Tackling Water Scarcity Through AI

Could a robot have painted the Mona Lisa? Will AI ever be the next Van Gogh? Brenda Segone is asking these very questions as she analyzes what it means for a machine learning model to “create” art.

The summer after his first year of university, Bernard O’Kane boarded a train from Ireland to Istanbul, emerging in a world of brightly colored tiles. The next year, he took the same train to Istanbul and boarded a boat to Alexandria to see the architecture of Egypt. He continued this habit a third summer, venturing further east from Turkey into Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The colorful art and architecture of the Islamic world captured O’Kane in a way he wasn’t able to shake then.Now a professor of Islamic art and architecture in the Sheikh Hassan Abbas Sharbatly Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, O’Kane’s love of travel never faded. He regularly visits places in the Middle East and Central Asia to investigate the historical architecture and tilework around the region. Most recently, O’Kane traveled to Turkmenistan, researching the tilework of monuments in Kuhna Urgench. This historical site was the capital of the Khorezm region with monuments including a mosque, the gates of a caravanserai, fortresses, mausoleums and a 60-meter-high minaret. O’Kane was drawn to the tilework, whose soulful colors have endured more than seven centuries.“Tilework is a particularly important form of Islamic art. It serves as a colorful, vibrant way to shape the identity of sacred and secular spaces,” he said. 

Known as Hollywood on the Nile, Egypt’s film industry experienced its golden age in the 1960s.The nationalization of its film industry buoyed the budgets of directors to capture the hopes and fears of Egyptian society in hits like Dawn of a New Day and Struggle of the Heroes. Tamara Maatouk, assistant professor of film studies in the Department of the Arts, sees film as a vessel for history, offering insights beyond textbooks. Her research explores how Egypt’s private- and public sector films captured the socialist 1960s. AUCToday spoke with Maatouk to learn more. 

As developing nations face increased and disproportionate threats of climate change, Professor Shahjahan Bhuiyan’s research found that public administration efforts need to be tailored to the specific infrastructure of development. With growing international environmental insecurity, sustainability must work in tandem with development conscious governance. Together with Jose Puppim de Oliveira, Bhuiyan co-edited a special issue of Urban Climate titled “Cities and Climate Change in Developing Countries.” “This issue reflects our passion for the topic,” Bhuiyan said. “The papers included in the issue, individually and collectively, improve our understanding of the diverse impacts of climate change and highlight the responses and solutions that cities have adopted to address these challenges.”As climate change continues to threaten our world, a perspective that assesses the moral imperative to solving the environmental crisis is crucial. While audiences might not initially consider the climate crisis a matter for public administration, Bhuiyan argues that without a holistic, public-sensitive approach, long-lasting, equitable change is unlikely.“Climate change poses a serious threat to humanity, impacting food security, natural ecosystems, freshwater supply, and health,” he said. “Governance plays a role in all these elements, and so we must focus on how to improve the quality of governance.”Bhuiyan found that climate change solutions must be sensitive to a city’s level of development, with approaches changing for centers still undergoing urbanization. There is an extra challenge for developing countries, as they have to discover sustainable solutions alongside building fundamental public administration systems, such as waste management and transportation infrastructure. However, this also means that developing nations have more opportunities to include climate-conscious policies in their strategic plans and programs. Instead of having to rework their whole system, developing nations can urbanize with climate solutions in mind.“Advancing the urban climate agenda in developing countries is based largely on linking climate change to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, as these countries often struggle to provide basic services and face numerous 'wicked' problems,” Bhuiyan said, explaining the increased struggle for developing nations.  It is imperative that developing countries work with climate-forward solutions in mind, as they have a higher vulnerability to climate change. Bhuiyan said: “A number of African cities —  including Cairo — are undergoing rapid urbanization and are doing so with climate based solutions in mind, such as urban agriculture and institutional reliance on sustainable energy.”  “A number of African cities —  including Cairo — are undergoing rapid urbanization and are doing so with climate based solutions in mind, such as urban agriculture and institutional reliance on sustainable energy.” Bhuiyan’s research builds off of the work of 27th Conference of the Parties (COP 27), hosted in Egypt, as well as the Symposium on Cities and Climate Change in Developing Countries, hosted by AUC’s School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. These conferences gave academics and industry leaders the platform to understand the differences in climate-smart solutions needed from developing and developed nations. Bhuiyan worked with colleagues to compile these findings into a research paper and make recommendations for climate-smart development.Bhuiyan has been researching public administration for almost three decades, studying how the governance of a country impacts its people and its international relationship. His research has focused on a number of countries, from Bangladesh to Kazakhstan to Egypt. He has learned the ways good governance can positively impact people’s lives and wants his legacy to be helping people implement good governance. “Governments have an ethical duty to stop climate change,” he professed. “And as researchers, we can help guide them.”By using lessons learned from countries that have successfully implemented climate mitigation strategies, Bhuiyan is helping to develop policy solutions to support a climate-smart future. Information sharing through conferences such as COP 27 and the Symposium on Cities and Climate Change in Developing Countries is one way to improve policy research.“The Global North and Global South have a duty to share information,” he said, addressing the importance of collaboration. “As societies continue to develop, all we need is transparency, rule of law and good governance. With this, we can work together as an international community to improve the human condition.”“As societies continue to develop, all we need is transparency, rule of law and good governance. With this, we can work together as an international community to improve the human condition.”