SKIMA 2014

Photo: Darshan Chakma

SKIMA 2014 is the 8th international conference on Software, Knowledge, Information Management and Applications. It was held at the United International University, Dhaka, from the 18th of December till the 20th. It is the first of its kind in Bangladesh. The three-day-long conference was sponsored by United Group, Newscred and Southeast Bank. Technical co-sponsor was IEEE and the program was supported by European Union funded CLink, Fusion, gLink and SmartLink projects.

SKIMA
The SKIMA conference series started in 2006, with the first conference held at Chiang Mai, Thailand. The conferences started in an international collaboration context between research professionals in Western and Asian countries – in order to create a rich network.
Professor Alamgir Hossain, Director of Anglia Ruskin Information Technology Institute at Cambridge, was the co-chair of SKIMA 2014. “We wanted to create a network of global knowledge-based society and that stimulated to organise the first SKIMA in Thailand in 2006,” he said.  “Our goal is to create better accessibility – to share our education, research and best practices between Europe and the Asian countries, including Bangladesh."
Since 2006, the conference has been held in Nepal, Morocco, Bhutan, Italy and China, with Thailand hosting it twice. Finally, its Bangladesh's turn.
The program featured plenary speeches, industrial panel sessions, funding agency panel sessions, interactive sessions, and invited special sessions. Contributions arrived from academia, industry and government funding councils. Research papers and other such works were presented by students, teachers and practioners from various IT fields. Accepted papers have been published in IEEE Xplore, one of the largest technical repositories of literature on engineering and technology.

Photo: Darshan Chakma

THE CONFERENCE
The event started on the morning of December 18, at UIU. The inauguration ceremony lasted for an hour and had short speeches from the Vice Chancellor of UIU and the special guests. The Guest of Honour was S. M. Ashraful Islam, Executive Director of the Bangladesh Computer Council, and Chief Guest was Professor Dr. A.K. Azad Chowdhury, Chariman of the University Grants Commission. The inauguration was followed by the EU Session where the projects funded by EU Commission that support SKIMA were discussed. The projects include CLink, Fusion, gLink and SmartLink. This followed speeches by keynote speakers, each taking half an hour. Keynote speakers included various renowned professors from high ranking institutes from all over Europe. The other two days consisted of parallel sessions covering the various research papers presented from institutions in 22 countries. The program ended with a tour of the city of Dhaka for those who were interested. There was an attendance of over 300, with 46 participants from foreign countries alongside many local enthusiasts and participants.

Photo: Darshan Chakma

RESEARCH PAPERS AND AWARDS
One hundred and eighty-four research papers from 27 countries were submitted this year, with only 75 papers accepted after a rigorous peer review. The papers discussed theories, ideas, proposals, models, applications etc. Papers were presented on AI, networking, image processing, data mining, optimisation, software engineering, bio-informatics, distributed systems and cloud computing, Bangla computing etc. All accepted papers are considered to be published in IEEE Xplore.
The best paper award went to Rajib Baran Roy, Dr. Md. Enamul Basher, Rojoba Yasmin and Md. Rokonuzzaman for their paper on “Fuzzy Login MPPT Approach in a Grid Connected Photovoltaic System”. The best student award went to Pooja Lepcha, Worowut Srisukkham, Alamgir Hossain and Li Zhang for “Red blood based disease screening using marker controlled watershed segmentation and post-processing”.
United International University has been very active in arranging international events such as this and making affiliations with global bodies, in particular those related to the field of information technology and computer science. In a short time, UIU has risen to become one of the top universities in the country and it's easy to understand why when you see the dedication of the faculty and student body. We commend their efforts and hope the trend will continue and more institutions will embrace the culture. Academia and research go hand in hand. Conferences of this nature are paramount for a progressive and productive research environment in a country that still has much to improve on in the sector. Moreover, the affiliation with such global bodies have long-lasting and far-reaching positive consequences.