PU summit stresses joint efforts for economic uplift

LAHORE: Speakers at a summit held at Punjab University on Tuesday said that industry, academia and government regulators and institutions should join hands to play role in development of the country’s economy and society.

They were speaking at the first day of the two-day 8th Invention to Innovation Summit organised by PU Office of Research, Innovation and Commercialization (ORIC) in collaboration with Institute for Research Promotion.

PU Vice Chancellor Prof Niaz Ahmad, IRP CEO Abid Sherwani, Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vice President Manzoor Malik, Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vice President Faheem ur Rehman Sehgal, ORIC Director Prof Dr Naveed Ahsan, Pakistan Navy personnel, scientists, researchers, industrialists, CEOs, funding agencies, students and social activists from all the provinces are participating in the summit.

Addressing the summit, Prof Niaz Ahmad said universities were meant for generation of new knowledge which could help boost country’s economy and resolve problems being faced by society. He said: “We should give preference to applied research which could have positive impact on society. No country could progress without giving special attention to higher education sector. Universities must come forward to play role in nation building. The university administration would encourage and fund such research projects which were beneficial for the country and society.”

Manzoor Malik said: “Our governance system was not up to the mark and we should introduce innovation in our taxation system. The governments should devise good policies to facilitate industrialists. We should reduce gap between our import and export.”

Faheem-ur-Rehman Sehgal said: “Fortunately, we had abundance of natural and human resource but unfortunately we were not utilising the potential of our manpower. The secret of various developed nations was skilled labour.”

Abid Sherwani said the initiative was taken by IRP in collaboration with PU and various research organisations eight years ago to encourage commercialisation of research.

He said now invention to innovation summit was being held in all the provinces to connect industry and academia and so far, 100 research projects and innovations had been adopted by the industry. Dr Naveed Ahsan said as many as 150 technologies and posters from the fields of IT, engineering, life sciences and art etc had been put on display in the summit. The summit would continue till Wednesday (today).

TB course: Under the aegis of Pakistan Chest Society Punjab and Pakistan Academy of Family Physician, First Annual TB Course was held which was presided over by Prof of Pulmonology Dr Khalid Waheed of Lahore General Hospital.