Multimedia Communications: What, Where and How?

April 8, 2013
Shahab Baqai | University of Illinois

Communication and sharing of information has become as pervasive and multimodal as the science fictional imagination of various works such as Star Trek, except of course where there is a transgression on the laws of Physics (faster than light communications, etc.) In this talk I will identify the building blocks in the end-to-end communication system; enabling technologies and the protocols that provide for ubiquitous, multimedia communication experience over heterogeneous network substrates and end devices. The talk will focus on audio and video communication over packet switched networks highlighting my work in efficient and secure delivery of content within the user quality specifications and resource constraints. The challenges and projected solutions over present and next generation networking initiatives will conclude the talk.

Speaker Details

Dr Shahab Baqai is currently working in a startup company, Video Analytica Inc., and as a visiting associate professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) – on sabbatical leave from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan where he is a faculty member in the School of Science and Engineering. At LUMS, Dr Baqai has contributed not only as a faculty member but also in leading the school and department as the dean of SSE and chair of the CS department. His previous appointments include General Manager Information Technology at Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, visiting professor at Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences & Technology Pakistan, consulting with Enabling Technologies Pakistan, lecturer in CAE and Engineering Officer in Pakistan Air Force. Dr Baqai has a number of research publications and has also contributed to two books. He has served on the program committees of various conferences and has been the publication editor of numerous conference proceedings. His research interests include distributed multimedia systems, architecture and protocols for broadband multimedia networks, resilient transmission of multimedia data, multimedia information representation and security. Dr Baqai also does work in classification, indexing and retrieval of video data based on the actions or motion in the video content.

Shahab Baqai received his PhD, MS and BS degrees from Purdue University, University of Southern California and College of Aeronautical Engineering Pakistan in 1998, 1994, and 1985, respectively. He is a senior member of IEEE and a member of Eta Kappa Nu, the Electrical Engineering Honor Society.