Three Days SUMMER Workshop on PYTHON Programming Organized by the Department of Electronic Engineering on 18-20 June, 2019

Considering the importance of Python programming in various areas of sciences in engineering, the Electronic Engineering Department, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro organized three days interactive short course on Python programming during 18-20 June 2019. The course was conducted by the indigenous trainer Dr. Shoaib Rehman Soomro, assistant professor from electronic engineering department, MUET, Jamshoro and was attended by the undergraduate and postgraduate students of various departments, including electronics, telecommunication, biomedical, software and mechatronics.

The dean FEECE, Prof. Dr. Mukhtiar Unar was the chief guest in the opening ceremony. In his speech, Prof. Dr. Mukhtiar Unar discussed the importance of open-source freeware tools in general, and python programming in particular. He emphasized that the increasing cost of computational tools for engineering and sciences is limiting the students and scientists of the developing nations such as Pakistan to have access to high-end research tools. In one of the examples, he compared the cost of famous MATLAB licenses and its multiple toolboxes with the free and open-source libraries of Python. Prof. Dr. Unar also appreciated the motivation of the participating students, who took out the time from their vacations for learning this new tool. In last, Prof. Dr. Unar also appreciated the efforts of the chairman electronic engineering department and his team for initiating, planning, organizing and successfully conducting the course.

Dr. Tayab Din Memon Chairman Department of Electronic Engineering welcomed all students and formally opened the short course. He also appreciated passion of participating students for learning python programming. He also thanked Dean FEECE to take out time from his busy schedule to attend the event.

The short course continued for three days from Tuesday 18 June to Thursday 20 June. The course consisted of six sessions of lectures and programing activities, where each day consisted of two sessions of 150 minutes. The first day consisted a session on introduction and features of python programming, method of setting up python on PCs and basic syntax of python programming. The second session consisted of activities on python data types and writing basic python programs.

The second day started with the session on the demonstration, discussion and hands on activities related to control structures and functions in python. The fourth session consisted demonstration on file processing and operation on different datatypes.

The third and last day of the course started with the session on objects and classes and basics of different python libraries i.e. numpy and matplotlib. The sixth and last session consisted of demonstration of OpenCV in python and basic camera control.

By the end of third day a closing ceremony was arranged for certificate distribution. The emeritus professor Dr. Bhawani Shankar attended the closing session as chief guest along with chairman of electronic department Dr. Tayab Din Memon. During his speech to participants, Prof. Dr. Bhawani emphasized on the proper use of free time for learning and making difference to lives of yourself and others. He also encouraged the students to continue practicing the things learned during these three days and become an expert of the python tool. Prof. Dr Chaudry also appreciated this new initiative of the electronic department and congratulated the chairman for successful completion of first short course.

The chairman of electronic department Dr. Tayab Din Memon in his closing speech, congratulated the participating students for successfully completing the course. Dr. Tayab also announced the planning of more of such short courses by electronic engineering department in coming months and semesters. He thanked to Dr Shoaib Soomro for his remarkable efforts to make this program possible and appreciated the departmental organizing committee for successful execution of the course and the university higher administration for the humble support. On the request of chairman, the participants also shared their views and feedback on the overall course.

The ceremony ended with the distribution of certificates amongst participants and appreciation shield to resource person by the chief guest and chairman of the electronic department.