Alliance University hosted international guest faculty from all over the world who taught students of different disciplines during their stay. The faculty representing varied expertise and experience teach or are scholars at some of the best universities and institutions across the globe. The sessions revolved around subjects such as Neural Networks, Media and Law.

One such session named ‘Great Talk’ was by Professor Guy Brown from University of Sheffield, UK in association with The British Council, India which was organized for Computer Science and Engineering Students. Professor Guy Brown is the Head of Department of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. Professor Brown obtained a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Applied Science from Sheffield City Polytechnic and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Sheffield after which he was appointed to a lectureship in the Department of Computer Science of University of Sheffield. He also obtained an M.Ed. in Teaching and Learning from the University of Sheffield. He has held visiting appointments at LIMSI-CNRS (France), Ohio State University (USA), Helsinki University of Technology (Finland) and ATR (Japan). He was also appointed to a Chair of Computer at the University of Sheffield.

Prof. Brown spoke on “Deep Sleep: Using neural networks to screen for sleep disorders” where he spoke about sleep disorders such as severe snoring and sleep apnoea that are very prevalent and can lead to serious medical problems. After the emergence of Covid-19, there is increasing pressure on respiratory medicine services and little capacity to diagnose and manage sleep disorders. There is therefore an urgent need for a low-cost, practical way of screening for sleep disorders in the home.

In this talk he explained University of Sheffield’s research on developing machine learning systems that screen for sleep disorders by analysing sound recorded on a smartphone. The performance of these systems is competitive with more complex and expensive methods. The talk covered three systems of increasing complexity that addressed snoring, sleep apnoea and “diarisation” of snore sound when there are two people sleeping in a bed; in other words, working out who snored when!

The other session was by international visiting faculty, Dr. Venkat Iyer who is a barrister and academic based in Northern Ireland. He is attached to the School of Law at Ulster University where, in addition to being Director of Educational Partnerships and International Affairs, he teaches media law, constitutional law, and business law. Dr. Iyer has been in legal practice since 1981 and is, among other things, a trained mediator. In his vast experience, he has served as a Law Commissioner for Northern Ireland; a former Nuffield Press Fellow at Cambridge University; a lecturer with several foreign universities, including Meiji University (Japan); University of Melbourne (Australia); Tsinghua University (China); Fordham University (USA); University of Malaya, International Islamic University of Malaysia (Malaysia); University of Bombay (India); and Soochow University (Taiwan); and continues to be a visiting professor in several institutions.

Dr. Iyer has also acted as a consultant to many governments, private corporations, and non-governmental organisations. He has also been invited by the Royal Government of Bhutan to advise on, and draft, media laws for the kingdom. He has additionally consulted for: the World Bank to design a programme on Continuing Legal Education for the Kenyan Bar; the review of the Broadcasting Act in Vanuatu and to recommend changes to the media law regime in the country; the Burmese government on a wide range of media law related matters. He has also been engaged in designing and delivering capacity building programmes for judges and magistrates in various jurisdictions, and frequently runs judicial training programmes.

During his visit to Alliance University, Dr. Iyer conducted sessions on Law of Torts, Motor Vehicle Accidents and Consumer Protection, Jurisprudence, Law and Media for students of Alliance School of Law. Students hugely benefitted from his sessions that were drawn from his vast experience across different countries and organizations.