Pakistani Students Put Pakistan on the Global AI Map

Pakistani Students Put Pakistan on the Global AI Map: IST Team’s ‘GeoGemma’ Wins Best AI Use Case Award at APAC Challenge 2025

slamabad: Two students of the Institute of Space Technology (IST), Islamabad, have brought global recognition to Pakistan by winning the Best AI Use Case Award at the APAC Solution Challenge 2025 in Manila. Final-year students Ahmad Iqbal and Hanzala bin Younus turned their academic project into a groundbreaking innovation called GeoGemma, an open-source Geo Large Language Model (GeoLLM) integrated with Google Earth Engine.

The competition, jointly organised by Google and the Asian Development Bank, featured more than 750 teams from over 200 universities across the Asia-Pacific region. Against this stiff competition, GeoGemma stood out as a transformative solution aimed at making geospatial data and satellite imagery accessible to a wider audience.

Unlike conventional tools that require coding skills and expensive computational resources, GeoGemma allows users to interact with Google Earth Engine’s library of more than 80 petabytes of data through simple natural language prompts. With a model size of less than 2GB, it can be run even on ordinary laptops, opening the door for applications in oil and gas, real estate, environmental monitoring, supply chain logistics, and disaster response.

The project has already caught the attention of Google DeepMind, which awarded the team a $10,000 grant under its Gemma Academic Programme, providing a major boost to its development. Initially formed under the mentorship of Dr Sajid Ghaffar, the team was later joined by two other IST students, Abdullah Asif and Khalilullah, who contributed as a frontend developer and AI engineer respectively.

Before their departure for Manila, the team met with Federal IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja, who lauded their achievement and pledged support. In the Philippines, Pakistan’s Ambassador Dr Asma Rababni hosted the team, describing their success as a matter of national pride.

Observers note that this achievement is not only an academic triumph but also a milestone for Pakistan’s role in the emerging global field of Geospatial AI. At a time when advanced nations are investing heavily in geospatial intelligence, two young Pakistanis have shown that talent, innovation, and persistence can overcome resource limitations.

Their accomplishment carries a strong message for Pakistan’s youth—that world-class innovation is possible from within the country, even without Silicon Valley’s infrastructure. What began as a final-year project has now become a globally recognised solution, setting an example of how determination and creativity can place Pakistan on the technological map.