CIO Pakistan’s Campus Conversations South Tour 2011 Moderates Solutions Between The Industry And The Academia In A Sequel Round

Taking forward the initiative that started in 2010, Campus Conversations South Tour2011 entered Season 2 of the same in collaboration with Nokia. Picking up open ends from the2010’s Campus Conversations that encouraged students to confront the industry with issues thatthey face post graduation; Campus Conversations South Tour 2011 once again visited universitycampuses with a fresher body of panelists from the Industry to talk solutions this time around.Hosting discussions led by various themes, IBA, IoBM, SZABIST, Iqra PAF-KIET, SSUET,Bahria, NED, FAST and Preston were some of the universities visited.

The Campus Conversations attempted to bridge the existing gap between the industry and theacademia via an extensive exchange of concerns, opinions and suggested solutions in a moderatedsetting. Furthermore, amongst a multitude of other ideas, they prompted both parties to think overwhether the industry is ready for the New Age of Business, whether it could support students whowant to innovate, if the student should sink, sync or swim, if the trends in the local industry couldactually be used to get the innovators to backpack and roll out their ideas.

On the part of the students, the concerns revolved mainly around the importance of getting a job,the need of ‘reference(s)’ to get employment, the benefit of a known university name, lucrativejob options from abroad and the qualification conundrum which often tends to make one studentuncompetitive compared to another. On the other hand, the panelists joining in this time stressedparticularly on the importance of bringing innovation to the local industry.

University by university, each session of Campus Conversations South Tour 2011 sought outways to generate ideas that could bring a healthy difference to the future of young minds today.Facilitating the same, would be a healthy and competitive working environment. An ongoingglobal recession was expressed as a concern by the students. However, the members of theindustry present at the sessions assured the students that, despite all odds, there was a ‘wide scopefor IT’.

Holding hands, Nokia is a perfect example of this. As Rabia Azfar Nizami, Solutions Head at Nokia Pakistan committed, “Nokia will be picking 1 faculty and 10 students from variousuniversities, and train them free of cost on J2ME, Qt Framework and turn amateurs intodevelopers.” Tapping into an opportunity window to both the industry and the academia, thisinitiative by Nokia aims to take the first step to caring for local content generation. With a widervision, Campus Conversations South Tour 2011 finally closed at Iqra University, North Campus.

Feeling honored of Nokia’s association with CIO Pakistan’s Campus Conversations, Rabia AzfarNizami commented that, “Nokia only takes it as a pleasure to be able to interact with a potentialdeveloper community out there.” A lead sponsor to CIO Pakistan’s Campus Conversations SouthTour 2011, Nokia will also continue to engage with the faculty members and the nominatedstudents at Nokia’s training workshops.