The Consulate General organized a Seminar on “Pakistan’s Partnership with U.S. Midwest Region: Opportunities in Education, Innovation and Technology”. A large number of participants, including academia, business executives, tech entrepreneurs, technology experts and media attended.
Consul General Tariq Karim, in his remarks, highlighted Pakistan as an important business, investment & tech destination. He mentioned various factors that make Pakistan an attractive place for investment including: Pakistan’s geo-strategic location; its market size, demographic dividend and presence of large pool of trained professionals and workforce; liberalization of investment regime, and; rapid emergence of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem on the international stage with its thriving start-ups and growing IT exports.
The Consul General emphasized technology innovation as a key driver of economic growth and the role universities play in creating tech ecosystem and entrepreneurship. He underlined the importance of institutional linkages and academic exchanges to promote collaboration in higher education, research, technology and innovation. Citing the example of NUST as a remarkable institution of higher learning in Pakistan, the Consul General encouraged the participants to benefit from enormous opportunities presented by Pakistan in education and tech sectors.
Pro-Rector NUST & Vice President National Science & Technology Park, Air Vice Marshal Dr. Rizwan Riaz highlighted remarkable achievements of NUST & opportunities it offers to international institutions & Pakistani Diaspora for cooperation. In his detailed presentation, Pro-Rector said that with 20 constituent institutions sprawled over 7 campuses across all provinces of Pakistan, NUST has secured a coveted standing amongst the world’s elite higher educational institutions.
He stated that NUST being a top engineering & technology university in Pakistan, is ranked amongst the top 50 world universities aged under 50. He further added that NUST ranked 74th among Asian Universities, 131st computer science & information systems and 358th among world universities. He also underscored economical tuition fee of the University coupled with generous scholarships to a large number of students from the lowest income strata in every intake. He invited the participants to come forward and partner with the university in an area of their interest, including their Science and Technology Park. The seminar also had an interactive O&A session keenly participated by the audience.
Chicago IL
November 11, 2022
