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Graduation event for Computer Science Master's studentsfrom Afghanistan

October 5th through 11th, 2016

Preface

This Master's program in computer science for Afghan lecturers aims to edu-cate qualified personnel, establish computer science faculties at the Afghan uni-versities and create sustainable IT structures in Afghanistan. The third genera-tion of this Master's program at Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) was funded by the German Federal Foreign Office and supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Within the past two generations of the Master's program, 48 Afghan students ofcomputer science completed their Master's studies at TU Berlin and returned totheir home universities as lecturers to promote the development of computer science in their country. Today, they are holding leading positions as deans, vice deans, heads of IT at their respective universities or in the private and pub-lic sector.

At the end of September 2016, the 25 participants of the third generation of the Master's program graduated from TU Berlin. With them, further 25 highly quali-fied and committed computer scientists will be available to Kabul University, Ka-bul Polytechnic University, Kabul Education University, Herat University, Balkh University, Nangarhar University, Qandahar University, Khost University and Kunar University.

The graduation event was divided into two parts:

The first part consisted of presentations of the Master's theses by the Afghan students from October 5th until 7th, 2016. On the first day, the President of KabulPolytechnic University, Prof. Mohammed Sayeed Abdul Qayoum, the President of Herat University, Prof. Dr. Abdullah Faiz Afghan University, Ms. Nicole Men-zenbach, Head of Department 604: Universities, Science and Research of the German Federal Foreign Office, H.E. Mr. Hamid Sidiq, Ambassador of the Is-lamic Republic of Afghanistan, Mr. Daniel Zimmermann, Head of Government Liaison Office Berlin, DAAD, participated in the opening event at TU Berlin. The focus of the Master's theses lies on projects that deal with the development of sustainable and secure IT structures at Afghan universities and authorities.

The second part was a graduation ceremony at the German Federal Foreign Office on October 10th, 2016. To this event, H.E. the Minister of Higher Educa-tion, Prof. Farida Momand, had been invited.

The following is a report of both parts of the event.

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Part 1: Opening Event at TU Berlin

Wednesday, October 5th, 2016Moderation: Daniel Tippmann, ZiiK

Prof. Odej Kao, Dean of the Faculty IV, TU Berlin

Prof. Odej Kao welcomed H.E. Mr. Sidiq, Ambas-sador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,Ms. Menzenbach, representative from the GermanFederal Foreign Office, Prof. Abdul Qayoum, Pres-ident of Kabul Polytechnic University, Prof. Faiz,President of Herat University, Mr. Daniel Zimmer-mann from DAAD and all participants of the pro-gram.

In the following, Prof. Kao briefly introduced TUBerlin and presented some facts about the FacultyIV for Electrical Engineering and Computer Sci-ence. Today, the Faculty offers 5 BSc and 6 MScstudy courses. Besides electrical engineering andcomputer science, students can get a BSc in Com-puter engineering, Business Informatics, and Media Informatics and an MSc in additional subjects like Automotive Systems or Computational Neurosciences.

He confirmed that the Faculty IV is proud of its high number of international stu-dents. This is further strengthened by many academic cooperations with institu-tions across the world. He went on to explain that the city of Berlin wants to be-come a location for "digitization 4.0" during the next years. Within this program, further chairs are to be created to supplement the current field of computer sci-ence.

Prof. Kao praised the successful cooperation between TU Berlin and the MoHE as an important element of the international network and thanked all parti-cipants and involved parties for the smooth cooperation, particularly Dr. Peroz, head of the ZiiK of TU Berlin, the Federal Foreign Office and DAAD for the long-standing support.

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Ms. Nicole Menzenbach, Head of Department 604: Universities, Science and Research, German Federal Foreign Office

On behalf of the Federal Foreign Office, Ms. Men-zenbach greeted all participants of the Master'sprogram and all attendants of the event. Within thescope of this Master's program, already 48 Afghancomputer scientists have graduated from TU Ber-lin. They returned to their home country and helprebuilding Afghanistan through education.

The Afghan youth, as she went on, is the hope ofthis country which is currently rebuilding itself. Inthis process, education is the key to develop pro-gress and wealth. Ms. Menzenbach emphasizedthat TU Berlin is contributing to this process since2002 and that the projects of Dr. Peroz and histeam are helping the country to stand on its ownfeet.

She stated that with the specific projects the students are working on for their Master's theses, they introduce the ideas and inspiration that Afghanistan needs. Ms. Menzenbach wished all participants strength and success. She closed her speech by stating that it is now their task to significantly contribute tothe reconstruction process and the development of higher education and the entire Afghan society.

H.E. Mr. Hamid Sidiq, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

H.E. Mr. Sidiq welcomed all participants of the eventand expressed his thanks to TU Berlin and the Fed-eral Government of Germany for the long-standingand successful cooperation. He was very happy thatthe Afghan students were going to return back hometo Afghanistan and support the reconstruction oftheir country. On the other hand, he expressed hisconcerns about young and qualified academics leav-ing the country. He stated that the Afghan govern-ment is working hard to stop emigration of youngpeople and that the country needs a well-educatedyoung generation in order to create a new future.

H.E. Mr. Sidiq thanked all partners and wished allmuch success for the further cooperation and promised his continuing support in the future.

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Prof. Abdul Qayoum, President, Kabul Polytechnic University

Prof. Qayoum greeted all participants of the event.

He briefly introduced Kabul Polytechnic University(KPU) which is the main facility for the education ofengineers in Kabul. It has been founded in 1963 andtoday has eight faculties and more than 300 profes-sional lecturers today.

In the coming years, the university is to extend fur-ther, as he explained. It is the goal to provide anddeliver high quality education for all people who areeligible for education in order to produce graduatesfor teaching, research and leadership who are ableto compete with international collegues in their areas of expertise.

To reach this, as he elaborated, all areas of KPU are to be modernized to meet international standards and new majors and faculties are to be established ac-cording to new developments in science and technology.

He praised the IT Competence Center (ITCC) in Kabul as an important contri-bution to the overall IT supply at the universities and the connection of scientificand business institutions.

Prof. Qayoum finished his speech by thanking Dr. Peroz and the team of the ZiiK for the long-standing cooperation, the MoHE and all other partners. He is looking forward to the presentations of the Master's graduates and to learning about many innovative IT solutions for Afghanistan.

Prof. Faiz, President, Herat University

Prof. Faiz welcomed all attendees and thegraduates of the Master's program.

He gave a brief overview of the current situationat Herat University. It was founded in 1981 andcurrently has 16 faculties and more than 15.000students, making it the second largest universityin Afghanistan.

Prof. Faiz expressed his wish to increase thecollaboration between the Afghan government,the university and the Afghan people even morein order to reach more of the people and to fur-ther develop education within the country.

He stressed that the IT Center of Herat University, the ITCH, is providing centralIT services on campus. It was established in 2009 in cooperation with the ZiiK of TU Berlin. He referred to its well-maintained website and the registration sys-tem for students on the campus. As further development milestones, as he

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stated, a number of database systems for information management on the campus are planned at the ITCH.

Eventually, Prof. Faiz thanked Dr. Peroz for the cooperation and his contributionto Afghanistan. He also thanked the ZiiK, the MoHE and all other involved parties for their participation and cooperation. Finally, he addressed the Mas-ter's graduates and explained that they are the future of Afghanistan and are highly required in the country; they should apply their acquired knowledge, ex-periences and impressions for the further development of Afghanistan.

Mr. Daniel Zimmermann, Head of Government Liaison Office Berlin, DAAD

Mr. Zimmermann welcomed the Master's graduatesand all guests. First, he addressed the Master'sgraduates and stressed that now, as they have ac-quired knowledge and education, it is their turn tohelp Afghanistan create international standards ofeducation and economy. This is a prerequisite for along-term stabilization of the country and the cre-ation of wealth for the people. He praised the uniquecharacter of the Master's program at TU Berlin andthe topic choices of the Master's theses of thegraduates, and he expressed his hope for the futureof the country.

He went on to explain that this project is very import-ant, as DAAD is particularly supporting countries such as Afghanistan to estab-lish effective universities, and providing consulting for decision makers with questions of cultural, educational and technical development.

Mr. Zimmermann expressed his thanks for the cooperation and his wishes for further successful Master's programs for the years to come. He wished the graduates all the best for their future and the future of their country.

After the welcome speeches, Dr. Peroz thanked all guests for the support. He briefly presented the schedule of the following days. After the lunch break, the presentations of the Master's students commenced which were moderated by Mr. Chi-Thanh Christopher Nguyen and Mr. Daniel Tippmann from the ZiiK of TU Berlin.

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Presentations of Master graduates

Moderation: Mr. Chi-Thanh Christopher Ngyuen, ZiiK

Mr. Said Jawad Saidi, Kabul Education University:"Investigating Mechanisms for Tracing Packets through SDN"

Mr. Jawad began his presentation by stating that withthe rapid growth of internet users, mobile users, theincreasing number of applications, complexity of busi-nesses depending on the correct operation of net-works also increases. Therefore, businesses requirecomputer networks to be increasingly reliable andbug-free in order to prevent interruption of businessoperations. Reliability, troubleshooting, and catchingbugs in current networks, as he concluded, is now afundamental element.

He explained that network operators today still useelementary and ad-hoc tools to obtain insights aboutbehavior and operation of their networks. In SoftwareDefined Networks, supporting network administrators with efficient, and feature-rich packet tracing mechanisms helps reducing downtime and maintenance cost, as Mr. Jawad contrasted. Current packet tracing mechanisms working in Control Plane and Data Plane, still have room for improvement. Also, as he went on, Control Plane mechanisms need to be more scalable. According to him, they also must provide a better approach to model the behavior of networksuch as usage of ”Equal Cost Multi Path”, and Packet Encapsulation.

Packet Tracing tools in Data plane can provide insights about the actual events and behavior of network, as they unfold. However, the tools that use packet marking may cause more harm than benefit, if the packet marking rules inter-fere with forwarding rules. Mr. Jawad concluded that Control Plane packet tra-cing must be complemented by mechanisms at the data plane, as these can re-port the state of packet forwarding. He finally concluded that the new hybrid system must operate with no assumption of the consistency of the states of both the Control Plane and the Data Plane.

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Mr. Ahmad Masood Latif Rai, Kabul Polytechnic University:"A Security Framework for Application Development at the Ministry of Higher Education in Afghanistan"

Mr. Latif Rai started his presentation by explainingthe overall concept of Protective Secure Framework(PSF), which is a set of guidelines for software de-velopers to use security controls and practices dur-ing the application design and development phases.It provides a set of secure defense mechanisms tosecure the overall system against the challengingthreats and vulnerabilities which may cause the soft-ware to be compromised. Using this framework, ashe went on, practitioners can write more secure codefor their particular software applications and can se-cure their working environment.

For the development of his framework, as he stated,he investigated the Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS) at the Ministry of Higher Education in Afghanistan, as a case study.

Mr. Latif Rai went deeper into explaining the framework and how it provides a rich toolset of mechanisms along with the ways to securely implement them in asoftware application. It is mainly composed of three main components:

1. Basic Secure Programming Techniques, which are a set of programmingstandards and guidelines to enable the programmers to write secure andprofessional code.

2. Core Defense Mechanisms, being the second component of this frame-work, is a collection of defensive mechanisms which can help in securingthe application (i.e. Authentication, Session Management, Authorization, Input Validation, etc.).

3. Threats and Vulnerabilities, which provide a list of security challenges within a software application which can be exploited to compromise the information residing on a system.

He concluded his speech by stating that the main theme of this framework is to secure the system using Secure Programming Techniques and Core Defense Mechanisms against available Threats and Vulnerabilities, which is crucial for a secure operation of the IT services at the MoHE.

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Mr. Abdul Ghafar Tavakkoli, Herat University: "Localization of Network Traffic in the Afghan Research and Educational Network"

In the beginning of his presentation, Mr. Tavakkolistated that the Internet is extremely useful and vital foreducation, as it offers a substantial amount of know-ledge to the entire world. It provides possibilities ofmuch faster and easier communication and collabora-tion. The aim of his thesis, as he explained, is to in-vestigate and identify the current problems of the In-ternet bandwidth at the Afghan universities, and, par-ticularly, at Herat University, and to suggest a propersolution accordingly. Mr. Tavakkoli added that he con-ducted many interviews with IT managers of differentuniversities for this purpose.

Eventually, he would suggest traffic localization for the Herat University campusnetwork. According to him, this project should consist of three main activities: a policy, a mechanism, and a monitoring system. The policy, as he stated, should be designed and developed by the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) or the Afghan Universities. The mechanism would be required to enforce the policy.

Mr. Tavakkoli showed the audience that after an observation and analysis of dif-ferent bandwidth management systems, Linux Traffic Control (LTC) was found to be a proper mechanism to apply a policy on users. He stated that he had de-veloped a script which allocates bandwidth dynamically for different faculties. It is also flexible to allocate bandwidth per IP and service basis according to the faculty needs. For a user-friendly employment of the script, he said to also havedeveloped a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The result of the evaluation, as he concluded his presentation, shows that the proposed solution is effective to manage bandwidth in a fair approach.

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Mr. Pazir Ahmad Ahmad, Kabul Polytechnic University:"Developing a Network Security Concept for Government Organizations in Afghanistan"

Mr. Ahmad began his presentation with the statementthat Information Technology (IT) revolutionized theway organizations exchange, process, store and re-trieve information. Due to the facilities provided bythe IT systems, as he went on, the government or-ganizations in Afghanistan started to migrate fromtraditional information processing to electronic in-formation processing. However, he stressed thatnevertheless, besides all advantages, IT has vulner-abilities which may be exploited. The exploitation ofsuch vulnerabilities would threaten the confidentiality,integrity, and availability of IT systems.

He stressed that in his thesis, he evaluated currentavailable security controls at the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) of Afgh-anistan. Additionally, he said to have examined how far the deployed security controls meet the information security requirements of the MoHE.

Based on his findings, as he went on, he developed an information security concept for the MoHE based on the model of the German authority for IT Se-curity the "BSI". This institution, as he explained, developed a concept called "IT-Grundschutz". Accordingly, as Mr. Ahmad continued, an information security concept is to be developed which is to provide appropriate security controls (safeguards) that also comply with the information security requirements of the MoHE. Since the nature and importance of the data and business processes in different organizations are not the same and the organization’s information se-curity requirements differ, he concluded that different security concepts are ne-cessary to be implemented by different organizations.

Mr. Mohammad Mustafa Naier, Balkh University:"Evaluating Security Practices and the Use of Cryptography in Data Cen-ters at Government Ministries in Afghanistan"

In his presentation, Mr. Naier concentrated on hisanalysis of the current IT security situation at Afghanpublic authorities. He emphasized that ensuring se-curity of data stored in data centers of bodies of theAfghan government is crucial for the national secur-ity.

He went on to describe that from a physical securitypoint of view, adoption is required and, if necessary,current best security practices and standards are tobe adapted. Unfortunately, Afghanistan currentlysuffers from a vacuum of adequate national informa-tion security standards and guidelines. Severalcountries and international organizations such asISO have developed different standards providing

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control mechanisms, indicators, and frameworks for securing Data Centers, as Mr. Naier pointed out. Furthermore, as a stepping stone, identifying the current state of different government Data Centers in terms of physical security is im-portant for policy makers and further planning.

In his thesis, Mr. Naier conducted a multidimensional analysis of the Ministry of Education (MoE) and of the Afghan National Data Center (ANDC) as case stud-ies. He stressed that for this, he also employed controls of the IT security policyof the Federal Republic of Germany which have been developed by the Ger-man IT Security agency, the "BSI", and which is called "IT-Grundschutz". He also said to have studied current ANSI/BICSI standards in order to achieve an extensive understanding of the current situation, and to figure out which areas need immediate attention and action.

As a result of this work, he concluded that physical security practices are poorlyimplemented at the ANDC and that the MoE is suffering from a lack of such practices.

Mr. Ahmad Ramin Ahadi, Balkh University:"Improving Manageability and Cost-Effectiveness with Software Defined Networking in Data Centers in Afghanistan"

In the beginning of his presentation, Mr. Ahadistated that today, Information Technology and theuse of services running over the network are be-coming more and more common in organizationsof Afghanistan, and that they attempt to switchmanual-based business processes to computer-based ones. However, he stressed that these ser-vices are offered through server applications whichare exposed to a number of potential threats suchas organisational shortcomings, human made er-rors, force majeure, and deliberate acts throughoutthe entire life-cycle of deployment.

Therefore, as Mr. Ahadi went on, he attempted todesign a process which helps organizations inAfghanistan to deploy secure services within theirinfrastructure. He tried to achieve this by using se-curity standards relevant to application service deployment as a case study of directory services. Throughout the course of his presentation, he highlighted why this is needed, and how it will be achieved.

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Mr. Asadullah Qarar, Khost University:"Opportunities and Challenges in Moving Services into the Cloud in Higher Education in Afghanistan"

In his presentation, Mr. Qarar first stated thatcloud computing attracted the attention of the ITindustry with the promise of offering dynamicallyscalable, and geographically distributed ser-vices. The success of cloud computing, as hewent on, has changed the way of how servicesare developed, deployed and offered. In Afgh-anistan however, the technology is still in itsearly stages and more efforts are required tostudy its benefits and risks.

Mr. Qarar explained that a migration of on-loca-tion systems to the cloud can reduce expenses,which is a goal of the Afghan Ministry of HigherEducation (MoHE). This mainly includes thecosts of hardware, software, and of hiring pro-fessional staff. However, as he added, there aresome challenges which might hinder the adoption of cloud services, such as questions of privacy and security, awareness of cloud computing, quality of ser-vices etc. Because of these challenges, as he stated, Afghan Ministries are hesitant to move their services to the cloud.

The main goal of his thesis project was to take a software application of higher education as a case study and transfer it to the cloud. Then, the overall require-ments of users were to be examined and the migrated application will be com-pared to applications which are still running locally in terms of security, availab-ility, performance, cost effectiveness and so on.

To reach his goal, Mr. Qarar explained that he created a local cloud to simulate cloud structure. Later on, as he continued, this is supposed to be an open-source-based cloud solution which means to administrate the cloud service us-ing open source software. Mr. Qarar proceeded to explain that in his research he also included a comparison of which system is more suitable to be deployedin this scenario, open source or closed source software.

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Moderation: Mr. Daniel Tippmann, ZiiK

Mr. Bismillah Hossainy, Kabul Polytechnic University:"Deployment of a Public Key Infrastructure to Secure Communications at the Ministry of Interior Affairs in Afghanistan"

Mr. Hossainy began his presentation by statingthat Information security has become crucial dueto the evolution and widespread use of Informationand Communication Technology (ICT). With a newbeginning in 2002, the ICT sector in Afghanistanhas also experienced a significant growth.

Furthermore, as he stated, information inter-change via electronic communication is commonamong government agencies. Similarly, the ICTgrowth has empowered the Afghan government tomove its services online to serve the Afghans bet-ter. Although the use of ICT is widening in thecountry day by day, its security aspects have beenforgotten, as Mr. Hossainy claimed. For govern-ment organizations, especially security-relatedagencies, it is an undeniable requirement to en-sure the security of their information assets. He stressed that for data security, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a promising technology and has become an ideal solution for securing information systems. However, as he remarked, PKI is not just a technical solution; rather it comprises technology, people, policies, as well as procedures.

Mr Hossainy went on to propose a PKI system for government agencies in Afghanistan. For this purpose, he performed an analysis of the network infra-structure of the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs and, based on the findings, developed a proposal for a PKI system in order to overcome its present and fu-ture security requirements.

This proposed solution includes the architecture, success factors for imple-mentation, as well as the certificate policy for governing the proposed system. Mr. Hossainy added that the solution is designed to be extended as a National Government PKI (GPKI) for establishing a general secure and reliable commu-nication environment for an eGovernment platform in Afghanistan.

He concluded his presentation by stating that the proposed solution has a hier-archical and scalable architecture to mimic the organizational structures in Afghanistan and to support future growth.

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Mr. Sohail Mukhtar, Kabul Polytechnic University:"Developing measurements to increase IT security awareness in Afgh-anistan by example of the Ministry of Higher Education"

Mr. Sohail began his speech by stating that oneof the main concerns of organizations in the pastyears was about information security. Enterpriseswould hire experts and use security measures toachieve information security. However, as he ex-plained, it is often forgotten that end users have asignificant role in information security, as they candamage the information systems even if there aretechnical security measures in place inside an or-ganization.

The field of information security awareness, as hepointed out, deals with this human factor and themain purpose of his research, as he stated, wasto improve the level of IT security awareness atthe Afghan Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE)and to provide a written solution to vulnerabilities.

For this project, Mr. Sohail explained that he designed a questionnaire to in-vestigate how MoHE employees behave with the information systems they are using, and what their level of knowledge is about information security aware-ness.

Mr. Mukhtar concluded his speech by stating that the findings of his study showthat the employees should participate in IT security awareness trainings in or-der to improve their knowledge. Due to lack of information security awareness at the MoHE, the awareness level is decreasing, which has to be considered according to him.

Summary

At the end of this day, the Afghan University Presidents, the professors from TUBerlin and the team of the ZiiK of TU Berlin discussed about particular present-ations. They appreciated the high-level presentations of the theses and praised the professional work of the Afghan students.

For each presentation, 20 minutes had been scheduled, and all students man-aged to stay within this time-frame.

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Thursday, October 6th, 2016

Moderation: Mr. Tilman Schieber, ZiiK

Ms. Zohra Zekeria, Kabul Polytechnic University:"A secure Database-as-a-Service as backend for E-government services in Afghanistan"

In the beginning of her speech, Ms. Zekeria emphas-ized that cloud computing offers significant advancesin the world of e-government. Cloud usage for Afgh-anistan’s government would provide innovative ITsolutions to be rapidly available in all parts of thecountry.

However, the employment of cloud services bears se-curity risks such as disclosure of confidential govern-mental data that is stored in databases and unauthor-ized access of service providers to it. She stressedthat these issues need to be considered in order toensure a sustainable and secure operation of theseservices.

The main goal of her research, as she explained, is to provide an appropriate solution for protecting the confidential data in databases from cloud providers. To achieve this goal, she examined the current situation at the Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan regarding the employment of eGovernment services and their benefits, as well as barriers of using the cloud.

As a result, she proposed to apply CryptDB as a practical method for protectingthe confidentiality of sensitive government data in the cloud databases and profit from cloud services without security risks. CryptDB, as she further ex-plained, is a system which stores all contents of an SQL database on a server only in encrypted form. That way, it provides practical and provable confidential-ity for applications backed by SQL databases. It works by executing SQL quer-ies over encrypted data using a collection of efficient SQL-aware encryption schemes.

Ms. Zekeria demonstrated, how CryptDB fulfils the requirements of the Afghan Higher Education Management Information Systems in the cloud and closed her speech by recommending this solution to be employed for e-government services in Afghanistan, where applicable.

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Mr. Ahmad Fahim Ahmadi, Herat University:"Image processing applications in remote sensing – Focused on vegeta-tion change detection with remote sensing in Herat province"

Mr. Ahmadi began his presentation by stating thatthe global warming crisis and its impact on the cli-mate results in the necessity of cover and land usemanagement. In order to control changes in thenatural resources such as vegetation, mineral, wa-ter, regular monitoring of resources and respectiveplanning could help humanity to avoid negativeconsequences.

He explained that by recent advancements, thecombination of satellite remote sensing and GIStechnologies can provide reliable informationabout land-cover in a particular area of the earthsurface safely and with little costs. Analyzing spa-tial extent and monitoring of vegetation land coverusing remote sensing has a vital role in decisionmaking, planning, and especially in the manage-ment of agricultural and vegetation resources.

In his thesis, as he stated, methods and requirements to find a safe and inex-pensive solution to overcome over negative changes in natural resources in de-veloping country like Afghanistan are being discussed and evaluated. Mr. Ah-madi went on to explain that he acquired preprocessed satellite images from online archives like USGS and was utilizing specific open source GIS applica-tions (such as QGIS) in conjunction with simple self-developed applications in order to read semi-processed images. This way, he was able to generate highlydetailed information about objects on the investigated earth surface, especially vegetation, in a very safe and low-cost approach.

He stated that as the classification criteria are varying from research toresearch, the results of his work are not hundred percent identical to other gov-ernmental and non-governmental studies. Further research for identifying methods to distinguish among different kinds of vegetation would help the gov-ernment to e.g. find and prevent poppy cultivation and facilitate a better man-agement of farm lands, water resources and exploration of minerals in order to boost the Afghan economy.

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Mr. Mohammad Fahim Azizi, Nangarhar University:"Developing security guidelines for deploying database systems in Afgh-anistan by example of the Ministry of Higher Education"

In his presentation, Mr. Azizi talked about how inAfghanistan today, most of the government au-thorities and organizations are migrating from abureaucratic system to digitized systems basedon databases. In this rapid growth of digitizedsystems and the number of database systems,as he went on, most projects of this kind focuson the requirements of the organizations andnot on the security which is also an important is-sue. Inadequate protection of such systems andinformation, results in loss of clients and in-vestors’ confidence, high costs and even threatsto the national security are the consequence.

In his thesis, Mr. Azizi provides a generalizedconcept for developing security guidelines fordatabase systems by using the HEMIS data-base system of MoHE as a case study. He fur-ther elaborated which guidelines of organizational and technical security he proposes:

While the organizational security safeguards contain guidelines for developing a well-defined Database System Policy, Security Awareness Training Programs,and Risk Management, the technical security safeguards are related to devel-oping a well-defined Access Control Model, Cryptography, and a Secure Audit Log System. By using these guidelines, as Mr. Azizi concluded, the information assets of the MoHE would be secured, which would help with the establishmentof a trustworthy system for their clients, i.e. universities, lecturers, students, andother staff members.

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Mr. Mohammad Zia Sana, Kabul Polytechnic University:"Common distributed data storage for the Higher Education Management and Information System in Afghanistan"

Mr. Sana started his presentation by giving anintroduction into management information sys-tems in general, and illustrated the importantrole they play for most organizations today.

Management information systems support thedecision-making process and hence have ahuge impact on the organization’s functions,performance, and productivity. Therefore, oneof the primary goals of Afghanistan’s Ministry ofHigher Education’s National Higher EducationStrategic Plan (NHESP) was the developmentof the Higher Education Management Informa-tion System (HEMIS). However, although thesystem is operational, it is only partially de-veloped and implemented, and it is not used bymany universities yet.

Mr. Sana explained how he analysed HEMIS for his thesis and suggested solu-tions that can solve one of its main current issues: the centralized structure of the system. To solve this problem, he proposed a distributed database solution,which provides a common database back-end for HEMIS and distribute it over a network to all educational institutions - as well as the MoHE. In his thesis, he also lists some constraints of the current situation, such as budget limitations and Internet connection problems.

University users could use the system locally and then periodically synchronize their changes with the central location at MoHE once the connection is avail-able. Furthermore, for data synchronization, SymmetricDS can be used, which is an open source software, so the budget limitation constraint is as little as possible.

Ending his presentation, Mr. Sana talked about the prototype he built, which uses the proposed technologies and could solve the identified problems. This prototype consists of a working example of the system along with the configura-tion and considers various real scenarios.

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Mr. Ahmad Javid Mayar, Qandahar University:"Developing and deploying a citation index for the publications of Afghanuniversities"

Mr. Mayar first stated that a citation index is a gate-way to assess, access, and can create a map ofacademic publications using citations. These cita-tions, as he explained, are formal, explicit linkagesbetween current research and prior work stored inthe vast archive of scientific literature. Citation in-dexes would allow users to navigate backwards andforwards in time from one specific target article tofind other linked and relevant references or docu-ments.

He went on to describe that learning and academicwriting have flourished throughout the Afghan his-tory, and that the country has contributed a signific-ant amount of knowledge through academic publica-tion. However, as he criticized, the lack of a comprehensive and central system to manage these assets almost makes these contributions invisible, and inter-national databases and citation indexes are not sufficient for Afghani publica-tions.

In his thesis, Mr. Mayar developed and deployed a citation index for publica-tions in Afghanistan, especially the publications from Afghan Universities. The Afghan Citation Index (AfgCI) is a multidisciplinary abstract and citation data-base, with a link to the full-text article. It covers various publications in Afgh-anistan, particularly the academic publications of Afghan Universities. Its goal isto promote national and global visibility of Afghan expertise and knowledge.

Mr. Mayar's proposed architecture of AfgCI uses various components, such as preprocessing, data extraction, a web application and two databases (scholarly full-text database and a citation index database). AfgCI is based on the current situation of academic publications in Afghanistan and existing citation indexing systems such as Web of Science, CiteSeerX, Indian Citation Index, and Malay-sian Citation Index.

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Moderation: Ms. Andrea Hillenbrand, ZiiK

Ms. Mursal Dawodi, Kabul Polytechnic University:"A Recommender System Supporting Decision-Making about the Field of Study for Prospective Students in Afghanistan"

Ms. Dawodi gave a short introduction into recom-mender systems - as often found in online shopsor services - in general. Such systems are mostlyused to filter information and find the most appro-priate suggestions that might interest the user/cus-tomer. The main function of any such system, is tomake sure users aren't overwhelmed by themassive amount of possible options to pick from.

Ms. Dawodi's research analyzes the use of recom-mender systems in the field of education, wherethey have been proven to be an efficient tool to re-commend study courses to prospective students.

Finding the right subject in the large number ofacademic subjects presents a challenge to a lot ofstudents. Choosing the 'wrong' subject oftencauses students to fail in examinations or stops them from achieving profes-sional success in their selected fields, with long-term effects on their career goals.

As there is currently no support for students asking themselves what to study, her thesis proposes a model of using recommender systems to assist students in finding more appropriate fields of study. The constructed model utilizes a demographic and collaborative recommender system, and moreover, it em-ploys TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) amethod of multi-criteria decision-making when choosing a field of study.

Ms. Dawodi concluded her presentation by explaining how her proposed re-commender system (which should be available online from anywhere and at any time) will help improve the decisions of individual students, at a comparat-ively low cost (both in financial as well as human resources).

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Mr. Abdullah Hamidi, Herat University:"Impact of E-Government in Developing Countries including a Case Studyof a Municipality Property Registration and Tax Paying System in Herat, Afghanistan"

In his introduction, Mr. Hamidi gave an overview overrecent trends in the use of Internet and Communica-tion Technologies in the field of eGovernment, both indeveloped and developing countries. eGovernmentservices offer more transparency, lower costs, im-proved quality, and more time-efficiency. In additionto that, citizens can also influence the decision-mak-ing process, e.g. by online voting, sharing their opin-ion on specific policies in forums, or by contactingtheir governments directly via email or contact forms.However, there are challenges for implementingeGovernment services, such as security issues, lackof will on the governments' side, lack of ICT know-ledge in the society, to name just a few.

The purpose of Mr. Hamidi's research is to provide a better understanding of eGovernment issues and the impact they have in developing countries. His thesis also provides a model for implementing eGovernment services in Afgh-anistan, which he designed with the help of qualitative research methods, in-cluding a literature review as well as a questionnaire and interviews of experts, both in IT as well as in government agencies in Afghanistan.

His research also proposes an E-Government solution in form of an InformationManagement System for a governmental organization and provides an imple-mentation model that is based on current research. He concluded his presenta-tion by stating the importance for the Afghan government to take steps to es-tablish E-Government services in order to overcome many of the countries cur-rent challenges.

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Ms. Khadija Rahmani, Herat University:"Developing A Software Integration Concept Exemplified by Herat Univer-sity's Campus Management System"

Ms. Rahmani began her presentation by illustratingthe problem that arises in many organizations that em-ploy different software systems which are sparsely, ornot at all, integrated and interconnected, because itcreates a series of challenges, such as duplicatedata/data redundancy and inconsistencies.

The goal of her thesis, as she elaborated, was to finda workable approach to integrate the current softwaresystems of Herat University in order to improve thecurrent lack of coordination and communication.

Application integration, as one of the advanced ap-proaches in software development, is a solution to en-able software systems to communicate with eachother. But in her thesis, Ms. Rahmani first discussesdifferent integration concepts and then proposes an appropriate methodology and model to solve the current problems of Herat University software systems.

During her research, she found out that implementing such a concept for ap-plication integration poses many challenges and risks, with the main challengesin Afghanistan being the lack of well-documented software, lack of expertise, knowledge and skills, as well as a lack of funding in this area.

Ms. Rahmani concluded her presentation by saying that her findings can be ap-plied to other Afghan universities. She also proposes setting up a committee within the Ministry of Higher Education, and to try to better coordinate research and while considering the results of her thesis, which provides valuable re-sources and guidelines to design and offer an efficient application integration solution.

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Ms. Mahjube Jamiul Ahmadi, Herat University:"Supporting Administration Processes in the Management of HR using a View Model (Exemplified by HRMIS in Afghanistan)"

Ms. Jamiul Ahmadi began her presentation with ex-plaining how the use of large and complex informa-tion systems is vital to almost any company and or-ganization these days, particularly in countries likeAfghanistan. But with increased interest in suchsolutions, there comes a series of challenges forsoftware developers, mainly to define software ar-chitectures that will achieve the desired results.

The goal of her paper is to customize a view modelfor HRMIS (Human Resource Management Informa-tion System), in order to address how to support ad-ministrative processes of an organization in themanagement of HR, using the Department of Justicein Herat province in Afghanistan, as an example.The primary concern of such a view model are thestakeholder interests, because their needs are the reason for any such system to be created. A set of views can be provided with the concept of viewpoints which represents all the stakeholder concerns according to a template.

Her paper contributes towards developing a view model for HRMIS by using es-tablished types of view models and viewpoint frameworks. HRMIS is a very im-portant information system for the management processes of an organization. As Ms. Jamiul Ahmadi explained, the main motive for her research is to model this system in a way that represents all the requirements of the system accord-ing to the concerns, which are the needs, objectives, and goals of the stake-holders.

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Ms. Lalah Azar, Herat University:"A Knowledge-based Hospital Management System and its Anticipated Impact on Developing Countries"

In the introduction of her presentation, Ms. Azar ex-plained how so-called knowledge-based managementsystems in medicine have gotten much attention in re-cent decades, mainly because of the many advant-ages they offer over more traditional systems. Theyhelp in diagnosing and selecting the proper treatmentfor a condition, assist in the training of medical spe-cialists, and are generally very useful for hospitalmanagement. But especially in the developing worldthere are huge challenges, most importantly thathealthcare systems there usually have limited re-sources and capability.

The main objective of Ms. Azar's research is to assesscurrent hospital management systems in developingcountries, through observation of a hospital in Heratprovince as a case study. Following the analysis, her thesis then proposes a design for a knowledge-based, electronic hospital management system.

In her research she found that currently hospitals are usually managed 'manu-ally', which often leads to duplication of work, recurring registration procedures at every ward, sometimes even several times, lack of human resources, lack of accuracy in record keeping, and lack of budget tracking.

Her thesis discusses the expected benefits of introducing such systems, but also the challenges that come with it. She concluded her presentation by stat-ing that even though it is a difficult process, the benefits outweigh the costs, so she argues for adoption of knowledge-based systems even in less developed countries like Afghanistan.

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Friday, October 7th, 2016

Moderation: Prof. Sebastian Bab, ZiiK

Mr. Rahimdad Faisal Safi, Balkh University:"Challenges of Agile Software Development Methodologies in the Devel-opment of Secure Software – A Comparison of Different Methodologies"

Mr. Safi began his speech with an introduction todifferent methods of software development, andthe changes and approaches that have happenedin this field.

In particular, in recent years, so-called agile meth-ods have been criticized for being deficient interms of development of secure software.

In his thesis Mr. Safi gives a comparative analysison different agile methods such as “Scrum” and“Feature-Driven Development”, from a securityengineering standpoint. The comparison is basedon a relevant set of criteria in terms of softwaresecurity engineering.

The main focus of his research is to assess, towhat extent the aforementioned methods can be used for development of se-cure software. Moreover, the challenges of each method that prevent develop-ment of secure software are exposed. This is done by analyzing each method in the light of all selected criteria.

The result of his research shows that Feature-Driven Development is more aligned with security engineering than Scrum is, although, both methods need to be extended with security engineering activities to explicitly deal with securityissues.

He concluded his presentation by proposing that Scrum and Feature-Driven Development methods need to be extended by adding security engineering considerations, but this needs to be done carefully, otherwise it might reduce the agility degree of these methods, which would be against the idea behind these approaches.

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Mr. Shakirullah Waseeb, Nangarhar University:“Discussion of Challenges and Possible Solutions in Pashto Natural Lan-guage Processing”

In the beginning, Mr. Shakirullah explained thatnatural language is a means of communicationbetween humans. Computers can also commu-nicate in natural language, by using mechanismsto parse and understand such natural language.In computational linguistics, significant efforts arealready underway for languages like English, Ger-man, Arabic, Chinese, and others, to facilitate hu-man-computer communication.

The most influential area in computational lin-guistics is Natural Language Processing (NLP),but NLP is really hard and challenging, especiallyfor languages with low resources. Pashto is oneof the national and official language of Afgh-anistan with reasonably low-resources. Mr.Waseeb's thesis gives a description of challengesthat currently exists in Pashto NLP. These challenges are classified into three main categories:

1) Pashto language complications and issues (these includes orthographic,phonetic, morphological, syntactical complications and issues).

2) Availability of language resources (Pashto is a low-resources language, while most of the modern approaches learn languages from massive amounts of data annotated with linguistic information. Unfortunately, Pashto lacks such resources).

3) Challenges in various areas of natural language processing, which resultfrom the two mentioned challenges.

Mr. Waseeb went on to suggest possible strategies to overcome these prob-lems:

1) Building language resources, e.g. a lexicon for morphological analysis and word meanings, a part-of-speech annotated corpora, and corpora annotated with syntactic information.

2) Contributions, including e.g. natural language processing courses into Afghan university syllabuses and initiating various research projects.

3) Prioritizing the most important areas: i.e. work on language standardiza-tion, building more resources, and applications e.g. spell or grammar checkers.

Mr. Waseeb ended his presentation saying that employing such strategies would allow for great improvements in Pashto NLP and should therefore be un-dertaken if possible.

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Mr. Mohibullah Amin Wardak, Kabul Polytechnic University:"A discussion of how to develop synergy effects in the integration of dif-ferent recommender system methodologies by using means of formal lo-gic"

Mr. Wardak began his speech by explaining how re-cent developments in recommender systems havechanged the way people perform transactions suchas online shopping, watching movies, and advertise-ment.

According to him, it is often proposed to create hy-brid recommender systems by integrating differentrecommenders and knowledge sources to refine thefinal recommendations and augment user experi-ences. However, as he went on, hybridization re-quires a lot of research and testing. Therefore, Mr.Wardak proposed a new approach for studying theintegration of different recommender systems.

It was his conclusion to apply rule-based notation ofsome most common recommender methodologies using means of formal logic.He stated that rule-based notation helps to reason about the nature of integra-tion and improve the quality of recommendations. During his work, he had a fo-cus on the cold start problem where he also applied rule-based notation. As a result, he proposed a hybrid technique to mitigate this problem.

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Mr. Rafiullah Momand, Kabul University: “On Pashto Named-Entity Recognition”

In his presentation, Mr. Momand talked about the cur-rent state of 'Named Entity Recognition' in the Pashtolanguage. In his introduction he explained that informa-tion extraction (IE) is the process of extracting struc-tured information from unstructured natural languagetext, using natural language processing (NLP). Themain goal of extracting structured information is to al-low for further processing by machines.

One important sub-task of IE is the extraction of namesof people, places, and organizations from natural lan-guage text, which is called "Named Entity Recognition"(NER). NER plays an important role in many naturallanguage processing applications, such as answeringquestions, machine translations, information retrieval, and text summarization. NER has been widely studied for languages like English, but very little researchhas yet been performed for Pashto.

The aim of his thesis is to develop an NER system for Pashto, based on the re-search done for English and other languages. When successful, the result will be an annotated corpus with two NER systems for Pashto language. The cor-pus can then be used for further research in the area of NER and more ad-vanced systems e.g. machine translation or question-answering systems, whichcan be developed by using NER as a core component.

In his research, Mr. Momand compared dictionary-based NER systems (which use three dictionaries containing names of persons, locations, and organiza-tions) with a learning-based approach which uses a 'Hidden Markov Model' (HMM) for the task. His evaluation showed a success ratio of 82 % for HMM and 60 % for dictionary-based NER. The reason is that names in Pashto can change grammatically according to their function (cases) in a sentence, which makes it hard for dictionary-based NER to detect the different cases of a name.He ended his presentation stating that a lot of work is still to be done.

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Ms. Morsal Barakzay, Herat University:“GIS for Disaster Management”

Ms. Barakzay opened her presentation by explainingthat natural disasters are a common threat in mostcountries, and Afghanistan is no exception. The spe-cific dangers here include floods, earthquakes anddroughts. Herat province is one of the most vulnerableones and is frequently affected by earthquakes andfloods.

To adequately decrease the sway of each disaster,governments usually develop an emergency or dis-aster management plan. However, with limited accessto and the use of modern technology in Afghanistan tomanage such disasters, their effects are often worsethan in countries which are technologically more ad-vanced.

Her research therefore focuses on examining the applicability of geographical information systems (GIS) for emergency management, analyzing the current emergency management plan for Afghanistan and providing recommendations for the use of web-based GIS to respond to earthquakes in the region of Herat.

Her findings showed that GIS can be used for emergency/disaster manage-ment but further research and improvements are needed. Also, Ms. Barakzay stated that her research demonstrates that there are other factors which influ-ence the successful implementation of GIS for disaster management, such as the application of the concept to other infrastructural sectors and the extension to a wider geographic area.

She concluded her presentation by saying that GIS could even help understandand explain the spread pattern of diseases (among other things) and that it could help lowering the reaction times of the authorities to such incidents.

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Mr. Rafiqullah Baryalai, Kunar University: “Developing a concept to establish an IT Center at Said Jamaluddin Afgh-ani University in Kunar”

Mr. Baryalai started his presentation by analyzingthe current situation at Kunar University, statingthat currently, computers and IT-based manage-ment systems are not being used (widely) oncampus. This is true for the administration, whichstill does most things manually (using paper-based files and records), but also extends to thelack of access to computer labs and the internet.However, computers and IT services play a cru-cial role in any field today, but especially in aca-demic institutions and higher education.

The aim of his thesis is therefore to develop aconcept which will help establish an IT Center atthe University, in order to assist the administra-tion and academic staff to switch from the tradi-tional (manual) system to a modern, computer-ized system, as well as making computers and internet access broadly avail-able to employees and students alike.

However, to fully develop such an IT concept for Kunar University further ana-lysis is needed, and the next step is to define exact requirements in terms of in-frastructure (premises, power supply, internet uplink, hardware and software), organizational structure, financial and budget planning, IT education and train-ings, but also in IT security. Mr. Baryalai proposed to get in contact and analyzethe five already existing IT centers at other Afghan universities and develop best practices from their experiences.

In his final outlook to the future, Mr. Baryalai said such an approach would make sure that Said Jamaluddin Afghani University would be able to enhance its study and research capabilities, but also modernize and standardize the ad-ministrative process at the university. In his conclusion he argues that an IT center is essential for Said Jamaluddin Afghani University, but can only be achieved with technical and financial assistance from outside. He hopes how-ever, that his thesis and the outlined concept will help convince donors and other funding organization to invest in Said Jamaluddin Afghani university.

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Summary

At the end of the third day, the Afghan university presidents, Prof. Sebastian Bab and Prof. Nestmann from TU Berlin, as well as the team of the ZiiK of TU Berlin discussed about particular presentations. All participants were impressedby the achievements and presentations of the students. Both Prof. Qayoum and Prof. Faiz again thanked TU Berlin, the German Federal Foreign Office andDAAD for the support.

Dr. Peroz expressed his thanks to both university presidents for taking part in this event and congratulated the students for their achievements. He also thanked the advisers of the Master's theses for the support, and the German Federal Office and DAAD for the funding and the long-term support.

End of Part 1 of the event

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Part 2:Graduation Ceremony at the German Federal Foreign Office

Monday, October 10th, 2016Moderation: Ms. Agnieszka Zielinska, ZiiK

Ms. Zielinska welcomed all guests on behalf of theZiiK of TU Berlin and briefly introduced the scheduleof the day. She expressed her thanks to the FederalForeign Office for the opportunity of realizing theevent in this great location. Without the support ofthe Federal Foreign Office and DAAD, the realiza-tion of this Master's program would not have beenpossible. Afghanistan needs qualified graduates,especially in the area of computer science. Shegave the word to the first speaker of the day, Mr.Rüdiger König.

Mr. Rüdiger König, Head of the Directorate-General for Crisis Prevention,Stabilization and Post-Conflict Reconstruction

In the beginning of his speech, Mr. König appreci-ated the engagement of the ZiiK of TU Berlin for Afghanistan. He then stated that "the world needs IT, that is where the future lies" and for an imple-mentation of IT, education is crucial. The situation in Afghanistan still is difficult, as he continued, and thatit is to hope that the war will soon be ended. Mr. König stressed that only education can bring a soci-ety into a stable position, further develop a country and also boost the economy.

He expressed his wish that after their return to their home country, the graduates can extend the networkof IT experts, as IT is required to reach the diverse goals.

Finally, he thanked all who helped realizing this program, first of all Dr. Nazir Peroz.

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H.E. Prof. Farida Momand, Minister of Higher Education of Afghanistan

H.E. Prof. Momand welcomed all distinguished guestsand remembered that the many years of war have caused great damage to Afghanistan. Since 2001, thesystems of education and of higher education are be-ing rebuilt, as she continued, and Germany was and still is a great supporter for the country, particularly forthe programs of higher education.

She stated that TU Berlin is one of the biggest part-ners of the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education. After their return to Afghanistan, she expects the Master's graduates to pass on their acquired knowledge to

possibly hundreds of students.

She thanked the Federal Foreign Office, the DAAD, the TU Berlin and all in-volved parties for the funding and realization of this Master's Program and ex-pressed her hope for a long-time continuation of this project. She also ex-pressed her gratitude towards TU Berlin for implementing a PhD program for Afghan lecturers, as this would be very important for the future of Afghanistan.

Prof. Hans-Ulrich Heiß, Vice President, TU Berlin

Prof. Heiß welcomed the Excellencies and all guestsand said TU Berlin is happy to congratulate the 3rdgeneration of computer science Master's studentsfrom Afghanistan.

He stressed that since 15 years, there is a substantialpublic interest in Afghanistan and that there are manyprograms running to rebuild the country. However, ashe pointed out, the situation in the country is still diffi-cult, and it is the commitment and enthusiasm of thestudents which helps developing academic structuresin the country.

Prof. Heiß stated that in 2016, the 100th anniversaryof the German-Afghan friendship has been celeb-rated, and that the cooperation in the academic area dates back to the 1950s. Right after the Petersberg Resolution in 2001, as he continued, the ZiiK com-menced its projects and is since committed to the reconstruction of the country in the academic field.

He pointed out that the efforts of Dr. Peroz since more than 14 years already contributed to major changes in the IT sector of Afghanistan, and this Master's program is an important part of this. He further explained that the goal is to de-velop sustainable structures in the field of IT in Afghanistan, and the 25 new graduates from TU Berlin are now going to contribute to reaching this goal.

Prof. Heiß then thanked the Federal Foreign Office for the financial support andwished the former students good luck for the future.

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H.E. Mr. Hamid Sidiq, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistanto Berlin

H.E. Mr. Sidiq welcomed all guests and thanked Mr. König for his support and the long-time friendship since 1998. He also ex-pressed his thanks to the Presidents of Ka-bul Polytechnic University and Herat Univer-sity, and to Dr. Peroz, as this Master's pro-gram is of great help and highly necessary for Afghanistan.

He pointed out that the professional support of Germany dates back to 1887, when an in-dustrial factory was established in Kabul by the German Krupp company. Furthermore, this year, the 100th anniversary of the Afghan-German friendship has been celebrated by both countries.

H.E. Mr. Sidiq expressed his gratitude for this long-time support and wished for a long-time continued existence of this program, and that the returning Master'sgraduates will impart their newly gained knowledge and experience.

Prof. Mohammed Sayeed Abdul Qayoum, President, Kabul PolytechnicUniversity

Prof. Qayoum welcomed all guests and expressed histhanks to the German Government for the long-termsupport in bad times.

He went on to give a brief introduction of Kabul Poly-technic University which is the main facility for theeducation of engineers in Kabul. It has been foundedin 1963 and has eight faculties and more than 300professional lecturers today.

During the coming years, the university is to extendfurther, as he explained. It is the goal to provide highquality education for all Afghan men and women in or-der to enable them to compete in their areas of expertise and thus to support education in the particular disciplines.

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Prof. Dr. Abdullah Faiz, President, Herat University

Prof. Faiz greeted all distinguished guests andgave a brief overview of the history and currentsituation of Herat University. He stated that theUniversity has benefited greatly from the pro-grams by ZiiK of TU Berlin, and many good res-ults are visible today.

He explained that Herat University recently cre-ated a development plan for the university. Thisplan focuses on the cooperation between the uni-versity, government offices and the private sectorin order to achieve social sustainable develop-ment at Herat University.

Currently, as he elaborated, Herat University has430 professional lecturers and more than 15.000 students. For the future, as hewent on, he wishes to be able to erect a few more buildings for his university, especially also for IT-related institutes.

He finished his speech by thanking the students of the program and wished them all the best for their future. He also thanked the German nation for the sustainable cooperation.

Mr. Daniel Tippmann, ZiiK, TU Berlin

Mr. Tippmann presented a brief history of the Afghanistan project of the ZiiK of TU Berlin, which originated back in 2002 with the estab-lishment of the first university IT Center in Afgh-anistan at Kabul University (ITCK). This project was realized with funding from the German Federal Foreign Office and with support by DAAD. In the following years, as he went on, four further IT Centers were established at Afghan universities.

However, he explained, the main focus of the projects in Afghanistan is on education, of whichthere are two tracks, technical-professional

trainings (mainly system and network administrators and technical staff) and academic education (BSc, MSc and PhD students in computer science). The aim of the computer science Master's program is the education of lecturers for the Afghan universities based on a demand-driven curriculum which takes the situation and particular needs in Afghanistan into account.

Mr. Tippmann emphasized that with the third generation of participants who justgraduated from their studies, 73 computer science lecturers will be available forAfghanistan which are highly needed for the establishment and extension of academic structures in the area of IT in the country.

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With its projects, as Mr. Tippmann finished his speech, the ZiiK wishes to help Afghanistan become a member of the international scientific community and strengthen human capacities in the area of IT. With a thorough education, the talented youth of Afghanistan will be able to provide peace, stability and wealth and connect the country to the global information society.

Ms. Zohra Zekeria, Master's graduate from TU Berlin, Kabul PolytechnicUniversity

In her speech, Ms. Zekeria talked on behalf of thewhole group of the current generation of Master's stu-dents about the experiences and impressions duringtheir studies and stay in Berlin. First, she emphasizedher special status as a female computer scientist inAfghanistan, which used to be quite uncommon. Shemade this decision because she felt that IT and com-puter science were to bring great changes to the coun-try.

After her arrival in Berlin, as she went on, there werebig challenges, e.g. living alone for the first time, notknowing the language, the city of Berlin being a multi-cultural place, and other cultural aspects. But after a while, she managed to cope well and was able to follow the course of the program and study successfully.

Ms. Zekeria praised the good organization and professional structures and lec-tures at TU Berlin which helped her a lot to study and graduate. The advanced systems in Germany, as she continued, eventually motivated her to work hard and establish something similar to make her own country's people's lives easier.

Therefore, she expressed her hopes to take back valuable knowledge, experi-ences and memories to Afghanistan. There, she promised to work hard and try her best to use each and every one of them for the advancement of her people and her home country, teach what she learned to future generations of studentsand thus provide knowledge to the younger generation.

Finally, she said she is going to miss the time and friends she made during her stay in Berlin on the one hand, but on the other she is also very much looking forward to returning back home and providing support for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

She took the opportunity to thank the international community, the German people and government, the Federal Foreign Office, DAAD, ZiiK of TU Berlin and especially Dr. Peroz for supporting Afghanistan.

Ms. Zielinska closed the event, congratulated all graduates again and said to be proud of the students to have achieved this high goal.

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Impressions of Part 1:

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Impressions of Part 2:

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