In a first, Pakistani team qualifies for WRO's self-driving car competition

For the first time, a team from Pakistan qualified for the self-driving car competition organised by the World Robot Olympiad (WRO).

The team of three students from Pakistan — comprising Muhammad Hadi Saif, Ayaan Waqar, and Ali Saif — designed a self-driving car using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence capabilities.

The team qualified by winning the national competition organized by the World Robot Olympiad in Pakistan.

Teams competing for the self-driving car category were expected to design a completely autonomous car, capable of using computer vision and machine learning, and a combination of radar, infrared, and sonar sensors, to navigate a series of challenges set by the judges.

The team will represent Pakistan in the WRO’23 International finals to be held in Panama City in November.

“This is the first time a team from Pakistan has qualified for this category,” said Zartaj Ahmed, who organised the WRO national competition in Pakistan.

“This is a very challenging category, and we are thrilled that a team from Pakistan is able to compete at a global level,” she added.

“This is a result of months of hard work in designing a truly autonomous car,” said Hadi Saif, who led the team to victory.

“We are confident that our approach of utilising AI will help us win the international competition.”

Self-driving cars are one of the most exciting applications of the recent advanced in artificial intelligence.

Globally, many companies are racing against each other to make self-driving cars using AI. Companies like Tesla and Google’s Waymo are already beginning to test their cars with self-driving capabilities. Pakistan’s future engineers may not be far behind.