I recently wrote about how there are more than one silver linings in our national affairs (no matter how badly we are used to ignoring them). One of the examples I quoted was the participation of a Pakistani team in NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge. You would think that alone is great news, but it gets even better.
It was an event held in every tech-savvy country around the world, including Pakistan, at the Institute of Space Technology (IST), Islamabad.
As part of NASA’s Incubator Innovator Program, a total of 949 projects from 133 countries were created. Two of them came from Pakistan: RRC and M-GLOVE.
RemoReboCon or #RRC has made it to the top 15 candidates for the People’s Choice Award. If #RRC gets enough public votes to finish in the top 5, it will go to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Voting ends in two days.
I tracked down the duo behind this endeavour so we could learn more about them through a series of questions that they were polite enough to answer.
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They hail from Lahore, and are colleagues at Coeus Solutions GmbH, a Berlin-based software company.
Naveed Ahsan is a Masters in IT from Punjab University College of Information and Technology (PUCIT).
Zaki Shaheen is a Computer Science graduate from FAST-NU Islamabad Campus and a Hackathon enthusiast, having participated recently in Startup Weekend, and Civic Hackathon Islamabad.
Q: How long have you been in the software industry?
A: Both of us have had 6+ years of software development experience and are iOS App specialists.
Q: Tell us a little about your project Remote Robot Connection (#RRC).
A: RRC is an app that controls a simulation of a robotic arm. When implemented, a robotic arm can be operated remotely, reducing the risk to astronauts during spacewalks.
