Scholars vow to promote culture of information technology to boost Pakistan’s economic development

The University of Karachi’s second International Conference on Information Science & Communication Technology (ICISCT) ended on a high note on Sunday. The scholars in attendance vowed to promote a culture of information technology to boost Pakistan’s economic development.

The chief guest of the concluding session, Sindh IT Minister Nawab Muhammad Taimur Talpur, said the event was a great opportunity for students to learn from national and foreign scientists, adding that the process of learning never ended. He advised students to never stop the process of learning.

Describing the provincial government’s performance in different sectors, he said that under the guidance of Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Sindh is the most progressive province at the moment with regard to tax returns, local governance and health care.

“The role of IT is evident in every government department. By this term’s end, I’ll try to ensure that all public hospitals are connected with modern software. The health department is also doing great work. I proudly say that people from other provinces come here to avail health care services.”

He observed that Sindh is lagging behind other provinces in the IT sector, but he stressed that the government is still working very hard to compete with them.

“We have provided free Wi-Fi facilities to eight universities of Sindh. We have established an advisory committee, comprising IT companies and experts, on government level.”

Leading factor

Prof Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi, the acting vice chancellor of KU, said on the occasion that he believes that IT is one of the leading components of global economies.

“Sustainable development needs IT development. To achieve the goal of socio-economic progress, the IT sector needs to be developed and promoted. It also ensures society’s progress,” he said, and observed that many of the conference’s areas, including cybersecurity, have global importance.

He urged IT and computer science students to be innovative, and to keep abreast of modern trends and changes in the field nationally and globally. “We need to design and revise our curricula in line with modern demands and trends of the global and national markets.”

Contributions

KU Faculty of Science Dean Prof Dr Tabassum Mehboob informed the audience that they are always searching for platforms for academics and researchers to share their stories, studies and experiences with one another and with students of information science and communication technology.

She said the ICISCT was important for all those who belonged to the field both nationally and internationally, adding that the speakers had made considerable contributions to the IT and communication fields in their research and teachings, and they would surely have positive impacts on societies.

Keynote addresses

Anders Schmidt Kristensen of the Department of Energy Technology at Denmark’s University of Aalborg delivered a keynote address that was titled ‘Computer-Based Egress Simulation of Multiple Scenarios’.

Enrique Nava, university professor in the Department of Communications Engineering at Spain’s University of Malaga, delivered a keynote address titled ‘A Brief Evolution of Image Processing Techniques in Medical Applications’.

Other speakers

Nawab Muhammad Faseeh Qureshi of South Korea’s Sungkyunkwan University delivered a talk titled ‘Towards Global Cities Digitisation: Inter-Data Repository Network in Global Cities as an Example’, while Prof Hui Wang of Northern Ireland’s Ulster University delivered a talk titled ‘Graph Similarity: Counting Through Matrices’.

The Pakistan Navy’s Vice Admiral (retd) Syed Arifullah Hussaini shared his views on the topic titled ‘Challenges and Opportunities’, while Dr Syed Attique Shah of the Department of Information Technology at Quetta’s Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering & Management Sciences spoke about ‘The Rising Role of Big Data Analytics in the Internet of Things: State-of-the-Art Advances and Prospects’.

Dr Bhagwan Das, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Nawabshah’s Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering, Sciences & Technology shared his views on ‘Artificial Internet of Things: A Future Combo — Technology, When AI meets IoTs’. A number of scholars also presented their papers.

Pakistan Software Houses Association Central Executive Committee Chairman Shahzad Shahid, Hussaini, the National University of Sciences & Technology’s Prof Dr Shoab Ahmed, the Centres of Excellence in Science & Applied Technologies’ Dr Yasir Qadri, Dr Jim Buckley of Ireland’s University of Limerick, Kristensen and Prof Andrew Ware of the University of South Wales took part in a panel discussion.

The ICISCT was organised by KU’s Department of Computer Science, which had received 202 papers, of which 49 were accepted for the concluding day of the two-day conference.