Keynote Speakers

 

Keynote Speaker 1

Prof. Mohsen A. A. Rashwan

 

 

New Trends in Artificial Intelligence and (Arabic) Human Language Technologies

A review for the new trends in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their effect on the life of the humanity will be introduced. A review of the main factors affecting the advances of AI field includes data, algorithms and hardware. I will discuss the value of the data relative to the other factors. New trends in algorithms that will include supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement models of training. New advances in cognitive sciences that contribute in developing new era of intelligent machines that can learn adaptively and continuously will be introduced.
Then I will focus on the most evolving trends and applications within the field of Human Language Technologies that will include: machine translation, data and text mining, automatic speech recognition, more. I will end up with the main challenges and opportunities that facing the advance of the Arabic language technologies. Computer Aided Language Pronunciation applied to the Holy Quran will be also reviewed.

Biography:
Prof. Rashwan received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electronics and electrical communications from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, another M.Sc. degree in systems and computer engineering from Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada, and the Ph.D. degree in electronics and electrical communications from Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada. He currently serves as a Professor in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communications, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, and as the Managing Director of RDI Corporation (www.RDI-Eg.com) that he cofounded in 1993. Over the past 25 years, he has been pursuing and leading R&D projects that focus on basic research as well as building commercial products of Arabic NLP, digital speech processing, image processing, OCR, and e-learning. Among other several national and international mega projects, he has served as a Senior Scientist in the EC’s FP7 projects on Arabic HLT NEMLAR and MEDAR, and as a Co-PI in the Egyptian Data Mining and Computer Modeling Center of Excellence (DMCM-CoE). Prof. Rashwan has cofounded ALTEC (an NGO to serve the Arabic language Technologies specially the Language resources: www.ALTEC-Center.org)

Keynote Speaker 2

Prof. Waleed Faris

 

A Maqasidic approach to Community Development Using IT

Information technology is becoming a major technological and social paradigm shift in the this century. The use of IT and its application penetrated all venues of public and personal life.
In this talk, we are developing a Maqasidic framework for the use of IT in public and personal life to provide a way for development rather than a way of societal alienation.
We are going to Maqasid Shariah and legal Maxims to construct this framework and give some applications for community development.

Biography:

Prof. Dr Waleed Faris finished his BSc in mechanical engineering from Zagazig University in 1989, then his MSc in Applied Mechanics from the same University in 1996, his PhD in nonlinear systems from Virginia Tech, USA in 2003. Beside his publications and research in Mechanical Engineering which reached more than 170 papers in Journals and conference in his field of mechanical Engineering , he is also active in research and publication in Islamic civilization and Islamic reform. To his credit he has three books in English about Professional ethics from Islamic perspective, Islamization in Natural Sciences, and the contribution of Muslim Scholars in Science and Technology . He published a book in Arabic and the educational aspects of Said Nursi works.Also he published many journal papers about Quran, Islamic Reform, and modernism in Journals. He is sitting on the editorial board of four international journals in engineering and also he is the editor in Chief of the International Journal of Muslim World Studies, Malaysia. Also, he is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Arab Culture, Management , and Sustainable Development , UK.

 

Keynote Speaker 3

Prof. Rosalina Abdul Salam

 

Quranic Content Understanding and Digital Media: The Way Forward

The Quran is the Divine Book of Islamic faith and practice. It is the word of Almighty Allah and was revealed in Arabic to Prophet Muhammad (saw). Quran is the comprehensive source of Islamic teachings that deals with all aspects of humankind. Strengthening ones belief in Allah requires the recitation, understanding and following the Quran. Reciting Quran for non-Arabic speakers is a great challenge but understanding the Quran is a much complex and greater challenge not only for non-Arabic speakers but also for Arabic native speakers. Rapid advances in Information and Communication Technology can be seen in the past few decades. Many applications and tools are developed and can be used by educators to assists the students for Quran recitation. Much more interesting and interactive tools are developed with the use of current digital media. However, a lot of focused are towards the Quran recitation rather than the Quran understanding. The use of digital media in understanding Quran is still a huge challenge and can be further explored. Furthermore, this is very crucial since the number of Muslim population in the next coming years are predicted to increase and there will be a demand for a large number of educators with Quranic expertise to explain the content of the Quran. The use of digital media and the advances of technology can be used in Quranic content understanding and this can allow the increase of the number of students to educator.
In this talk I will discuss the current scenario of the available tools and applications for Quranic content understanding. I will also share our work on Quranic content understanding that we are currently working on. The research is focusing on the extracted words from the Quran and the meaning of the verses. One of the important components in understanding the Quran is to obtain the knowledge of the interpretations (tafseer). The current model that we are working are based on the knowledge extraction and dissemination from the Quran. Images, Videos and Audios will be the contents of the datasets

 

Biography:

Rosalina Abdul Salam is a professor at the Faculty of Science & Technology, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM). She received her B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in Computing in 1992 from Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. She started her career as a System Analyst at Intel Penang in 1992. She returned to United Kingdom in 1995 to further her studies. She obtained her Master of Science Degree in Engineering in Advanced Software Engineering from Sheffield University in 1997 and PhD in Computer Science from University of Hull in 2001. She became a lecturer at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in 2001, a senior lecturer in 2005 and an Associate Professor in 2007. She becomes a Professor in Computer Science at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) in 2010. She has served as a chairperson for software engineering program at the School of Computer Sciences, USM, Director of Research Management Centre, USIM and Director of Islamic Science Institute, USIM. Her current research interests include Artificial Intelligence, Image Processing, Speech Processing, Pattern Recognition and Interactive Digital Media Applications in Education. She has published more than 100 papers in journals and conferences. She has supervised and co-supervised several numbers of Ph.D. dissertations and M.Sc. theses.

Keynote Speaker 4

Dr. Refaat Al-Zanfally

Computational Techniques for the Extraction of Combined-Individual Quranic Recitations

There has been increasing interest in the science of Quranic recitations (‘Qiraat’) during this digital age. In particular, the seven famous recitations of Al-Shatibiyyah has received significant attention, where many modern contemporary books have been written, as well as previous works; consequently resulting with an increased number of institutions dedicated to teaching the Holy Quran, and an increase in the number of websites emerging for learning Quranic recitations. However, there are notable shortcomings in the fact that the existing websites do not link learners' recitations' with the explanations of the principles and rules that are referred to in Qira'at poems (Al-Tayyibah, Al-Shatibiyyah, Al-Durrah).
Recently, the use of computers in education and training has become very essential, particularly following the tremendous development that has occurred with the increase in speeds of processing, storage capacities and digital-communications, with spread of the Internet as the most significant example. A lack in such features within existing websites has presented learning difficulties for reciters. Hence, through our projects focuses on developing computer applications to facilitate learning of the correct recitations from the famous and popular Qira'at recitations with their origins, whilst distinguishing each recitation in accordance with Al-Shatibiyyah, Al-Durrah and Al-Tayyibah approaches.
Through these projects, we propose a range of computer applications for providing efficient learning/training techniques for the science of multiple recitations using the latest information security technologies, quality assurance standards for websites and applications of the Holy Quran, and content verification approaches through the development of a protocols to protect the electronic content that within the various system components and during network transmission before such content is presented and stored on end-user devices.
The proposed method of teaching depends on reciting each section of the Quranic verse, either individually or in combination via speech/audio and writing text, with the statement and explanation of the principles and rules of each recitation and the sub-principles by evidence shown from Al-Shatibiyyah or Al-Durrah or Al-Tayyibah done via audio, writing text and coloring as well. This study is unique in that it will propagate teachings of the science of recitations from traditional methods to new learning methods in the world of information technology.

Biography:

Dr. Al-Zanfally is an Associate Professor of Community College, Dept. of Computer Science & Information, Taibah University, Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah, KSA. He is also a Standing Committee member of the Center for Information Technology Research to serve the Holy Quran and its Sciences (Noor), Taibah University. He received his M.SC. in Computer Science & Communication at Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Digital Communication in Satellite Channels, M.T.C, Cairo, in 1988. Dr. Al-Zanfally supervised many master and PhD theses in the area of specialization faculties of Engineering Mansoura, and Al-Azhar,University of Ain Shams in Egypt. He is a Principle-Investigator in (Noor project NRC-170) " Development and Implementation of Computer Software for the Teaching and Training of the Recitations of the Holy Quran using the Seven Recitation Methods from Al-Shatibiyyah". He was a keynote speaker in several International conferences and published many research papers in scientific journals and international conferences.