A delegation of a Japanese human capital exchange company visited the University of Karachi (UoK) and met the Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi on Monday.
The Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Plus-W Inc Takashi Horiuchi, Manager of HR Development Division/Sales and Marketing Division Risa Sakai, Global Biz Division/Head of Pakistan Japan Centre Kango Hayashi, Chief Consultant of Global Business Division/Japan Centre Hafiz Muhammad Umair Munir along with the Additional Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, Board of Investment (BOI) Islamabad, Jamil Ahmad Qureshi and Deputy Assistant Director of the same office Shahzad Ahmed Bhatti met the KU officials at the VC Secretariat and discusses bridging the gap in the information technology sector between Japan and Pakistan.
The University of Karachi and a global recruiting Japanese company agreed to establish collaboration and joint venture opportunities between the two countries. Takashi Horiuchi informed the KU officials that Japan is one of the largest and most developed economies and home to modern technology requiring IT expertise directly for their industry and research and development.
He informed the participants that more than 2000 Pakistani youngsters are already associated with them and working in different subdivisions of the IT field. They are mainly looking for students who have strong command over basic and advanced artificial intelligence, data science, and Internet of Things courses and other leading IT fields.
Takashi Horiuchi further said that Plus-W has strong connections with Japanese universities and companies and they are well aware of the requirement of the Japanese market and would be helpful to the KU students.
“Both Pakistan and Japan regard human capital as a core of their growth strategy. Plus-W believes the challenges for Pakistan and Japan could be solved by utilizing both strengths. The key challenges for Pakistan are how to develop young and excellent talents and how to take advantage of this human capital for the prosperity of a country.”
On the other hand, he mentioned that in Japan, the population has been decreasing and Japan will face serious shortages of skilled people. The key challenges for Japan are how to overcome this situation and to keep Japan’s presence to contribute to the global society.
On this occasion, Jamil Ahmad Qureshi shared that nowadays there is a serious strive for human resource exchange and exporting information communications technology engineers to Japanese overseas corporations, and creating joint ventures between Japan and Pakistan would be a good initiative.
He mentioned that Plus-W is looking to collaborate with notable Pakistani universities and that is why they have visited the KU to meet its officials. According to him, the BoI would play its role in establishing the link between the KU and the Japanese universities and companies.
The KU VC Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi while welcoming the proposal expressed that the students of the department of computer science would surely get a lot of benefits after working for Japanese companies and learning from faculty members of Japan’s leading universities. He believes that sustainable collaboration could be established by working closely with each other.
The KU Registrar Professor Dr Abdul Waheed, Dean of the Faculty of Management and Administrative Sciences Professor Dr Tahir Ali, Professor Dr Moazzam Ali Khan of the Institute of Environmental Studies, Dr Muhammad Jawed Iqbal from the Institute of Space Science and Technology, Chairman Department of Computer Science Dr Nadeem Mehmood, in-charge Department of Chemical Engineering Dr Shagufta Ishtiyaque, the Director Office of Research Innovation and Commercialization Professor Dr Bilquis Gul and the Students’ Advisor Dr Syed Asim Ali were also present on this occasion.
Later, the delegation visited the department of computer science to interact with faculty and students and briefed them about opportunities available to them in Japan.
