‘Researchers should resolve developing world issues’

Lahore

international researchers should come forward to collaborate for solutions to problems of the developing world, said Dr Umar Saif, chairman, Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), while addressing on the third day of the ninth International Conference on Information & Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD), Pakistan 2017, on Saturday. Dr Saif, who is also founding vice-chancellor of Information Technology University (ITU) and adviser to Punjab chief minister, said that Pakistan had become the fifth largest populated country with 37 million Internet users on social media, which confirmed the acceptability, adaptability in terms of use of technology in the country.

He added that PITB had effectively gathered and digitalised the data of 50,000 schools and 5 million farmers in Punjab, which was accessible to the ICTD community for collaborating in finding solutions to the problems being faced in agriculture sector, poverty alleviation and rural development.

Dr Saif said that the ITU, established five years back, had 900 students with 90 faculty members and a convocation of its first batch of graduates was scheduled for December 17, 2017.

Dr Sania Nishtar, keynote speaker of ICTD, said discussed the health sector and stressed the need for deployment of technology in the system. Artificial intelligence has superiority over humans in many pathologies, she added. She said that serialisation of medicine with QR code could help combat the fake drugs.

ICTD’s ninth Computer Conference organised in Pakistan for the first time is a major event, which has brought Pakistan to the technology globe.