The Higher Education Commission's Innovation Steering Committee held its second meeting within a week to discuss means to strengthen links between academia and industry through the Offices of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation (ORICs) in universities.
Representatives from industry and ORICs from four universities in Peshawar and 15 in Islamabad-Rawalpindi brainstormed at length about the need to strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship activities in Pakistani universities that will ultimately help in creation of job opportunities as well as country's economic empowerment.
Dr Arshad Ali, Executive Director HEC, briefed the gathering about the urgency to create a framework and a mechanism to promote innovation and create a progressive environment for ORICs by encouraging cross learning and mentoring as Pakistan did possess talented entrepreneurs who needed guidance.
He stressed the need to take into account the global industry and how Pakistan could make a niche for itself there. Though some institutions and individuals have performed very well in the recent years, yet there is dire need to encourage maximum number of faculty members, researchers and students to embrace innovative and entrepreneurial endeavours.
He proposed that universities could be considered for awarding ranking marks for performance linking innovation to business incubation and the impact it created on the economy.
Imtiaz Rastgar, Chairman of the Committee suggested that universities should have Internal Steering Committees to further enhance their scope. Provinces will also have such forums for universities to discuss their project viability with the industry. Dr Mohammad Latif, Adviser Research and Development shared the newly formed Technology Fund.
The project worth Rs 2.91 billion is for duration of five years and will cover 200 proposals. Its priority areas will be IT/Computers, Micro-electronics, Biotechnology, Material Sciences, Telecommunication and Robotics. The Fund aims at promoting prototypes for problem-based solutions. The first year target will be 50 joint proposals from university and industry projects.
Sharing HEC's vision to promote applied research, Dr Latif also shared the performance of Student Start-Up Business Centre which is a three party investment where HEC is one of the partners. Nine of the 10 projects are already functional.
ORIC representatives from NUST, COMSATS Institute of IT, Bahria University and Air University shared different success stories of their business models.
The session was attended by a number of industry representatives, entrepreneurs and HEC officers.
They included Dr Muhammad Latif, Adviser (R&D) HEC, Dr Mazhar Saeed, DG Planning and Development, Noshaba Awais, Deputy Director (R&D), Major General Akbar Saeed (Retd), Chairman Technology Council, Muhammad Murtaza Zaidi, CEO Cyber Vision International, Syed Ahmed, CEO DPL (Pvt) Ltd, Haroon Qureshi, CEO East West Infiniti, Owais Anjum, CEO eMumba (Pvt) Ltd, Wahaj Siraj, CEO Nayatel (Pvt) Ltd, Maajid Maqbool, Assistant Professor, SEECS-NUST, Zeeshan Shahid, Programme Manager TITZ, Ali Hasnain, CEO DEACSMASH (Pvt) Ltd, Ammar Khan, MD NEXUS Telecom as well as ORIC managers from universities. Imtiaz Rastgar, Chairman, Rastgar Group attended the session through video conferencing. -PR
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