State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

I am happy to report on the continuing partnership between my alma mater University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore and Huawei Technologies (see this related post). Recently UET celebrated the World Telecom Day 2009 with collaboration of Huawei Technologies in Al-Khawarizmi Institute of Computer Science, UET, Lahore. This is the right way to support research and development – think global, act local.

The technology leaders and decision makers of telecom industry attended the event. The Chief Technical Officer of Huawei Technologies Mr Li Ke was the guest of honor. In addition Ch. Irfan (CTO Warid), Dr. Tanveer (CTO Zong) and Mr. Mian Zulqarnain Amir, Secretary Information Technology joined the event. Minister of Education, Mian Mujtuba Shuja-ur-Rahman was Chief Guest.

The Vice-Chancellor, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore said that UET has been playing its major role in the academia and industry of Pakistan. To step up its contribution towards the telecom industry, UET joined hands with Huawei technologies, China. As a result, Huwaei UET Joint telecom IT Centre was established in the university premises. In 2003, Huawei provided UET its latest GSM equipment that was worth 3million USD. And now in 2008, Huawei has provided the latest high-tech GSM/GPRS equipment that makes the centre worth 8.3 million USD in full amount. He also said that Huawei Center is providing a platform to Engineers for their trainings and practice on the equipment which they cannot perform in the field. The centre also strengthens the industry-academia relation by offering different training courses to the students of engineering universities all over Pakistan. This way HUTIC proves to be a great learning opportunity for the students as well as professionals at a national level. It is a symbol of Pak-China friendship.

Mr. Ikram ullah Qureshi, Telecom Businessman congratulated the efforts of UET, Lahore and Huawei Technology China in setting up this joint venture. He said that the Huawei-UET joint Center is a win-win strategy for Huawei and UET, Lahore as it provides access to latest technology to students of UET and other universities and a world class facility for Huawei engineers and customers.
The Chief Technical Officers of main Telecom Industries of Pakistan also highlighted the importance of technology in education sector and academia-industry collaboration. They emphasized the need of greater research opportunities for the bright engineering students of Pakistan and that the Huawei-UET joint center is an important step towards achieving this objective.