IDB president visits Islamic university

Islamabad : President of the Islamic Development Bank Dr Bandar M. H. Hajjar visited the International Islamic University.

He was accompanied by a 20-member delegation, which visited the Centre for Advanced Electronics & Photovoltaic Engineering (CAEPE) along with IIU Rector Prof Masoom Yasinzai and President Prof Ahmed Yousif AL-Draiweesh.

The centre emerged as the University-Wide Centre and User Access Facility from the very core support extended by the Bank through its competitive international grants.

The Islamic Development Bank provided an opportunity to raise the Advanced Electronics Laboratories Project and Photovoltaic Energy Engineering Laboratories Project at the IIU as a pioneering step to support the government of Pakistan in these highly specialised Area of Research. These multimillion dollar competitive international grants were awarded to their Proponent, Prof Ahmed Shuja Syed, who successfully accomplished the projects and raised a centre of its kind in Pakistan.

The IIU rector and president briefed the delegation that the centre currently holds around 200 scientific projects utilizing the research facilities from within and outside the international Islamic university.

They said the centre is acting as an enabler to target 4 sustainable development goals namely: quality education, affordable and clean energy, industrial innovation and infrastructure and partnership for the goals.

The delegation was apprised that the centre’s indigenous research problems are focused to create knowledge in micro- and nano-scale engineering of devices, materials, and systems to enable solutions for big problems such as connectivity, energy, improving quality of life.

The IDB president was informed both the technical grants provided by Islamic development bank have been termed as the success stories in IDB’s country portfolio.

Prof Ahmed Shuja Syed said the Centre for Advanced Electronics and Photovoltaic Engineering (CAEPE) would put up Pakistan's pioneering Class 100 (IOS 14000+) Clean Room within the Centre Laboratories Infrastructure.

He said the facility would prove to be a leap in applied engineering research while providing a facilitative environment to fabricate micro and nanoscale devices and components.

Prof Ahmed said the Centre for Advanced Electronics and Photovoltaic Engineering (CAEPE) was already serving a wide variety of users from university and outside as the experimental facility provider for research in the cutting- edge areas.

"The Clean Room is of industry grade and hence expected to improve the existing processes and research standards within the broader domain of Micro and Nano Scale Electronics, Photonics and Sensors, Energy Electronics and Advanced Material Processing. It is created with the support of Islamic Development Bank Jeddah and government of Pakistan through its PSDP funding," he said.