Who is Randy Pausch?
Randy Pausch was a professor of Computer Science, Human–computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University. He died in the year of 2008 at the age of 47; 2 years after finding out that he had pancreatic cancer.

What was he known for?
Randy Pausch was known for being the founding father of the Alice software project, which was used to teach theoretical programming concepts by eliminating syntax, and for his research about Virtual Reality that he did for Disney. He also became famous later on for his moving, inspirational and informative speeches such as "The Last Lecture" which became a #1 best selling book.

5 points I liked about his talk about Time Management:
1) Always ask why are you doing something
2) Dont focus on doing things right but focus on the doing the right things instead
3) You can always change your plan but only once you have one
4) Do the ugliest thing first - Eat the larger frog first :)
5) Do things that are important but not due soon before things that are due soon but not important

What is a decision problem?
A decision problem is a problem that can be answered with a distinct yes or no given specifically defined inputs.
The algorithm used to solve such a problem is called a “decision procedure”. (Decision Problem, 2022)

What does it mean for a decision problem to be decidable? (Decidable and Undecidable Problems in Theory of Computation, 2018)
A decidable problem is a problem from which an algorithm to solve it can be produced.

What is the class P? What is the class NP?
The class is P is the set of problems that can be solved by a deterministic Turing machine in (P)olynomial time. While class NP is the set of decision problems that are solvable in nondeterministic polynomial time. (Difference between p and Np Problems - Chempinsta, 2022)

What is the intuitive meaning of the “P versus NP” question?
It is the suggestion that any problem whose solution can be verified quickly can also be solved quickly. (P versus NP Problem, 2022)

If you resolve the P versus NP question, how much richer will you be?
Resolving this question will solve many problems in so many different fields which in turn would turn you into a very wealthy person. (P versus NP Problem, 2022) Not only that but it will also allow you to steal billions of dollars worth of bitcoins.(If You Solve This Math Problem, You Could Steal All the Bitcoin in the World, 2019)

Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem#Popular_culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Decision_problem&oldid=1090174960
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/decidable-and-undecidable-problems-in-theory-of-computation/

What is Big Data?
Big Data is a term used to describe data sets that are “too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing application software.”. It is often also described as data sets that contain greater variety, span larger volumes, and have more velocity or data-creation rate than traditional data sets (“Big Data,” 2022). These were the initial defining attributes which were then updated to also include variability and value (The 5 V’s of Big Data, 2016).

What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is the “delivery of computing services” such as file storage, databases, networks, software, and much more.
Its purpose is to provide easier and quicker access to these services (What Is Cloud Computing?, n.d.).

Is cloud computing a novel technology per se or an amalgamation of several traditional technologies?
Cloud computing is an amalgamation of traditional technologies that are made significantly easier to access.

What are the 3 major cloud computing service models?
The three main models are Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) (Garcia, 2019).

Name at least 3 real-life problems that cloud computing can help solve.
Cloud computing can reduce the time required to release new features, sync files across multiple devices and make possible the sharing of very large files(What Problems Does Cloud Computing Solve?, n.d.).

What is the economic/business model of cloud computing?
Cloud computing follows the “pay as you go” business model which makes it more convenient for users (“Economics of Cloud Computing,” 2019).

Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_data&oldid=1102453146
https://www.quora.com/What-problems-does-cloud-computing-solve
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/economics-of-cloud-computing/

Research two major computer security incidents that have happened in Qatar. For each, describe....

Qatar National Bank
What did attackers break into?
They broke into the Bank’s database of accounts and stole 1.4 GB of information containing account numbers, credit holder names, and telephone numbers.

How did the attackers break into it?
Via a data breach.

Who was impacted?
The owners of 465000 bank accounts

How was it investigated?
The QNB Group’s risk team got involved to try to investigate the hackers identities, who were later revealed to be a Turkish cybercriminal team called the Bozkurt Hackers

Ehteraz app
What did attackers break into?
They broke into the government-made app that was being used to trace people who contracted the coronavirus.

How did the attackers break into it?
The level of security measures placed on the app was minimal since the creation of the app was rushed so it was an easy target

Who was impacted?
1 million people’s personal health details

How was it investigated?
Did not result in an investigation

Links:
https://www.cyberlands.io/topsecuritybreachesqatar
https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/pl/security/news/cyber-attacks/turkish-hackers-responsible-for-qatar-national-bank-breach#:~:text=Last%20week%2C%20reports%20of%20a,details%2C%20and%20dates%20of%20birth.
https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/hotforsecurity/contact-tracing-app-qatar-exposed-data-1-million-people-amnesty-international-says

Why did we move from punch cards to programming languages?
What does that tell you about the purpose of programming languages?
The move from punch cards to programming languages was induced by the advantages of new computers
that included “lower cost magnetic storage, affordable interactive terminals on less expensive minicomputers.(“Punched Card,” 2022)
This tells us that the purpose of programming language is to provide us with a way to deliver specific and
precise instructions that we want a computer to understand and execute

There are hundreds of different programming languages out there. Why do you think we need so many?
“Different problems require different tools to solve” (Why Are There so Many Programming Languages, 2021)

What are some drawbacks of a programming language you use? How would you like it to be different?
Think of specific examples.
Python has a notoriously low execution speed. I would like it to be faster.

If you were going to create a new programming language, how would you start? What do you need to define?
Start by understanding basic terminologies, programming paradigms and understanding compilers.
(How to Create a Programming Language, n.d.)

Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card#:~:text=Punched%20cards%20were%20still%20commonly,for%20these%20roles%20as%20well.
https://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Programming-Language
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/why-are-there-so-many-programming-languages/#:~:text=To%20sum%20it%20up%2C%20the,it%20suitable%20for%20specific%20tasks.

How do you define AI?
AI is a machine or application which carries out a task that requires some degree of intelligence when carried out by a human counterpart (Cambridge IAL Computer Science)

Can you name at least three different sub-fields of AI?
Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Neural Networks

AI has been around since about 70 years so far. Why is it booming right now?
With the introduction of faster and more capable computers AI models have finally reached a very high degree of percision and in some fields even surpassing human levels.

Can you name at least three application sectors where robots are being largely employed? What are the reasons? 
The medical sector to help diagnose patients,identify diseases and accompany patients.
The restaurant sector where robots are taking the place of waiters.
The policing sector where robots take care of dangerous missions that have high risk of death.

Can you identify three major challenges for a wheeled autonomous robot performing a 24h surveillance task in a large facility? (e.g., something like Mall of Qatar)
Avoiding people
Identifying when a safety concern arises
Being able to surveil the entire mall while also making sure not to run out of battery before reaching charging stations

Links:
https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/AI-Artificial-Intelligence
https://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/analytics/what-is-artificial-intelligence.html#:~:text=Artificial%20Intelligence%20enhances%20the%20speed,manually%20intense%20data%20management%20tasks.
https://pos.toasttab.com/blog/on-the-line/robots-in-restaurants

What is a genome/DNA and why is it important to know?
A genome is the genetic makeup of an organism that decides a great deal of the organism's attributes and functions.
This genetic information/make-up is stored in long DNA strands that typicall reside the nucleus of each and every cell.
It is important for us to understand an organism's genome so that we can identify its functions and attributs just through the observation of a single cell.

Does CS have a significant role to play in studying why we are tall, organized, athletic, or healthy?
CS can be used to identify which parts of the DNA sequence are responsible for which attributes including genetic diseases. Huge amounts of data are stored and processed to figure out correlations and links between each of the attributes and the genetic code that causes it.

What are some of the important questions in biology and medicine that can be addressed with computer science?
Computer science can address questions such which DNA fragments are responsible for specific attribute? Which medecines
are safe and useful for which diseases? What do MRI's say about a human's mental health?

Is it enough to study humans and the human genome?
No, the power of Computational Biology exceeds just studying Humans and their genomes.

Is the industry interested in computational biology, or is it largely academic research?
The industry is in fact interested and has already started implementing things like drug testing.

Links:
https://www.nature.com/scitable/definition/genome-43/#:~:text=A%20genome%20is%20the%20complete,molecules%20of%20DNA%20called%20chromosomes.
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/the-computer-science-behind-dna-sequencing/
https://www.computersciencedegreehub.com/faq/what-is-computational-biology/