AIOU to hold career development expo

Islamabad :The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) will soon hold first-ever national-level ‘Projects, Start-ups and Career' Expo to provide a platform to graduate students, showcasing their research-based projects, getting an opportunity of entrepreneurship and building their future career.

It is being organised in collaboration with Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other relevant institutions. The three-fold event will help the students to seek job opportunity or to start their own business.

While presiding over the event-review meeting held here, Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Shahid Siddiqui said the AIOU will act as a bridge between the students and the industrial sector for socio-economic development through innovative ideas.

An office of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation (ORIC) has already been set up at the University for providing linkage between the researchers and the industries for projecting and taking benefit of new research and innovations in various disciplines. Through this activity, the AIOU was going to provide the students an opportunity to directly interact with the job market and industry as well as corporate sector.

About the concept and broader goals of the proposed expo, he said the University wanted to be a helping hand for the graduates to start their own business on the basis of research work and new innovation. In this connection, our brotherly country, China, has set an exemplary model to exploit strength of their youth, ensuring a better future, both at individual and national level, VC added.

The University is planning to hold this multidisciplinary event by November this year and expecting that the students, not only from the AIOU but other Universities will be participating.

It was noted that the graduate students around the country was facing the problem of unemployment, as well as becoming burden on the national economy and it was felt that the Universities needed to realize this challenge and work closely with industry and corporate sector to fill this gap.

By arranging the event, the AIOU being the Mega University in the public sector fulfills its responsibility helping students in career making.  Over the last two and half years, it has been focusing on promoting research culture in the country, through various means including publishing research journals and holding national and international conferences. 

In a short span of time, twelve research journals were published and about twenty-four conferences were arranged.  The University will provide space and other necessary infrastructure to the students to exhibit their research-based projects. The University will invite the relevant industry and corporate sector to understand their needs and issues. It will also pave the way promoting meaningful applied research at the academic level.

About the start-up idea, Dr. Shahid Siddiqui said this will enable the students to think beyond the traditional job market searching and to bring novel ideas, so as to become real entrepreneurs.