KARACHI: Students of 10 universities, including University of Karachi and Sindh Madressatul Islam University (SMIU), belonging to Google Developer Student Club, on Friday participated in three-day event titled Hack Fest 2022 at IBA City Campus Karachi, where they were trained about finding technical solutions to the challenges pertaining to UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Speaking on the occasion, Hamza Siddiqui stressed the need to find technical solutions to the UN’s 17 SDGs. He said that 17 UN goals are not a problem but are challenges which we have to solve. He said that students should fully prepare themselves for this cause. He also guided and trained students in this regard.

Umama Iftikhar Siddiqui, Marketing Lead, Google Developer Student Club (GDSC) of University of Karachi, said that GDSC is a platform at which students of 10 universities are receiving technical knowledge and training to solve problems in different areas like poverty, sanitation, water and traffic. She said that they were preparing students to find Google solutions to meet challenges pertaining to UN’s 17 SDGs.

Umama further said that they would fully prepare students to find technical solutions to the problems being faced by them in their areas, while suggestions for solution to those issues would also be presented to the government.

Danella Patrick, SMIU GDSC Lead, said that the club is an innovative platform for training students for solutions to the USDGs challenges, adding 64 students from SMIU had participated in this program which is highest number as compared to other universities.

She said that three excellent and best performing students in the next session would be honoured with cash prizes of Rs50,000 for first runner up, Rs30,000 for second runner up and Rs20,000 for 3rd runner up.

A panel discussion was also held in which panellists Krinza Momin, Muhammad Ali Khan, Fatima Moin and Arbaz Piwani advised students to coordinate their relevant mentors and get sufficient knowledge about their work at their respective organisations so as to make real progress.

Gifts were also distributed among the participating students. Rafia Manzoor, GDSC Team Lead from University of Karachi and Eman Ahmed of Salim Habib University conducted program proceedings.

The universities which took part in the program were University of Karachi, SMIU, SSUET, Salim Habib University, Usman Institute of Technology, IBA, DHA Suffa University, NED University and FAST.