The Dhaka Times Desk Ehsan Haque, the young inventor of Bangladesh, is now in the headlines of the world's news media. This young Bangladeshi has entered the list of the world's best inventors!
According to media reports, young Bengali inventor Ehsan Haque has been awarded among the best 35 inventors under the age of 35 in 2016 announced by the journal Technology Review of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a world-renowned technical university.
Among those who received this honor earlier were two founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jonathan Ive, designer of iMac and iPad, Linus Torvas, the father of Linux, Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, etc.
Arguably, many on this MIT list went on to lead the way in changing the world.
Bengali Ehsan Haque's work is to derive mathematical models of human speech and body language and apply them. This research will lead to the creation of a device that will help people with autism or Down syndrome communicate, prepare job applicants for interviews, or even correct speech errors in debaters or speakers. A special glasses has already been made, which will help the speaker to be more fluent during the speech!
Human-to-human conversation or interaction is much like a duet dance. We understand each other's words, gestures, gestures and talk back to each other and move the conversation forward. Although this 'Mudra' or technique of conversation is not written anywhere, no one knows, but everyone (man) understands.
Ehsan's job is to make these conversational techniques comprehensible to computers. Now the question may come, what is the use?
'Lots are many things.' Ehsan told the media, 'For example, those who have autism or Asperger's syndrome, many of them cannot talk to people easily, nor can they understand other people's emotions. When they start talking, they don't know when to stop, they don't know if someone else is getting annoyed or happy with their words. Because the body language of conversation is not at all understandable to them. Now what if that person had a device that would tell the attitude of that listener. That is, the audience's laughter is really happy or just a sad smile. Then the communication ability of such people would have increased a lot.'
Ehsan's MACH (My Automated Conversation coach) and LISSA (LISSA-Live Interactive Social Skills Assistant) programs can instantly tell how many times a person says 'yeah, ahhh' etc. in a speech. Are his body gestures natural or imposed while speaking? Is his sound projection appropriate? etc.
Ehsan first invented Mak while working at the MIT Media Lab, which helped MIT students improve their interviewing skills. It was later developed by Lisa to help the differently abled or autistic.
Ehsan explains how the task of determining human expression by examining human facial expressions is done, 'The key is simple, teach by example. For example, the human face is usually round like a ball. However, if we put a human face and a football side by side in a blurred image, we can easily tell which is the football and which is the human face. Humans can do this very easily because we are used to seeing people's faces since childhood. Similarly, if a machine is given a number of human faces as examples, it will be possible for the machine to recognize human faces using modern mathematical terminology. But this work is not at all simple.'
Ehsan Haque was selected for MIT's TR35 to do such a task because it is not easy. Ehsan Haque is one of the three children of businessman father Enamul Haque and mother late Syeda Lutfe Saba. Studied at Udayan School in Dhaka and later at Dhaka College. After that, he graduated in computer engineering from Pennsylvania State University, USA.
Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Memphis. From 2008, he worked in the famous media lab of MIT. Research on helping machines recognize human emotions by analyzing human facial expressions and voices. In 2009, Walt Disney helped build the first automated robot—one that could see, hear, and make its own decisions—in a laboratory.
In 2010, he developed an intelligent advertising machine at IBM Watson Labs. Which distributes appropriate advertisements by understanding the movements of people walking on the road, gender, age, color and type of clothes!
Then in 2013, he created 'mood meter', which can tell whether people are angry or happy by looking at their faces. After completing his PhD from MIT in 2013, Ehsan joined the University of Rochester. Now this young Bangladeshi Ehsan Haque is working as an assistant professor in the computer science department. Ehsan's arranged family with wife Nafisa Alam and two sons Wali (5) and Arik (5 months).
Ehsan Haque says about his work, 'We call those who are different as disabled or disabled because we do not understand them properly. Try to change them to our expectations of 'normal'. I think we need to change our attitude too. New curricula, new technologies are needed, so that the specially abled population is guaranteed a dignified and fulfilling life like the rest of us.' Ehsan Haque, a young Bangladeshi who has advanced to the world stage, has expressed such an attitude.
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