HEC organises send-off ceremony for university students

Islamabad

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Friday organised a send-off ceremony for university students to participate in an ICT training and hands-on practice at Huawei, Beijing, China.

HEC Chairman Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed was the chief guest on the occasion. Wife of Chinese Ambassador was the guest of honour.

The HEC signed a Document of Understanding (DoU) with the Huawei Technologies in March 2016 to work together for the purpose of promoting joint development of technologies in Pakistan. The two parties agreed to constitute a Steering Committee comprising experts and professionals to ensure implementation and deliverance of the initiative. They agreed to set up R&D Laboratory, for which HEC will arrange a building while Huawei will assist the HEC.

Under the DoU, the HEC will ensure availability of furniture and accessories, required bandwidth, and technical local resource. Huawei will provide equipment worth US$ 1.5 million, capacity building opportunities to Laboratory staff for R&D activities with a focus on performance testing of advanced and emerging technologies to be deployed in Pakistan. It will provide training to researchers and scientists on the technologies.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed appreciated the support of Huawei for development of Pakistan’s ICT sector, which spans over 10 years. He said that under this partnership, Huawei has offered to introduce the “Telecom Seed for the Future’’ programme to Pakistan so as to support the country’s ICT talent development and facilitate 15 Pakistani university students in the 3rd and 4th year of undergraduate studies to participate in the two-week training.

He advised the students to learn from this training and become Pakistan’s ambassadors in China. He narrated how China developed in the last 4-5 decades and the role their youth played in bringing about these revolutionary changes. He also highlighted the significance of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for Pakistan and the entire region.

CTO, Huawei Enterprises Liu Sheng Jay said that students are selected on merit to attend this programme in China. He said that Huawei is working in Pakistan for the last 18 years while with HEC the collaboration started 10 years ago and is prospering with the passage of time.