Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Best day so far!

This MIT Bootcamp has been one of the best experiences of my life! Alhamdulillah (All praise is for Allah, the Rab of the heavens). The bootcamp has been going on since last Saturday and I plan to write one post about my experience as a whole, but today was special! Today there was a lecture by Joi Ito the director for Media Lab at MIT. It was a fascinating lecture where he touched on how technology is affecting the world and what will be the future of AI. He touched on very interesting points of how we should control AI. I noted down some interesting quotes from his talk..

"Usually history is repeating itself until it doesn't!"
"We have to reinvent Democracy because it's broken"
"We should fix capitalism"

He touched on a very interesting point about this notion of screen time for kids. He said this is mostly an elitist stigma that screen time is bad for kids. He argued that for the kid of a working mother, the screen was a window to the outside world! Limiting screen time is just stupid! I asked him a question "How can developing countries leverage current and upcoming technologies to skip decades of development and join the first world?" for which the answer is embedded in the video below!


Friday, March 22, 2019

I've finally made it to Tokyo

This MIT Bootcamp journey has been a topsy turvy from the start, but I've finally made it to Tokyo! First it was the visa process, then it was the flights! Due to the ongoing crisis between Pakistan and India, both countries have closed their airspaces for each other. Due to this, the load on all flights going out of Pakistan has increased a lot, which meant that I had a really hard time finding a flight on such short notice to Tokyo. Even business class (which I was never planning on buying) was fully booked as well. But finally my travel agency found a flight for me that was economy but pretty expensive and it was via Karachi! So I had to take a 2.5 hour flight to Karachi (via AirBlue), then wait around 5 hours at the airport, took a flight to Doha (Qatar Airways), waited around 2 hours there and finally took a 9.5 hour flight from Doha to Tokyo (Qatar Airways). So in total my journey lasted around 25 hours. I checked in to my hotel last night around 1.30 am and today was my first day in Tokyo! Since I have to complete a few prerequisite MOOCS before the bootcamp starts, my plan was to spend the day finishing those, no sight seeing for now! However my laptop charger didn't match the 2 pin sockets that are common here. I tried finding a converter at a local convenience store nearby but they didn't have it. Ultimately I had to go to Akhihabara, which, I've already planned on going to. Fortunately it's just a 20 minute walk from my hotel, so that's what I did. I walked to Akhihabara, bought the converted and then wasted an hour there... It was hard to bring myself back but I eventually did. I spent the next 4.5 hours doing the MOOCs and then I joined some of the bootcampers who have all converged on Tokyo from around the globe for dinner. The bootcamp officially starts tomorrow at 4 so I've got to complete the remaining MOOCs. Here are some cool pictures from day 1. 









Monday, March 18, 2019

Good News!


I've got my visa! In the last few posts I wrote about going to attend MIT bootcamp on Technology and Innovation! Well the great news is my visa to Japan has been issued! In recent years I've had a lot of trouble with my visa applications, so obviously I was very skeptical if I would get my visa! In fact, the visa pick up time at the embassy was at 2.30 and I had to wait one hour before my passport was returned to me with the visa! That was one tense hour! Even though I'm pretty used to picking myself back up from rejections and failures, but it's still disappointing to miss out on great opportunities! Due to my visa issues, I haven't been able to visit Silicon Valley, haven't been able to participate in CERN's humanitarian hackathon at Geneva, Switzerland, missed out representing my company at BETT show recently! Anyway I hope these issues eventually go away! Interestingly I am an invited speaker at Fireside Summit in the UK this September! Let's see if I'm able to go there and speak! I guess this Japanese visa and my MIT experience will certainly help! 

Here is an interesting fact! I am the only Pakistani attending this bootcamp! There could be two reasons for that! Probably no one else from Pakistan applied or I'm a Genius ;) :) :). So now the excitement starts! I have a couple of days to get my hotel bookings and flight reservations done. Planning to fly out on Thursday as the bootcamp starts Saturday! And I have to re-plan how I utilize the extra days I have post bootcamp! Some of the things that I'm looking forward to seeing the cherry blossoms! This is the time of the year to visit! I'm also planning on visiting Akihabara Market which is one of the coolest places for a geek like me! Really looking forward to having a cool time in Tokyo and learning a lot at the bootcamp! I'm planning on blogging throughout my trip, but like previous times I have a feeling, this will remain a plan only! 

Image taken from: https://www.womanandhome.com/travel/best-time-to-visit-japan-55928/ 

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Fixed my Nintendo Switch for less than $10


Last year I bought a Nintendo Switch. I'm a big fan of handheld gaming consoles. Before the switch I had a PSP which I used to play during my graduate studies. After giving it away to my nephew and becoming a Teacher, I had no money to buy another one. Only last year after starting full time at LearnOBots could I finally afford to buy another one so I bought a switch. After playing it for a few months the left analog stick started degrading and finally made it impossible to play any game. It kept moving upwards. I thought my 2.5 year old hyper active kid 

was responsible for this as whenever I'm not home, he goes after it playing it until the battery dies. Anyway after looking online to find a solution for it I found out that this is a manufacturing fault and almost all users have faced the same problem. I had two options now. Either buy a new pair of joy cons which is quite expensive or try to figure out how to get it fixed. Since the Switch is not sold officially in Pakistan and I bought it in Doha, I was pretty sure, I couldn't get it fixed from Nintendo, so I checked if I could find a replacement part from AliExpress and lo and behold! I found a set of replacement joycons and some tools as well for less than $10. Ordered the set with free shipping, had it delivered in around 20 days. And then I did the fix which seemed pretty simple. You can check out the video below!





Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Visa submitted!


In my last post I shared my experience about visiting the Japanese Embassy for applying the visa. Well today I submitted my visa application. Now I'm hoping and praying I get my visa soon In sha Allah. Don't want to get too excited as disappointments are exponential compared to the excitement one feels. Anyway last weekend I also managed to finish reading the book Made to stick. I think it's a good book, I won't categorize it as one of the best, however it does have excellent  ideas on how to make ideas stick. But it also has some interesting lessons, like one idea that stuck with me is the Commanders Intent, which I've already started using in my conversations at my company. I've also started helping my co-founder in improving his communication and making his ideas stick with the our team. Commander's intent comes from Military terminology where the commander ensures his junior colleagues understand of what he wants to achieve. Then everyone in the chain of command understands his or her role in achieving that goal. The commander's planning is more abstract whereas the soldier's decisions would be practical and more action oriented. Anyway I'll try to write a review of my lessons learned from the book and there are two reasons for that. One, anyone wanting to pick up a copy can read my take on it and perhaps it'll let them decide whether to read it or not, and second, summarizing it will help me retain the major lessons I've learnt from the book and it'll be my ready reference. Ok enough about this book. Now I need to get started on another one and finish around 4 MOOCS before March 15th! Blog later!

Image Courtesy of LonelyPlanet.com