Federal Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiatives, Ahsan Iqbal inaugurated the Engineering Innovation Exhibition and observed the demonstration of Engineering, Virtual Reality & Spatial AI Projects by the students, he also promised early construction of Information Technology University (ITU) Lahore’s main campus on Barki Road.
He vowed to bring the issue to the Prime Minister’s attention at his earliest. He made these remarks while addressing the students and faculty members during his visit to ITU’s city campus at Arfa Software Technology Park on Ferozepur Road.
Minister Ahsan Iqbal, during his visit addressed the students and faculty members on the topic, “Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Cyber Security and Pakistan’s Future.”
He stressed that the knowledge economy needs to be revived as per Vision 2025 that he had envisioned in 2013. In pursuance of that goal, the youth of Pakistan has a pivotal role to play. To that end, it is important that positive synergies are created for collaboration instead of differences. He emphasized that ITU is playing a significant role in equipping the youth with the latest skills. ITU was envisioned as a start-up and now it has grown beyond its limited space in Arfa Karim Tower. “Time has come for ITU to move to its new campus and give space to another start-up in its place,” he said.
On this occasion, ITU Vice-Chancellor Dr Adnan Noor Mian also addressed the students. He shared that ITU was built to replicate the model of top IT universities like MIT and IITs. Now after ten years of its founding, ITU has been able to attract and retain top-notch faculty members from across the world. These faculty members have published groundbreaking research papers in top journals and have also accomplished projects worth millions of dollars. Currently, ITU offers 17 undergraduate and graduate programs with almost 1500 currently enrolled students. ITU is the only university in Pakistan to have secured two Google Research Scholar Awards in 2021 and 2023 and other prestigious accolades like UNESCO Chair of ICTD, inclusion of five ITU scientists in world’s top 2% scientists by Stanford University, ICO/ICTP Gallieno Denardo Award 2023 and several others. Yet ITU VC regretted that the biggest issue ITU faces now is that of space constraint at Arfa Software Technology Park.
Senior Faculty member and Member National Task Force for Artificial Intelligence in Pakistan, Dr Faisal Kamiran, also addressed the participants and highlighted the importance of AI in shaping the knowledge economies in the future.
Former ITU Vice-Chancellor Dr Sarfraz Khurshid, Registrar, Deans, Chairpersons and faculty members from all disciplines were also present on this occasion.
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