Posted on October 12, 2022
October 12, 2022, Kathmandu: Advanced College of Engineering and Management (acem) organized a program on ‘Cognitive Biases in Decision Making’ in collaboration with Professor Dr. Ori Orhof, an Industrial and Management Engineer and a Project Manager from Israel amid a significant presence of His Excellency Mr. Hanan Goder, ambassador of Israel to Nepal, Her Excellency Ms. Kanta Rijal, ambassador of Nepal to Israel and the Chairman of acem, Mr. Ramesh Kumar Silwal. The program also witnessed an enthusiastic participation of distinguished guests as well as prominent personalities from various academic institutions and organizations of Nepal alongside acem’s faculties and staff. This one and half hour session was conducted in the premises of acem as well as in the virtual platform of Zoom.
His Excellency Mr. Honan Goder, ambassador of Israel to Nepal, expressed his gratitude and delight to the acem family for the successful execution of the program. His Excellency highlighted that the topic of ‘Cognitive Biases in Decision Making’ is applicable for an individual to overcome the errors that are caused by faulty decisions. HE Mr. Goder affirmed that informative events of this kind help to enlighten not just the decision makers but also strengthens the bond between Nepal and Israel.
Her Excellency, Ms. Kanta Rijal, ambassador of Nepal to Israel, congratulated the organizing team for such a fruitful session. Her Excellency asserted that the core of the Dr. Ori’s presentation was not just instructive but also highly practical. HE Ms. Rijal also mentioned her last visit to acem and appreciated the initiatives and activities taken by the college. “I strongly believe that the sessions on the topics like ‘Cognitive Biases in Decision Making’ surely upgrade the standard of acem and enhance its quality as decision making is useful in the dynamic field.” HE Ms. Rijal stated.
Chairman of acem, Mr. Ramesh Kumar Silwal provided his commendable remarks for Dr. Ori’s session and appreciated the valuable time provided by the honorable ambassadors HE Mr. Goder and HE Ms. Rijal. During his speech, Mr. Silwal connected the skills of decision making with the leadership qualities. He elaborated that a good leader inspires the followers and leads to a better decision. Moreover, Mr. Silwal also invited Dr. Ori for his next visit to Nepal. “Dr. Ori’s sessions always leave an impact upon us. I hope we will receive an opportunity to attend another enlightening session from him in the near future.” Mr. Silwal shared. He also expressed his gratification as well as cherished the flourishing ties of Nepal and Israel.
Professor Dr. Ori Orhof was the key presenter and speaker of the program. He largely focused upon the multiple categories of Cognitive Biases, highlighting primarily on various ways where an individual is trapped due to their own calculation in decision making. For instance, in the Confirmation Bias, he argued why people see what they merely want to see.
According to Dr. Ori, the very first step on overcoming cognitive biases is to acknowledge that we have them.
During the session, Professor Dr. Ori stated that even the enlightened minds may become the victim of their own cognitive biases. Henceforth, an individual should adapt a gradual process of thoughts that can help balance out our own irrational tendencies. In order to shed more light on this topic, Dr. Ori added instructive videos of intellectuals of Israel like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Nathan Tversky who researched anomalies and contradictions of human behaviors especially on decision making. Daniel Kanheman was also awarded with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002.
Principal of acem, Er. Lochan Lal Amatya of acem, welcomed the speaker, special guests, and acem family with warm regards for their contribution in this program. He stated this effective topic of Cognitive Bias will undoubtedly help the participants to analyze the situation before taking any faulty decisions as well as to also understand the results of human actions especially in engineering. Er. Amatya shared his experience on learning Cognitive Biases in Engineering. “Hopefully, we will all learn on how to make the right decisions at the right time.” Principal Amatya expressed.
