Resume of ALTAF H. KHAN

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Career Highlights

• Career Record
  • SparkCognition
  • TestRigor
  • Taibah University
  • UMT
  • Virtual University
  • LUMS
  • KASB
  • Innofy
  • Techlogix
  • UET
  • DESCON
  • IC Sensors
• Education
  • PhD - Warwick
  • MSEE - Pennsylvania
  • BSEE - Wilkes
• Etceteras
  • Service to the Profession
  • Publications & Talks
• Values
• Contact Info

• Built KASB TechVentures - an incubation/venture capital company for technology businesses. more
• Wrote the business plan and raised US$4 million for Innofy - an offshore software development company. more
• Developed the quality assurance team and established performance enhancement processes at Techlogix. more
• Initiated activities for improving the software development processes at Systems Limited. more
• Developed a long-term plan for installing a quality management system at CresSoft. more
• Created an expert system for predicting the preferences of Northwest Airline pilots at CresSoft. more
• Improved old programs and launched new ones, recruited faculty members, enhanced infrastructure and established international linkages at Taibah University. more
• Played the pivotal role in re-orienting/structuring/positioning UMT. Founded her School of Science & Technology. more
• Developed the inaugural television/Internet-based course on computing for the Virtual University. more
• Led the effort that renewed and streamlined the BS curriculum for computer science majors at LUMS. more
• Coordinated the modernization of the decade-old BSc curriculum in electrical engineering at UET, Lahore. more

Career Record

Consultant - SparkCognition, Austin, Texas, USA
April 2018 - Present

SparkCognition builds AI solutions for applications in energy, oil and gas, manufacturing, finance, aerospace, defense, and security. I am incorporating low-cost, energy-efficient deep nets in their machine health monitoring projects.

Advisor - TestRigor, San Francisco, California, USA
December 2017 - Present

TestRigor provides a fully autonomous service for the functional-regression-testing of websites and mobile apps. I advise TestRigor on the machine learning aspects of their system.

Professor - College of Computer Science & Engineering, Taibah University, Madinah, Saudi Arabia
February 2007 - September 2017

• Taught courses in programming, discrete mathematics, artificial intelligence, software engineering and project management and supervised senior projects.
• Performed funded research in the application of machine learning
• Established formal relations with the University of Colorado Boulder and Kookmin University
• Chair, Computer Science Graduate Studies and Research Committee
• Chair, Computer Science Strategic Planning Committee
• Chair, Computer Science Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
• Chair, Computer Science Undergraduate Program Accreditation Committee
• Chair, Computer Science Undergraduate Program Self-Evaluation Committee
• Chair, New College Buildings’ Detailed Requirements Committee
• Chair, Committee for Specialization Specification for Teaching Assistants
• Member, University IT Working Group for Strategic Research in Science and Technology
• Member, College Strategic Planning Committee
• Member, College Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
• Member, Preparation Year Curriculum Revision Committee
• Member, Faculty Candidate Selection Committee
• Member, Laboratory Preparation Committee

Professor of Computer Science, University of Management and Technology, Lahore
April 2003 - September 2005

Offices of Admissions, Alumni/Placements, Media/Advertisement/Promotion
May 2005 - August 2005
Developed a new positioning strategy and implemented it through a Web/print-media campaign that established UMT as a provider of high-quality education and resulted in significant improvements in the quality as well as the quantity of the student intake for Fall 2005 as compared with that for Fall 2004.

Founding Dean - School of Science and Technology
May 2003 - January 2005
Played a key role in reorienting the university that resulted in a move away from a teaching-only model to a more conventional research/teaching one; a new school-based structure; a shift from a trimester-based academic calendar to a semester-based one. Managed all areas of the new school, including four academic departments, computer center, academic support unit, and alumni and placement affairs. Following are the key events/activities that took place during the 1 3/4 year tenure:

• A new, unified undergraduate program offering majors in five areas was launched
• Graduate degrees that required both coursework and research were started
• New laboratories in Computer Networking, Chemistry, Garments, and Knitting/Weaving were developed
• A Garment Productivity Center came into operation
• Groundwork for a Center for Software Usability was completed for a February 2005 launch
• Collaborative research proposals with peer universities were submitted to funding agencies
• Cross-registration of graduate courses with NU-FAST starting in Spring 2005
• Four senior and six junior faculty members joined the school, one of which has since become the Pro-Rector of the University and the other the successor Dean of the School of Science and Technology.

All this resulted in an appreciable increase in the stature of the school as indicated by the significant increase in the quality of the incoming students at the undergraduate as well as graduate level.

Developed the very first course that was offered by the Virtual University - a unique institution that offers four-year degrees throughout Pakistan and the Middle East through television and the Web. That course - rated the best by a wide margin during its first offering - is currently in its tenth run.

Taught an introductory course in computing. The video recordings of that course were later used in an on-line version of the course - probably the first offering of its kind in Pakistan. Led the effort that reviewed, renewed and streamlined the undergraduate curriculum for Computer Science majors.

KASB - one of the largest corporate finance and equity players in Pakistan - is currently assisting over 500 institutional and individual clients from outside of Pakistan in making investments in the local markets. They have had almost a decade-long relationship with Merrill Lynch and have worked on many joint-ventures with them. I played a multifaceted role there that consisted mainly of launching and monitoring new IT-related businesses.

I was the founding CEO of KASB TechVentures (Private) Limited - an independent company that assisted entrepreneurs in transforming their innovative Internet ideas into world-class businesses by accelerating growth, reducing risk, and enhancing value. I also founded SenSync Media (Private) Limited - a multimedia development studio - to support the operations of TechVentures portfolio companies. Both companies folded in June 2001 due to adverse industry conditions.

Conceived the idea and implementation strategy for a new offshore software development company - Innofy. Wrote a compelling business plan and presented it to two of the most successful business groups in Pakistan and gained promises of US$4 million investment from both. Later, abandoned the Innofy project (immediately after receiving the second offer of investment!) for a more challenging opportunity - an IT business incubator.

Techlogix - then a 55-person software company with offices in Boston, San Jose, and Lahore - was focused on the rapid development of innovative eBiz solutions for American clients. I played a multifaceted role there:

Technical & Managerial Process Development
Restructured the roles and responsibilities for technical team members. Developed a corporate methodology for rapidly developing Internet applications. Institutionalized various processes to improve the software development process and the management of the organization.

Quality Function Development
Initiated, assembled, and managed the corporate quality function. Trained the team in developing and maintaining software quality assurance processes.

Quality Management System
Devised a long term plan, based on ISO9001, CMM, and People-CMM, for continuously improving the quality of products developed at Techlogix. Initiated the development of an Intranet application for developing and maintaining processes and collecting the data generated by those processes.

Human Resource Development & Knowledge Management
Managed the human resource development function. Instituted a performance management system and a process for supervisor evaluations. Established the corporate Intranet and organized a series of internal seminars to institutionalize the sharing of knowledge. Established a library.

Relationship and Project Management
Managed the development of eCommerce and other projects Whiteflash.com, a diamond and jewelry eBoutique; UniPakStocks.com, an online stock trading site; Techlogix.com, the corporate marketing site; QuikCash Plus, a web-based commerce application.

Technical Consulting for an Expert System
Acted as the technical consultant for a team building a vehicle occupancy detection system. This system initially used neural networks, but now uses automatically generated decision trees.

Operations Management
Managed the computing services team. Reorganized the work environment to improve productivity. Performed the day to day administrative and managerial tasks.

Taught courses in circuit analysis, computing, control systems, electronics, and engineering mathematics. Coordinated the modernization of the decade-old undergraduate curriculum in electrical engineering (1997-98). Prepared the first draft of the curriculum for the new computer engineering option (1998). In addition, provided consulting services to the local software industry in designing expert systems and in establishing quality improvement programs. Details of consulting assignments are as follows:

Improvement of the Software Development Operation. Systems, Lahore
November 1998 - February 1999
Proposed a long-term strategy and outlined a staged-plan for improving the software development operation of the organization. Following were the main contributions:

• Initiated stage-1 by first helping in the selection of a scaled-down version of the Personal Software Process, and then piloting it in a small team.
• Guided a team in developing a proposal for an organizational improvement initiative based on the CMM and the People-CMM models.

Quality Management System Plan. CresSoft - Corporate Office, Lahore
July - August 1997
Created a 5-year plan for the company-wide installation of TickIT (ISO 9001), the CMM, and the People-CMM models. Following were the main contributions:

• Identified the roles and skill profiles for the personnel required for the standards installation teams, assisted in their recruitment, and organized a program for their training, both as a team and as individuals.
• Created a company-wide information resource on quality standards, and initiated the development of a web-based data-collection mechanism for the use of the standards effort.

Preference Card Predictor. CresSoft - Business Systems, Lahore
November 1996 - April 1998
Developed an expert system for predicting the future preferences of the pilots of a major American airline. This system is to be used by the airline for forecasting its staffing and training requirements. Following were the main contributions:

• Defined achievable goals, selected the appropriate prediction technology, and outlined an evolutionary procedure for empirically synthesizing the system.
• Defined the component-based architecture and designed the components.
• Proposed the high-level design and provided guidance in the prototyping of two new products based on the Preference Card Predictor technology:
  • Training Resource Forecaster  for forecasting the training resources required at any point in time over a 9-18 month future horizon.
  • Preference Card Assistant  for assisting the pilots in filling preference cards in such a fashion that their career growth is optimized.
• Proposed the high-level design of a related product, the Long-Term Forecaster, for forecasting the hiring schedule for pilots over a 10 year period.

Designed and commissioned instrument systems for chemical plants. Specialized in the installation of Programmable Logic Controllers. Also developed microcomputer based annunciators, data loggers, and PID controllers.

Developed acceleration and pressure sensing systems for automotive and general-purpose usage. Responsibilities ranged from requirements analysis to design and prototyping to planning of testing strategy and training of production personnel.

Designed and constructed an MOCVD (Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition) reactor for the growth of epitaxial germanium films for use in photo-detectors. Did extensive characterization of these germanium films with X-ray diffraction.

Developed logic gates based on liquid crystal devices. Also explored phased array optical antennas, optical amplifiers and modulators - all employing LCD technology.

Evaluated SPICE simulation software and related CAD/CAE tools. Also developed specifications and testing procedures for components used in CCD cameras.

Provided laboratory instruction, developed computer programs, and graded assignments etc. for various engineering courses.

Counseled disadvantaged high school students in personal and academic matters, and organized various activities for them.

Education

University of Warwick, Coventry, England
Thesis: Feedforward neural networks with constrained weights (abstract, thesis)

• Commonwealth Scholarship - 1993-96

Moore School of Electrical Engineering,
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Thesis: MOCVD reactor for growing epitaxial germanium films

• Research Assistantship - 1985-87

Wilkes College, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Project: Liquid crystal optical switch for use in fiber-optics

• Senior project published in IEEE 1985 Student Papers, IEEE Press, New York, NY
• Sigma Xi Research Recognition Award - 1985
• Nada Vujica Memorial International Student Award - 1985
• Electrical Engineering Achievement Award - 1985
• Walter S. Carpenter Merit Scholarship - 1982-85

Etceteras

• Sessions chair, Taibah University International Conference on Advances in Information
  Technology for the Holy Quran and Its Sciences (NOORIC), Madinah Munawwarah, Saudi
  Arabia - 2013
• Member, Scientific Committee, 1st Taibah University International Conference on Computing
  and Information Technology, Madinah Munawwarah, Saudi Arabia - 2012
• Member, Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Pakistan - 1998-Present
• Member, Executive Committee of the IEEE Pakistan Section - 1998, 2001 

• A. H. Khan. Lightweight Neural Networks. ArXiv Preprint https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.05695, 2017.
• A. H. Khan. Weightless Neural Net is a Universal Approximator. Manuscript submitted for publication, 2017.
• E. H. Aboelela and A. H. Khan. Wireless Sensors and Neural Networks for Intruders Detection and Classification. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Networking (ICOIN 2012), Bali, Indonesia, February 2012.
• A. H. Khan. Multiplier-free feedforward networks. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), Honolulu, Hawaii, volume 3, pp. 2698-2703, May 2002. pdf
• A. H. Khan. Launching a software quality initiative: The preliminaries. In Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE National Multitopic Conference (INMIC'98), Lahore, Pakistan, pp. 104-109, November 1998.
• A. H. Khan. Multiplier-free feedforward neural network is a universal approximator in C(R). In Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE National Multitopic Conference (INMIC'97), Islamabad, Pakistan, pp. 33-36, April 1997.
• A. H. Khan and R. G. Wilson. Integer-weight approximation of continuous-weight multilayer feedforward nets. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Neural Networks, Washington, DC, volume 1, pp. 392-397, June 1996.
• A. H. Khan and E. L. Hines. Integer-weight neural nets, Electronic Letters, volume 30, number 15, pp. 1237-1238, 1994.
• A. H. Khan and J. J. Santiago-Aviles. Epitaxial Germanium films by MOCVD. In Proceedings of the Materials Research Society Symposium, Boston, MA, volume 102, pp. 279-282, 1988.
• A. H. Khan and U. R. Nejib, Optical logic gates employing liquid crystal switches, Applied Optics, volume 26, number 2, pp. 270-273, 1987.
• C. A. Boyer, A. H. Khan, M. R. Murphy, and G. A. Solomon. Liquid crystal optical switch. In IEEE 1985 Student Papers, IEEE Press, New York, NY, pp. 24-32, 1985.

• A. H. Khan. Raising venture capital for developing IT products. Pakistan Software Export Board's Conference: IT's Made in Pakistan, Lahore, Pakistan, June 2004. powerpoint slides
• A. H. Khan. Business plan for a software quality assurance company. IEEE Week Seminar, National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan, October 2002. powerpoint slides one-page summary
• A. H. Khan. Improving the effectiveness of university teaching. IEEE Lahore Section/LUMS Research Center Seminar, Lahore, Pakistan, July 2002. powerpoint slides
• F. U. Lodhi and A. H. Khan. Right-sizing resources and processes in the Pakistani software industry. IEEE Pakistan Section/LUMS Research Center Seminar, Lahore, Pakistan, November 2001. powerpoint slides
• A. H. Khan. Exporting non-IT services over the Internet. Small & Medium Enterprises Development Authority, Lahore, Pakistan, July 2001. powerpoint slides
• A. H. Khan. IT-enabled remote services: Pakistan's irresistible value proposition. Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan, May 2001. powerpoint slides
• A. H. Khan. Starting a global eBiz in Pakistan. National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan, February 2001. powerpoint slides
• A. H. Khan. Investing in Pakistan's IT Businesses: Opportunities & Challenges. Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Lahore, Pakistan, February 2001. powerpoint slides
• A. H. Khan. Incubating global eBusinesses in Pakistan. Various venues in Pakistan, 2000-1. powerpoint slides
• A. H. Khan. Business plan for Innofy - A new software development company. Various venues in Pakistan, May 2000. powerpoint slides
• A. H. Khan. On the selection of a suitable AI technique for solving a given problem. Tutorial. Presented at the 3rd IEEE National Multitopic Conference (INMIC'98), Lahore, Pakistan, 20-22 November 1998. pdf slides

• A. H. Khan. Call center outsourcing: How to retain employees. Sourcingmag.com, April 2006. html
• A. H. Khan. A graphic worth a thousand acres? (Subtitle: Why establish a call center in Pakistan?) The Daily News, Lahore, Pakistan, August 2001.  pdf
• A. H. Khan. Enabling the IT Boom. The Daily News, Lahore, Pakistan, July 2001. html
• A. H. Khan, M. A. Khan, N. N. Lone, and F. U. Lodhi. Training electrical engineers for the software engineering industry. Technical report. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan, July 1998.
• A. H. Khan. Book review: L. Fausett, Fundamentals of Neural Networks, Prentice-Hall, 1994, in The Computer Journal, volume 37, number 5, p. 472, 1994.

Professional & Personal Values

Contact Info