Chinar is called the royal tree of Kashmir. It is known for its majesty, antiquity, magnificence, and a royal touch besides a cool shade. This tree is found throughout the landscape of Kashmir valley, its roads and hillsides.
The chinar leaves have a very elegant and exuberant pattern and draw a special attraction for the tourists who visit Jammu and Kashmir. The World's oldest chinar tree, which is believed to be 647 years old, is located in the Chattergam village of Budgam District.
It is only a beautiful coincidence that a young man from the same district of Kashmir is up with dozens of dreams for Kashmiris, which are symbolic to the attributes of Chinar.
Rukhsanul Haq, the founder director of Kashmir Institute of Mathematical Sciences (KIMS) which is a registered society by now, is on toes for a much-needed industrial transition in Kashmir. In that context, Chinar Quantum Artificial Intelligence (CQAI) has come up as a necessary offshoot of KIMS to set up the first AI lab in Kashmir with sophisticated computing facility.
The aim is to get the youngsters ready for data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning to keep pace with the coming times. Chinar Quantum will be the first ever AI based company in J&K. While the name ‘Chinar’ makes it symbolic of our region, the suffix Quantum is to keep up its future compatibility.
Rukhsan has a bold team of experts who have been working rigorously in this direction since 2019 under the banner of KIMS and have achieved a significant amount of success.
To name a few, Junaid Akhter pursuing his research in the department of data science for engineering at University of Paderborn in Germany is heading the technical division of CQAI and Neelam Firdous Khan pursuing her master’s from the department of geophysics and meteorology at Cologne University of Germany is heading the operational and managerial part of the process.
A brilliant youngster Naushad Ahmad Khan, who is an I T specialist at Tata Consultancy Service will be the software expert in this project. CQAI also owes a lot to Mr. Humayun Ashraf, a data analyst in a Srinagar based company who is taking care of the local logistics and management of the newly born AI company in Kashmir.
It is pertinent to mention that a number of boys and girls across different districts of J&K have already been guided by KIMS mentors. These youngsters have landed up in some of the world class Universities for research, with significant future prospectus and some of them are working as data scientists in such companies as Johnson and Johnson, Cerner, Affine and Tata Consultancy Service.
Other than that, KIMS has consistently been running the courses on python programming, R programming and other computational skills on very affordable rather meager charges. This has also benefitted N number desirous applicants in the current regime of students across various institutions in the valley from high school to higher education.
Some of these were attended by foreign researchers as well, who were highly impressed by the content of the said courses and the manner of conducting them.
For instance, a German researcher, Reem Emad who attended one such course recently, was highly appreciative of the way CQAI experts can simply deliver the content on AI technologies besides the ease and access to do such courses. Reem has done her master’s from Max Planck Institute and is currently a data scientist in one of the German Universities.
Though KIMS has an international setting with its main office at Vogeliusweg Paderborn Germany, it is yet a lesser acquaintance back home.
A temporary KIMS office has been set up at Mehjoor Nagar Srinagar where some preliminary rounds of meetings have been held with a chunk of academicians, researchers, journalists, technocrats and bureaucrats of the valley to make public the KIMS agendas in future besides seeking their suggestions to run the project in the local working environment of Kashmir.
The KIMS careerists have an ardent desire of beginning to do the charity, rather the reformation at home. The conventional teaching learning system has already rendered a pool of PhD holders in various disciplines, jobless. It is like a check and mate situation for them. Iqbal falls in place to say
jis khet se dahqāñ ko mayassar nahīñ rozī
us khet ke har ḳhosha-e-gandum ko jalā do
The farm that can’t give to the farmer his livelihood
Every sheaf of wheat in that farm, burn them to the ground.
KIMS intends to mitigate this misery and provide us with a whole host of alternate working options. CQAI ensures to waive off the job uncertainty by its industry transition module which implies that after having done the desired industry grade courses, CQAI will move an extra mile with the aspirants to provide them with all that is needed to get into and work in an AI industry.
This includes the communication and soft skill, leadership traits and improving upon one’s emotional quotient (EQ). The aspirants will gain the necessary domain knowledge about how do the AI industries essentially work.
If all goes well in the desired length of time as intended by CQAI group, it will set a chain reaction of livelihood generation thereby improving upon all other indices of a happy and prosperous life. To get in touch with KIMS and CQAI, one can contact at kims.assist@gmail.com and info@chinarquantumai.org or ping them at +4915259640305.
A website is already under construction and will be launched soon, highlighting the main features of Chinar quantum AI. This includes consultancy services besides the industry grade courses and transition modules, redirecting us at a revolutionary way of reaching out to everything from healthcare to medical diagnosis to agriculture to industry, besides education and research.
An essential question that all of us need to ask ourselves post covid 19 pandemic is that if we will be able to cope up with or surpass and survive such epidemics in future which are not unlikely to hit us again in one form or the other and may be at a greater frequency.
With or without covid, what is more desirous than an office at home and being available to parents and peers at the same time. This can be done with a laptop in the lap while sitting back against any corner at home. As we go online, we go off the scene of many miseries in life which are the result of a mere juxtaposition.
We will be at peace; we will be in prosperity. All it needs to happen is Quantum AI skill, spirit and sentiment. The relation between KIMS and chinar leaf can essentially be summed up in the following lines of Mehmet Murat ildan
“The dead leaf comes to life with the wind! He ascends to heights he has never known; migrates to places he never knew; he encounters trees he has never heard of; meets oceans he has never seen! Death takes the soul of the leaf, but the wind gives him a soul again!’”
This is precisely what Chinar Quantum AI intends to aim at.
Dr. Qudsia Gani, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Physics, Govt. College for Women, Srinagar
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.
