TEDx AlQassaa 2023

Perhaps my experience as a speaker at the #TEDx Al-Qassaa event is one of the distinctive experiences in my life for two basic reasons: The first is that the feeling that someone has an experience that worth to share with community to motivate others is not an easy thing. There is no doubt that everyone has their experiences, and in their forties, there is no doubt that people has an acceptable experience in life, but is this experience really acceptable to be "Ideas Worth Spreading", which is the slogan of TED? This was the first challenge. The second challenge or reason is the idea of preparing a speech in no more than 18 minutes to talk about an experience. I chose this experience to be about a broad and very important topic, which is scientific research and its relationship to the development of countries in a country exhausted by war... Of course, here the importance of the forties diminishes, as at forty a person is still considered a researcher at the beginning of his path. Am I really an experienced researcher with scientific research to talk about it in a motivational speech and in white (not formal) language as an attempt to simplify ideas....?

 

The first TED event I attended was in 2009 by an Indian engineer or student named Pranav Mistry. He was talking about computers and technology as the sixth sense. The title of the talk was: The thrilling potential of Sixth Sense technology. I was then in the first year of my Ph.D. after finishing my master’s. Since then, TED Talks has attracted my interest. The idea of a person speaking about his personal experience, passion, or personal goal to share with society in no more than 18 minutes is the secret to the success of this type of speech, and it is a great challenge for the speaker. I felt a little jealous when Tedx arrived to Syria. I watched the speeches in 2015 and wished I would be one of the participants, but at the time I was in Malaysia. Finally, my wish came true -  thanks to the Tedx Al-Qassaa team. 

 

I went through an experience that was accompanied by a lot of preparatory effort and tension before going on stage, but at the end it was one of the most beautiful experiences in my life. Therefore, I am proud to publish the content of this experience, which was helped by a team with whom I was very pleased to work. The first of them is the organizer of the event, dear: A. Ahmed Al-Tobol, whose dynamism, dedication, and attention to the smallest details cannot be described in words. Also the organizing team as a whole: especially Ms. Ghadi Al-Badawi, who was the one who called me to tell me the news of the selection - Ahmed Al-Frouh - Ms. Rasha Mahfoud, the content supervisor and the content formulation team as a whole, including Lynn Al-Qabaqibi and Odai Shabib, the slide designer - Mr. Alaa Al-Saghir, the distinguished director and media supervisor, and his wonderful team. I cannot mention everybody but I really appreciate the effort of everyone.

The talk is on YouTube in Arabic:

 https://youtu.be/wYuwIz4SsxY?si=T5HOt0udfTt5b-gL  

 

This is its script Translated to English: 

 

 ابحث (Research)

Good evening. During the break, one of the young men was smoking. I approached him and advised him to quit smoking because it is harmful to health. He said (and he was serious): Come on  Doctor, there is a study that has proven that a little smoking is beneficial.

 

My grandmother, may God have mercy upon her soul, used to advise us to eat lamb tallow specially grilled one. According to my grandmother, eating it is applying oil to the joints... May God have mercy on her, she did not mention to us the source of the research on which she relied.... However,  I don't really know what happened to my joints, are they oiled or not? But apparently I have a problem with belly fat... 

 

I am Muhammed Hayyan Al-Sibai, and I introduce myself as a researcher, a professional researcher with a degree, that is, I obtained a Ph.D. in the field of computer science, I specialize mainly in artificial intelligence and more precisely in computer vision. I am happy to be with you today at the Tedx Al-Qasaaa. TEDx, as you know, is supposed to shed light on the experiences of individuals in the local community. There is no doubt that the majority of the audiences here are Syrians, but it is possible that this speech will be filmed and I will share it on social media for my German cousin, my other Swedish cousin, my American friend, and some of my relatives and friends to see. Syrians nowadays are different  places across the world. Unfortunately, most of them are qualified people whom we have lost. Therefore, allow me to tell you about some non-local experiences that I have gotten during my study and work in Japan, and my work period as a teacher in Malaysia before I returned to Syria in 2018. I will also refer to some international experiences and even some cinematic films about scientific research. Let's start with one of the non-Hollywood foreign films, which documents an Indian mission to discover Mars (Mission Mangal): The team's motivator and passionate person asks a very important question to the frustrated team who was considered as less professional scientists... The question says: When was the scientist or researcher within you born?..... With her question, she stirs up memories in them.... And she continues her speech: We dreamed of science and became scientists, life robbed us and our dreams weakened until our lives became full of routine...but today the choice is ours...reclaim your passion...

 

At the end of the film, their passion takes them to Mars, or actually, they succeed in the mission of sending a satellite to orbit Mars in an innovative way and with a meager budget, and they outperform other countries. 

 

The film focused on local creativity...and the success of the local team in a scientific competition with a team led by a local person who worked at NASA. Within its folds, the film contains many messages, including:

  

A dream is not something we see in our sleep. A dream is something that does not let you sleep.

 

No science withoug experements: Here the talking is about a failed experiment that may have cost millions, but the missile exploded

What is the point of being a scientist if my science is not used to serve my country?

I will tell you a secret: Success in the developed countries is relatively easy. There is no doubt that there are various kunds of difficulties, such as learning the language, integrating into a new society, and longing for one’s family and homeland. But when you arrive in that countries, especially if you obtain a scholarship, you will have a number of great facilities. There is a lot of motivation, and the more you research, the more you will receive financial and moral encouragement and you can publish your research easily... 

 

Maybe It is true that immigrant scientists achieve important achievements for humanity in general, but on the other hand,  they deprive their countries from its share in the knowledge economy.  

 

The knowledge economy or knowledge-based economy is today's economy.

 Today, the power of states is no longer only military, but an essential part of it is economic power that depends on social, scientific, psychological and strategic studies.

 Wars are no longer muscles and tactics, but rather smart bombs and drons.

Everything has become based on scientific research, including marketing, sports, entertainment, and the creation of artistic and stars. Even fast food and its flavors, which many people love, marketing and preparing their flavors is based on questionnaires and data about people’s tastes.

Information is an important commodity, and today social media is accused of selling it and making huge profits from it.

Let me share with you one piece of information: Estimates from the "Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development" indicate that countries spend billions of dollars annually on research and development, i.e. the knowledge-based economy, and the total amounts is more than 1.5 trillion dollars.... 

There is no doubt that education is one of the most important sources of enhancing knowledge and competition, but education, despite its importance, is not enough alone... Education is, somehow, a process of consuming knowledge, not producing it.

Some of the characteristics of the new knowledge-based economy include:

1- Education based on development, thinking and innovation. 

2- Infrastructure built on information and communications technology.

3- Motivation.

4- Entrepreneurship and business acceleration. 

The first feature: Education based on development, thinking and innovation. It reminds me of a movie called "3 idiots". The movie star who always thinks outside the box seeks to convince those around him to work hard and follow their passion. Rancho says:

Don’t chase success, chase excellence and success will follow.

In the film, even children became scientists and inventors. The “Nerd” in the movie did not become an inventor despite his superiority. He became successful as the manager of a company that implements and develops inventions that he later discovers are Rancho’s.

Actually, during my university studies, I was somewhat like Rancho, and till today I pursue my passion and the things I love. Grades, or trend in today’s terms is not my main goal...

Let me now share with you my experience when I returned to Syria in 2018. Unfortunately, I did not find a workplace or laboratory that fulfills my ambitions and facilitated my work... The internal motivation pushed me to collaborate with a group of colleages interested - like me -  in registering an association concerned with scientific research. Within 4 years now, we succeeded in obtaining funding for our project from an international organization. We worked to create an acceptable infrastructure and established a workplace whose goal is to incubate ideas and help transform ideas into products or at least protptypes. It is true that we are moving slowly, but with steady steps, we are trying to build a research society and spread the culture of scientific research among young people...  However,  do you know what we are missing? We lack beneficiaries, those who have passion, patience, and perseverance to share their dreams with us and to help us turning our dreams and their dreams into projects.

Scientific research is not complicated, we can understand it simply – it is research and science.

What is science? It can be defined as: A systematic approach to constructing and organizing knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about everything in the universe ...

 

Scientific research...is either fundamental research, which is a search for knowledge (Faraday likens it to a newborn baby), or applied research, which searches for new solutions to practical problems using knowledge.

 

In other words, practical research transforms raw materials (data) into (information) that is analyzed to result in (knowledge). Pay attention to an important thing: knowledge is not always absolute. Knowledge is sometimes a personal map/model and a special vision of the scientist, discoverer, or researcher.

 

Knowledge is a personal model for the scientist. Therefore, in my opinion, the knowledge economy does not succeed in any society unless it starts from a local knowledge model. This is what can be called NPA National Priority Areas...and these, Actually, must be outputs of studies and research.

 

During my preparation for the Ph.D., I had a question about what is a Ph.D. An Internet search led me to Dr. Matt Might, who was a specialist in our field (Computer Science) at that time. Dr. Might explains Ph.D. in beautiful way. By the way, Dr. Might has a wonderful talk on Tedx Birmingham. If anyone is interested in scientific research, I recommend watching it.

  

This understanding made me consider the  Ph.D. as a driving license. Anyone who has a driving license knows how to drive a car, but this does not make him a professional racing driver. In order to become a professional racing driver, you must continue with training and qualification that never stops. 

We can say that Ph.D. study in general has three outcomes: knowledge (scientific publications), prototypes (turned into products and documented as patents), and human resources (researchers).

As a result of my experience in Japan and Malaysia: Research is more related to hard working more than intelligence. It needs the dynamism that taught me that the scientist and the researcher during his career do not always blow the winds as ships desire. There are obstacles, failed experiences, and frustrations...but what will keep you going is passion, patience, and motivation. Internal motivation is more important.

Everything we have learned and are learning, if we do not apply it to benefit our local community and our needs, its value may become zero. You may ask me how? .I'll tell you.

In Malaysia, they developed palm cultivation - materials extracted from palm oil are to replace a different materials extracted from petroleum. They considered it as a national product.

We in Syria are not less than them, by the way.

The Damask rose: a Syrian flower that our ancestors planted and benefited from its products, such as rose water, rose jam... Herbal tea... These products are in fact research outputs, perhaps not well documented according to the standards of scientific writing, but they are the result of research, effort and experiments. 

Today, there some researcher in Damascus University who are trying to extract medical products from it.  

It is not just the rose. Necessity is the mother of invention... We need alternative energies that suit our conditions, alternative or biofuels extracted from components of our environment, and cheap and resistant building materials to rebuild our country... So let us search.

If we go back to the young man’s opinion about smoking, I wonder if it is true?... And what about my grandmother’s opinion about grilled lamb tallow ... The answer: Research

Which is better for health? Olive oil or corn oil?  - Search

Are Malaysian products good or harmful to the environment?  - Search 

I cannot answer all the previous questions accurately. Do not wait for a computer vision specialist to answer you outside his specialty. Your question is the one you answer... Search does not mean just asking Google, Google Scholar, or any scientific search engine, but rather doing robust scientific research.

- Formulate a correct research question and show its importance and its modernity and originality by reviewing the experiences and research of others, which is called a literature  review. Choose a correct methodology - accurate hypotheses - do experiments and get results - compare and discuss, then publish your research in a journal with a good impact factor, or patent your invention and invest in it. ...Beware of plagiarism. Rather, attribute the effort to its authors and cite their works.

Then continue in the same cycle, which may also include development and marketing of your intellectual product. This is one of the most important ways of rebuilding and progressing nations and countries. 

Research is a method... a way of life that is not limited to the students with high marks. Rather, it is the work of the diligents and by it nations are developed. Research...

 

The talk is on YouTube https://youtu.be/wYuwIz4SsxY?si=T5HOt0udfTt5b-gL