Dr. Umar Saif received his academic training from LUMS,
Cambridge and MIT. He did his BSc (Hons) from LUMS (1998), PhD from University
of Cambridge (2001) and Postdoctorate from MIT (2002), all in Computer Science.
Dr. Saif worked and taught at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) as a research scientist for four years, where
he was part of the group (O2S) that developed system technologies for project
Oxygen -- a US$28 million project sponsored by the US Department of Defense
(DARPA) and an industrial Alliance of world-class companies including Nokia,
HP, Compaq, NTT DoCommo, Phillips, Acer and Delta.
While at MIT, Dr. Saif also managed the multi-million dollar collaboration
on future computing technologies between University of Cambridge and MIT
sponsored by the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) and a consortium of hightech
British companies.
Dr. Saif's research interests broadly span areas of Ubiquitous Computing,
Distributed Systems, Mobile Systems, Network Protocols and Architectures and
ICT for developing world countries. Dr. Saif has authored several influential
publications and is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust. Dr. Saif's
research has been featured in popular media, including BBC, New Scientist, MIT
Technology Review, Distributed Systems Online, and Dawn News. His research has
received grants from Microsoft Research (MSR), Oxygen Consortium at MIT,
Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI), US State Department/USAID, HEC and PITB.
Dr. Saif was selected as a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic
Forum in 2010. Dr. Saif received the MIT Technovator Award in 2008, Mark Weiser
Award at IEEE Percom'08, Digital Inclusion Award from Microsoft Research in
2006 and the IDG CIO Technology Pioneer Award in 2008. During his doctorate
studies, Dr .Saif was a Trinity College Overseas Scholar and Commonwealth
Scholar at University of Cambridge.
Dr. Saif has (co-)founded four technology startups: BumpIn.com (contextual
chatting), SeeNreport.com (citizen journalism), ChOpaal.pk (SMS social
networking) and TicketMy.com (event tickets). Dr. Saif is the founder of one of
the first startup incubators in Lahore, Pakistan, called SCI.
