The Centre for Urban Informatics, Technology and Policy (CITY) at LUMS is an interdisciplinary research center exploring the intersection of technology, infrastructure, and inclusive urban development. Run by a team of dedicated faculty and researchers, CITY works to generate data-driven insights and innovative policy thinking to help shape equitable cities.

Over the years, CITY has worked across diverse domains examining the dynamics of urban development and growth, such as how regulatory regimes shape the evolution of land and housing; probing issues of urban mobility, including commuter patterns, access disparities, and the lived experience of movement; and delving into the urban environment and public health, where questions of sanitation, climate vulnerability, and infrastructural resilience intersect. Details about CITY research projects can be seen here. 

Now, CITY presents The CITY Atlas!

A beautifully designed visual chronicle of its past three years of research, fieldwork, and community engagement. The Atlas brings together project highlights, data narratives, and reflections that chart CITY’s efforts to make cities more inclusive, informed, and humane.

Step into CITY’s world and explore the Atlas Here. 

In June 2025, three teams of undergraduate students from the Department of Electrical Engineering represented LUMS at the National Engineering Robotics Contest (NERC), held at NUST’s EME college Campus in Islamabad. A joint initiative of NUST and STEM Careers Program by HEC, NERC promotes innovation in robotics and provides a national platform for testing intelligent electromechanical designs.

All three LUMS teams competed in the Indigenous category, where the challenge was to build autonomous robots capable of localizing, identifying, and sorting fruit boxes by color, placing them precisely at designated points on a defined grid.
 

The journey began three months earlier, with the formation of teams made up entirely of first year students. Over the following weeks, they worked through circuit designs, coding challenges, and mechanical adjustments, ultimately building three competition-ready robots and one backup unit. Their commitment, adaptability, and attention to detail carried them through to competition day.

Their efforts paid off! And the team 1 advanced to the final round and secured the Runner-Up Award, receiving a cash prize of PKR 180,000. The award was presented by Lt. Gen. Inayat Hussain (Hilal-e-Imtiaz Military), Chief of Logistic Staff, who served as chief guest. For all teams, especially those new to robotics, the performance was a clear testament to their potential.

This year’s participation builds on the foundation laid in 2023, when an open call invited students from across LUMS to explore robotics; many for the very first time. Read the story here. Since then, continued mentorship and access to hands-on learning opportunities have helped strengthen a growing culture of engineering-led problem solving at the undergraduate level.
 

LUMS’ participation this year was made possible through the consistent guidance and support of Dr. Jahangir Ikram, who mentored the teams through every stage, from recruitment to prototyping. Mr. Mudassar Ejaz, Senior Development Engineer at EE Department, also supported the process by contributing to technical development and managing the logistics of the project. The effort was further enabled by the financial support of Dr. Momin Uppal, Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering.

To mark the achievement, a small celebration was held at the Executive Dining Hall (EDH) at LUMS, attended by the students, their families, Dr. Momin Uppal, and Dr. Walther Schwarzacher, Dean of the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE).

Zawar Hussain, a PhD candidate at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE), has been awarded the Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE 7th Global Power, Energy and Communication Conference (GPECOM 2025), held in Bochum, Germany from June 11–13, 2025.

Zawar presented his research on “Joint RIS Leasing and Energy Management for Delay-Tolerant 6G Networks”, which is now published in the IEEE Xplore digital library. The paper explores innovative approaches to energy-efficient wireless communication in the context of next-generation 6G networks.
Read the paper on IEEE Xplore.
 

Reflecting on the experience, Zawar shared that presenting to an international audience and engaging with experts in the field of wireless communications was both enriching and inspiring. “The discussions offered new perspectives that will further shape my future work,” he noted.

He expressed his sincere appreciation to LUMS, particularly the Dean SBASSE, Dr. Walther Schwarzacher and Dr. Momin Uppal, the Chair of the Electrical Engineering Department, for supporting his participation, and extended heartfelt thanks to his supervisor, Dr. Naveed Ul Hassan, and co-supervisor, Dr. Ijaz Haider Naqvi, for their mentorship throughout the project.

We’re proud of Zawar and look forward to seeing where this journey takes him next.
 

At LUMS, the skies were not the limit but the starting point. On 13–14 September 2025, the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE), in collaboration with SUPARCO, SPADES, the Department of Electrical Engineering, RESOLVE-SUPARCO, and the Space Research Center (SRC-UCP), hosted SPACE CAMP 2025, a first-of-its-kind training camp in Pakistan that placed the science of satellites directly into the hands of students. Sixty carefully selected participants arrived with curiosity and left with the experience of building and launching model satellites, decoding flight data, and working alongside the country’s leading space scientists.

The camp offered a rare opportunity to follow the full lifecycle of a satellite, from design and assembly to launch and data analysis. With CANSAT and EYASSAT training kits, ground station setups, and flight model assemblies, students engaged in the intricate processes that underpin modern space missions.

"This is the kind of exposure we wished we had as students,” remarked a SUPARCO trainer, capturing the transformative nature of the experience.

Guiding the participants were mentors who bridged theory and practice. From SUPARCO, experts including Dr. Muhammad Waseem, Mr. Ahsan Rafiq, Dr. Amad Ul Hassen, and Ms. Zahra Shuja Kazmi shared their expertise, while academic partners such as Dr. Kamran Saleem and Dr. Shakeel ur Rehman ensured the exercises were firmly rooted in scientific principles. Their combined mentorship not only strengthened technical skills but also encouraged students to imagine futures in aerospace, robotics, and satellite systems.

The closing ceremony carried both celebration and symbolism. The Director General of SUPARCO, Dr. Irfan Aslam, attended the event and presented souvenirs to LUMS leadership and faculty, including a historic image of the university captured by Pakistan’s first satellite. 

Certificates were also awarded to participants, recognising their successful completion of the programme and welcoming them into a growing community of young space enthusiasts.

The impact of SPACE CAMP 2025 extends well beyond its two days. For many, it was their first encounter with satellite hardware; for others, it was a moment of affirmation that their aspirations in space technology are both valid and achievable.

For LUMS, the camp reaffirmed its role as a national leader in science and innovation. By working with SUPARCO and its partners, SBASSE is equipping students with frontier skills while shaping Pakistan’s future in space exploration. And as the final prototype descended under its parachute during the camp’s closing simulation, it carried with it more than just data, it carried the aspirations of a new generation determined to reach beyond the horizon.

From late-night chai in the Communications Lab to developing the "brains" behind self-driving cars in Cambridge, Hamza Adnan's journey reflects the intellectual curiosity and interdisciplinary spirit that defines the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE).

A graduate of the Electrical Engineering programme at LUMS, Hamza is now working as a research engineer in Cambridge after pursuing graduate studies at Oxford. In this conversation with Madiha Rahman, Communications and Partnerships Lead at SBASSE, he reflects on the mentors, friendships, and questions that shaped his journey.

"Karachi prepared me for hostel life"

Madiha: Hamza, let's begin at the beginning. What first sparked your interest in science?
Hamza: I grew up in Karachi, which in many ways is a preview of hostel life - a melting pot of ethnicities, languages, and cultures from across Pakistan.
As a child, I was always fascinated by questions about how things work: how nature behaves, how societies organize themselves, how systems function. For a long time, I thought I would study physics. It seemed like the most philosophical and fundamental of sciences.

But there was also a part of me that wanted to build things with my hands. Electrical Engineering felt like perfect the balance - it allowed me to explore mathematics, physics, engineering, and computing all at the same time.

Another important factor was flexibility. I was always wary of the academic rigidity that exists in many university systems, where you choose a discipline at 17 and follow a fixed path for the rest of your degree. I wanted to experiment - attend a history lecture, explore theoretical physics, spend time in a chemistry lab. LUMS felt like the only place where that kind of intellectual freedom was possible.

Finding community during a pandemic

Madiha: You joined LUMS in 2020 - during the height of COVID-19. That must have been an unusual start to university life.

Hamza:
It definitely was. Only a small number of students with laboratory work were allowed on campus that year, so the community was very small.
But strangely enough, that year turned out to be one of the most meaningful periods of my life.
Against all odds, I ended up meeting people who would become incredibly important to me. That year I met my wife, some of my closest friends, and professors who shaped my intellectual and professional trajectory.
Looking back, those early months set the tone for the next four years: curiosity, mentorship, and a strong sense of community.

Mentors who pushed beyond the classroom

Madiha: Many SSE students talk about the mentorship they receive from faculty. Were there particular professors who influenced your path?
Hamza:  Absolutely. Dr. Muhammad Tahir, Dr. Momin Uppal, and Dr. Zubair Khalid were incredibly influential in my journey. They were the first people who encouraged me to go beyond the classroom. Dr. Tahir would often give me additional academic material to strengthen my foundations in areas I was curious about.
Eventually, they hired me as a research assistant in their research group. That experience introduced me to something I hadn't fully appreciated before - the joy of research that is both socially relevant and technically rigorous. It was during that time that I realized graduate school was the path I wanted to pursue.

Chai, chaos, and the Communications Lab

Madiha: What about the student community at SSE? What do you remember most about those years?
Hamza:  My peers were some of the most supportive and intellectually stimulating people I've ever met. There was never a dull conversation. Our curiosity constantly fed off one another's questions, and working on labs and projects together taught me what collaboration truly means.
And of course, there was our daily ritual: 5 pm Chai. No matter how intense things got, that break would remind us that we were all in it together.

One memory that really captures the spirit of those years was the night before our final SPROJ presentations. We stayed in the Communications Lab late into the night preparing together, running on Chai and coffee.
The stakes felt enormous, but the atmosphere was strangely calm - almost celebratory. It felt like the culmination of four years of shared effort and curiosity.

There were also some... less controlled experiments along the way. Let's just say we accidentally blew up a piece of high-power equipment in the lab once. I might tell that story again when everyone involved becomes a famous scientist.

Learning that consistency beats perfection

Madiha: Senior year often brings a different kind of pressure. What challenges did you face?
Hamza: Senior year felt different because the decisions suddenly felt very consequential.
Choosing a project direction, deciding on courses, applying to graduate schools - each decision felt like buying a one-way ticket to a particular future.
I struggled a bit with procrastination during that time. But eventually I realized something important: consistency beats perfection.
The habits that brought us this far - showing up, working steadily, staying curious - matter far more than trying to plan every possible outcome.

It's something I'm still learning.

From LUMS to Oxford - and beyond

Madiha: Your academic journey eventually led you to Oxford. How did that experience unfold?
Hamza: Getting onto the programme and receiving a scholarship was a blessing. Like most people applying to competitive programmes, I received a long list of rejections along the way. At the time, it felt discouraging - I even thought some of those institutions might have been better opportunities. But that's simply the reality of competitive applications.
Interestingly, I didn't have much time to prepare for the transition because my scholarship decision came quite late. I mostly relied on excitement and momentum to carry me through those first months. And honestly, excitement can be a rare resource in graduate school.

Building the brains of self-driving cars

Madiha: You're now working as a research engineer in Cambridge. What does your work involve?
Hamza:
I'm working at a startup where we're developing the "brains" behind self-driving cars.
The work constantly reminds me how extraordinary human cognition is. We take our perception and decision-making abilities for granted, but replicating even small parts of that in machines is incredibly difficult.

During my final interview for this job, one of the senior scientists - who also supervises PhD students at Oxford - asked me about my education at LUMS. He was genuinely surprised by the strength of the mathematical foundations I had developed.

That moment made me appreciate something even more clearly: the emphasis SSE places on fundamentals is incredibly valuable. Even without the most powerful computational resources, those foundations stay with you and continue to support you throughout your career.

Advice to SBASSE students

Madiha: Finally, what advice would you share with students currently at SBASSE?
Hamza: TEACH!
It's the best way to learn anything.
And whatever problem you're working on - academic or otherwise - learn to enjoy struggling with it. That process teaches you one of the most underrated skills a scientist or engineer can develop: 
The ability to ask good questions.
And good questions open a lot of doors!