road shows.”
Review: The Urdu web and print edition of MIT Technology Review Pakistan was launched by the Information Technology University (ITU) at Arfa Software Technology Park here on Thursday.
According to a press release, the CEO, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of MIT Tech Review (Global), Jason Pontin, was the chief guest while Vice Chancellor ITU /Chairman of Punjab IT Board Dr Umar Saif hosted the ceremony. Chairman and CEO of Entrepreneurship Ventures Inc Kenneth P Morse and Vice Chancellor of University of Engineering & Technology (UET) Lahore Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid participated as the guests of honour.
Speaking on the occasion, Jason said he much learnt from failures but worked harder and harder after each failure. He said his journal faced failures when it was published in only English language from other countries but when local language was also included it got speedy successes. He said: “Whenever I visited Pakistan, I realised that here was lack of realism, authentic research and technology based content that could provide guidance to the local technologists, academia, researchers and scientists. I dreamt that MIT Tech Review must had been published from here and found Dr Umar Saif who fulfilled that dream. The local language Urdu will enhance its readership and it will create a global flare among them.”
Jason said the last purpose of launching MIT Tech Review was to create a new tech generation in Pakistan fully aware of what is happening around the world in technology and innovation.
Dr Umar Saif said the pseudo-science glamorization in Pakistan became main motive behind launching the MIT Tech Review from Pakistan to provide authentic and credible knowledge on science and technology against the claims of running car by using water as fuel.
“We need to glamorize entrepreneurship, innovation and research in this country, that’s one strong reason we started Tech Review, it will talk about actual science,” he added.
Dr Saif told that the Punjab government was launching a venture capital worth Rs 30 billion within next three months to support startups. Ken Morse said: “We need to be infected with entrepreneurship virus to gain success. If you have a lot up startups, it’s logical to have a lot of failures.”