: Khurram Ali; Wasim Baig
Moderator: Dawood Ahmed
Time & Location: Saturday, September 2, 2018, 4:45 – 5:45 PM, Room -7