Huawei Pakistan in collaboration with the Higher Commission of Pakistan and NED University Karachi held the Pakistan Educational Summit on 7^th July 2021 with the aim to accelerate the digital value of education together. The event took place simultaneously with Global Huawei Intelligent Education Summit 2021 at NED, University of Engineering Technology, Karachi. The Summit was attended by Chief Guest, Governor of Sindh, Mr. Imran Ismail& Guest of honor, Vice Chancellor NED Dr. Sarosh Hasmat Lodi, Director HEC, Mr. Naveed Tahir, Managing Director of Huawei Mr. Gaoweiji and Director KICS UET Lahore Dr. Waqar Mahmood together with Vice Chancellors and Director IT’s from reputed universities.

Under the theme of ‘Accelerate the Digital Journey of Education, New Value Together’, the summit proved to be a strategic platform that provides an opportunity to explore the use of innovative technologies to promote the digital journey of the education industry, designed with the objective to facilitate innovation in teaching and learning management, thereby future-proofing educational institutions for the post-pandemic era. Together with support from leading education industry professionals, digital transformation practices from both industry & technology perspectives were discussed, demonstrating Huawei’s full-scenario robust solutions for the education industry.

Director KICS UET Lahore Dr. Waqar Mahmood expressed his views in a panel discussion while answering a question about CoVID-19 took the world by storm. How did the pandemic impact learning & education and how technology help in overcoming these challenges? He said that at the beginning of 2020, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 resulted in enormous impacts on over 190 countries worldwide, interrupting the education of over 1.6 billion students to varying degrees. To ensure normal teaching activities during the pandemic colleges and universities worldwide had to take relevant measures to switch to online teaching.

However due to issues such as poor infrastructure and inadequate capacity of online teaching, the digital transformation in higher education still faces many challenges. In the foreseeable future the “Internet + Education” model will become an important means for achieving equitable and quality Higher Education. The Rapid development of ICT not only drives the digital transformation of the society as a whole but also puts forward new requirements for talent cultivation, professional standards, teaching and management models in various countries.

Reinforcing the sentiment, Dr. Lodhi stated, “This event is happening globally and we are pleased to partner with HEC and Huawei, for hosting this summit at NED Karachi. The Summit have helped the educational institutes of Sindh in understanding digitalization needs that can revolutionize the entire sector”.

Also, the Executive Director HEC, Dr. Shaista Sohail spoke on this occasion and said,” This summit has great importance considering the pandemic and shift from traditional education to digital education. The goal of this event is to openly discuss the digitization requirements in education and global trends. Sessions were really informative and we hope that this summit will help the HEI’s to set goals for their digitization journey and HEC is already on track for same”.

Mr. Gaoweiji, Managing Director of Huawei Pakistan South Region also concurred, “Huawei will continue to invest in ICT solution R&D. Strong investment, provides a suite of ICT solutions for the education industry to assist in digital transformation & create new industry value.”

2020 was an extraordinary year for educational reform. Today, the education industry is facing rapid digitalization. The digital journey of the education industry has accelerated and there is a huge demand from both students and teachers to have teaching and learning resources available anytime and anywhere. This, in turn, has also led to higher demands on the construction and maintenance of advanced education ICT infrastructure.

On the occasion, the Governor Sindh remarked, “Higher Education Commission has done a tremendous job to help digitize the Higher Educational institute in Sindh and all across the country by providing connectivity through the PERN network, multiple IT services and thanks to Huawei for supporting them throughout their digitization Journey. Thanks to NED and HEC for arranging this summit in Karachi and helping south universities to get enablement on new technologies.”

At the end of this summit shields were presented to participants & guest as a token of appreciation by chief guest Governor Sindh Imran Ismail.

“Our IT sector couldn’t progress like India over the past few years but now UET is set to give it a direction,” says Minister Higher Education Raja Yasir Humayun Sarfaraz while speaking at the closing ceremony of the Cadence EDA tools training program.

A specialized training program on Cadence EDA tools was organized at UET Lahore. A total of 16 trainees, 2 each from the 8 higher education institutes of Punjab got their hands on the Cadence tools. National and International experts shared their diversified experiences with the attendees. 9 days long training program was kicked off with an orientation session on 21st June 2021 which was conducted by Dr. Ahsan Tahir, and Dr. Obaid Fayyaz. These tools have a flow which is front end to back end so starting off with the front-end session organized by Dr. Bilal it was migrated to the back end. There was a special session with Mr. Irfan Qayum from Cadence USA on the synthesis tool. Towards the end of the training, Dr. Owais bin Altaf from LUMS had a session on back-end design.

The training program came to an end with a closing ceremony which was graced by the Honorable Minister Higher Education Raja Yasir Humayun Sarfaraz with his presence as a Chief Guest. Director Al-Khwarizmi Institute of Computer Science (KICS), Prof. Dr. Waqar Mahmood not only briefed the Chair on different aspects of the training but also thanked him for his unprecedented support in achieving this great milestone. “We are working in a very consistent manner, without wasting even a single day, so as to procure software and hardware components fairly in time,” said Dr. Waqar Mahmood.

“He is probably the first Higher Education Minister who does not only realizes the importance of the IT sector in Pakistan but also possesses the required knowledge of being expert of the field,” said Vice Chancellor UET Lahore, Prof. Dr. Syed Mansoor Sarwar in his thanking note. He expressed his great hope in this initiative saying, the Country would be able to give a sizeable contribution through this facility. Vice-Chancellor shared promising news and a success story of a young research team from UET comprising Dr. Tayyab, Dr. Tahir, Dr. Obaid, and Mr. Umar Shahid who have recently been qualified for the Google E-Fabex program for their unique chip design to control motion. It is a matter of extreme privilege and pride for UET that after being acknowledged by the Google IEEE Solid State Devices has committed to fully sponsor the project.

Minister Higher Education, Yasir Humayun Sarfaraz specially thanked VC UET, Prof. Dr. Syed Mansoor Sarwar, and Director KICS, Prof. Dr. Waqar Mahmood for their untiring efforts in the execution of the project. “Unfortunately, our IT sector couldn’t progress like India over the past few years but now University of Engineering & Technology Lahore is all set in the right direction and right path that will ultimately help IT sector of the country to touch the skies”.  He emphasized the importance of developing quality human resources that will help in job creation and ultimately boost the economy. “Although UET produces the best resources in the country we need to get more competitive in the international market,” said Raja Yasir Humayun. He assured his maximum support in incentivizing chip design technologies like India to get maximum traction and quality outcome.

The closing ceremony was concluded with the presentation of certificates, and souvenirs among the participants, and trainers of the Cadence EDA tools training program.