News · Awards · Events

Milestones and moments.

Recognition, conference leadership, and public engagement from the lab and its Director.

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Recent highlights

Gold Medal at the 49th Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions
Geneva Gold Medal with Honor (2024). The Director's patented innovation was awarded gold among 1,035 inventions at the 49th International Exhibition of Inventions, Geneva.
BlindLine wins NEOM OXAGON Hackathon
BlindLine wins NEOM OXAGON (2023). The patented assistive-navigation project took first place among 800 applications in the technology hackathon organized by the Saudi Ministry of Education.
Dr. Ghazanfar Latif
World's Top 2% Scientists (2024 & 2025). Named consecutively in the Stanford University/Elsevier global rankings; elevated to IEEE Senior Member in 2025.
2026

This year

  • General Chair: 2nd ICICET 2026 and 2nd AHTBE 26, co-hosted at University Canada West, Vancouver — August 21–22, 2026
  • General Chair: FTHCB 26 — Global Conference on Future Trends in Health, Cities & Business, University of Washington, Seattle — November 13–14, 2026
  • Wellness Hub research presented and demonstrated to BC Minister of State for AI and New Technologies, Rick Glumac, and delegation
  • Appointed Lead, AI for Health and Healing — TRU HorAIzon Presidential Initiative
  • Elected Secretary, IEEE Thompson Okanagan Section
  • UN SDG Open Pedagogy Faculty Fellowship received
  • Springer Nature Editorial Contribution Award and Author Service Award (second consecutive year)
  • Invited speaker, Commonwealth of Learning member countries: "Redefining Online Learning using AI & LLMs" · Speaker, IEEE TOK Annual General Meeting, Kelowna
2025

Last year

  • Elevated to IEEE Senior Member; elected Chair, IEEE Young Professionals Affinity Group (TOK)
  • General Chair, AHTBE 25, Annacis Research & Event Centre, Vancouver
  • "We'll Care" co-supervised team: 1st place ($10,000) + Audience Choice ($2,500), Wolves' DEN Innovation Competition
  • Invited speaker for BC Government MLAs' TRU visit (Peter Milobar & Ward Stamer) on AI in medical diagnostics and assistive technologies
  • Talks at TRU AI Summit & AI Showcase; Generative-AI roundtable for Indigenous student success; CELT workshop on LLMs for accessibility
  • Guest editorships: Diagnostics (Q1), Electronics, and Algorithms special issues
Honours archive

Awards timeline

2024

Gold Medal with Honor — 49th Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions

Among 1,035 inventions presented · Named World's Top 2% Scientists (also 2025).

2023

BlindLine — 1st place, NEOM OXAGON Hackathon

First of 800 applications · PMU Research Productivity Award 2022-23.

2022

National Academy of Inventors — honorary membership

Joining an organization of leading US and international universities.

2021

Best PhD Award, Gold Medal & Shield — UNIMAS

For machine learning in medical diagnostics · PMU Research Productivity Award 2020-21.

2019

Best Research Paper — CRIMSTIC 2019, Malaysia

2018

Best Research Paper — ICCSET 2018, Bangkok · Bronze — InTEX 2018

Bronze for the "Automated Brain Tumor Detection, Analysis & Visualization" poster.

2010

A national sweep for "Brain Inspector"

1st, ITEC Software & Hardware Competition (NED Karachi) · 1st, ACM Software Project Competition · 1st software / 2nd overall, NUTEC Peshawar · Microsoft Imagine Cup Pakistan top-4 · P@SHA ICT Award (team, number-plate recognition).

Editorial leadership

Journals & special issues

  • Editor-in-Chief, Inspire Intelligence Journal (ISSN 3110-942X)
  • Editorial Board, Discover Artificial Intelligence (Springer Nature)
  • Guest Editor, Diagnostics (Q1) — three special-issue editions of "AI/ML-Based Medical Image Processing & Analysis"
  • Guest Editor, Algorithms — smart health & smart systems special issues (×2)
  • Guest Editor, Electronics — low-power IoT & embedded systems
  • Edited book: ICICET 25 Proceedings, Springer Signals & Communication Technology
Conference leadership

Chairing & organizing

  • General Chair: ICICET 2026, AHTBE 25 & 26, FTHCB 26
  • Publication Committee Chair, IEEE CICN 2024
  • Technical Program Chair & Session Chair, IEEE CICN 2022
  • Co-organizer of three IEEE international conferences (2020, 2022, 2024)
  • Presenter/participant at 22 international conferences across 14 countries