The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Italy (Which works under the umbrella of UNESCO/IAEA) and the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology have jointly organised the two weeks Asian Regional School on "FPGA Design for Scientific Applications" in MUET, Jamshoro.
In his welcome address, Professor Dr M A Uqaili, Vice Chancellor MUET, said that the purpose of this jointly organised school is to conduct a hands-on training activity that will provide an opportunity for engineers, physicists, and computer scientists in the regional countries and especially Pakistan to access new technologies and gain the necessary skills for designing and developing complete high-performance systems for scientific applications at low cost.
Meeting the requirement of the expertise in FPGAs (hardware/software and related tools) across the region and especially in Pakistan at academic and industrial level, MUET submitted the bid for hosting the workshop and we were awarded this workshop on the basis of strong commitment, facilities, and potential, Vice Chancellor said.
Dr Maria Liz Crespo, one of the Director of the program, said that The Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) was established in 1964 and has been organising various technical trainings at Trieste, Italy and in regional countries. One of the popular technical trainings offered by the ICTP is training on FPGA for scientific instrumentations.
She further said, "We are very much happy about the participation of more than forty five scientist and academicians from all around Pakistan and regional countries." Dr Adrew Cicutin, from Multi-disciplinary Laboratory ICTP Trieste Italy highlighted the importance of Changing Paradigm of Digital Electronics Design. He further said that all the practical sessions of the school are based on FPGA platforms, IDE software tools and VHDL hardware description language. The training includes introduction of modern hybrid system-on-chip devices that combine the software programmability of general purpose processors with the hardware reconfigureability of FPGA. Professor Dr BS Chowdhry, Dean FEECE, in his presentation MUET Goes Global showed that nowadays FPGAs are key players in the smart systems. However, high demand of the expertise in Reconfigurable Devices at national and international market, availability of skilled human resource is a core factor. He mentioned that this intensive training will enhance the capabilities of researchers, and teachers from Asia who are seeking to exploit modern technologies for challenging scientific and academic purposes.
Dr Tayabuddin Memon, local organizer /Director of the program, gave the briefing about the whole two weeks lectures and lab sessions delivered by Experts from Italy, Switzerland, Argentina, USA, and Australia. He talked about participation in this school and mentioned that more than 50% participants who got training are from Pakistan and they belong to various universities, and R&D Institutes. The program was inaugurated by President ECO Science Foundation Dr Manzoor Hussain Soomro. Professor Dr Abdul Qadeer Rajput, Chairman Chartered Inspection and Evaluation Committee and former Guest Scientist of ICTP, Trieste Italy distributed certificates among participants in the concluding ceremony.