In collaboration with the University of Technology and the University of Anbar, the American University of Iraq-Baghdad (AUIB) co-organized the 15th International Conference on Developments in eSystems Engineering (DeSE-2023). A team of University professors contributed to the conference a research paper on an AI application that increases the accuracy of gender identification from facial images, knowing that AI applications were the centerpiece of the 15th version of the conference, titled, “Robotics, AI, Sensors and Industry 4.0,” where myriad such applications were presented and discussed in varied fields, including energy, medicine, and decision support systems.
AUIB President, Dr. Michael Mulnix, welcomed the distinguished attendees, among whom were ministers, deputy ministers, university presidents, professors, researchers, and industry leaders, calling upon them to keep abreast of AUIB’s seminars and events, as the university continues to work towards establishing itself as a top tier research university, capitalizing on its “intellectual and academic resources (that are) unrivalled in Iraq.” AUIB employs these resources not only to equip its students with “the skills that are required by the global economy,” but also to pursue its original grand purpose, to be “the beginning of Iraq’s renaissance”, according to President Mulnix.
Dr. Naim Al-Abboudi, Iraq’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, spoke of the need to synergize research output with material output, especially the industrial, for the purpose of “moving out of consumerism” towards productivity and pursuing economic development. The minister called for “finding the engineering and technological solutions” to problems, mentioning in particular the Information and Communications Technology sector and its many applications in the energy subsectors.
“We created scientific research,” as “our grandfather, Al-Khwarizmi, breathed Baghdad’s air,” said Dr. Dhiya Al-Jumeily, professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Liverpool John Moores University and president of the eSystems Engineering Society, in reference to Alan Turing’s use of logarithms to build his famous machine that broke the German forces’ ciphers during World War II. In this spirit, Al-Jumeily spoke of Iraq’s need for scientific research that would aid its revival, mentioning as examples AI applications that would “preserve the Tigris and the Euphrates” and revitalize productive sectors, maintaining that “persistence transforms imagination into reality.”