H.E. Dr. Hathal Homoud Alotaibi, President International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) had a collaborative online meeting with the IIUI IT Alumni forum to discuss the mutual cooperation, future endeavors and set a roadmap for already established networking on the both sides.
The IIUI leadership and the IT Alumni of the university agreed to invest in alumni relations. They also endorsed the idea of regular mutual communication, leverage the Alumni expertise as well as the IIUI President assured that expedited and committed response to the forum shall be provided by the leadership to benefit for the sake of the university at whole and students specifically. The both sides also agreed to further enhance networking to bridge the gap between academia and industry.
The meeting discussed initiated projects on the basis of already ongoing initiatives including Qard e Hasana scheme, Webinars, Final Year Projects Advisory, Research mentorship and software development competitions. This IIUI IT Alumni team has more than 250 expert members across the world with a variety of expertise who are reputed solution providers for the top fortune companies in the world with the grip on AI, block chain, IT, Digital transformation, Hyper automation and industry experience at par.
Other than worthy President, the meeting was attended by Vice President Administration and Finance , Dr. Nabi Bux Jumani, Vice President Research and Enterprise Dr. Ahmed Shuja Syed, Dean Faculty of Management Sciences Dr. Abdul Raheman and Dean Faculty of Engineering and Technology Dr. Nadeem Ahmed Shaikh. The IIUI President nominated Dr. Ahmed Shuja Syed as focal person from the IIUI side to closely work on the agreed initiatives, ongoing progress, correspondence and future linkages and monitoring.
The IT Alumni team included Shakeel Muhammad (USA) – 25+ years of IT experience leading/managing Global teams, Muhammad Zaheer Aziz (Germany) – 30 years of experience in teaching and practicing computer science, Asim Ajmal (Pakistan) – Technology Leader with more than 2 decades of professional experience, Adnan Khurram (Saudi Arabia) – Chief Architect @ STC, leading multiple teams delivering the global connected things project, Naveed Baqir (USA) – PhD in Information Systems and Operations Management from the University of North Carolina and Education Board Member, Muhammad Amir Aman (Australia) – Cybersecurity Project Manager, Fawad Hussain (UAE) – Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, Azka Atiq (Pakistan) – Software Engineer and Faaiza Malik (Pakistan) – Software Engineer.
President IIUI, while appreciating the efforts, caliber and commitment of the IT Alumni forum said that IIUI is eager to benefit from their experience. “You all are our proud assets and this hub of learning is all yours, you will find us among forward ranks to initiate joint collaborative ventures for the cause of our educational institution” said Dr. Homoud.
He said we are focused to deliver to the society as this country and the whole Muslim world has associated hopes to the educational institutions who will have to come up with the solutions as per requirements of the era. He added that Alumni are the backbone for the image building, students’ exposure programs, mentorship, linkage to industry and international ranking of the university. He said the IIUI leadership is ambitious about the faculty of computing keeping in view its importance in this age of information and technology. He furthered that the initiatives will be expanded in all the faculties to come up to the standards of the international educational institutions. IIUI President said that university has also plans to benefit from the experience and expertise of the Alumni through its ODL system of teaching that will not only help in addressing the shortage of faculty but also it will raise the standard of teaching and students learning. H.E. Dr. Hathal also apprised of the university’s recently prepared strategic plan that has attributes of academic excellence, improvement in ranking, infrastructural development, digitization, modern approaches of teaching and other salient feature. He said such sub plans for each faculty will also be implemented as we have entered in to the next phase of its implementation. He also told that the university, in next year, will also hold a conference of its Alumni to bring them at a platform to share experiences and have their prudent thoughts about the progress of university. He also desired that such frequent meetings and monthly progress reports must be ensured.
Focal person and moderator from the IIUI IT Alumni , Mr. Shakeel Muhammad thanking IIUI leadership for the keen interest and cooperation for joint working for the cause of university, said the team of these Alumni is committed to give backing by supporting the IIUI students with a passion to coach them and help them professionally grow. Earlier, he along with dedicated team members for various initiatives also apprised of the scope and ongoing progress of the initiatives.
On the occasion, Dr. Ahmed Shuja Syed briefed the house about the achievements of IIUI in last three years such as mentionable presence of university in international rankings, its initiatives of innovative work in AI, machine learning, device engineering and materializing of a science technology space a first of its kind in the country. He opined that the ranking momentum of the university will have further gain due to engagement of Alumni as ranking agencies will find IIUI in best position in employee global approach surveys.