ICT SPHERENational ICTR&D Fund

6th Floor, Habib Bank Tower, Blue Area, Islamabad. Tel: +92-51-9215360-5, Fax: +92-51-9215366

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Ministry of Information TechnologyGovernment of Pakistan

Approved Projects 2007-08

National ICT R&D Fund has beenworking jointly with the industry andacademia since its establishment. Apartfrom the projects being transferredfrom the PTCL R&D Fund, manyprojects have been funded by NationalICT R&D Fund.

In the last fiscal year, Technical R&Dproposals worth Rs. 270 million wereapproved. In addition to that, proposalsper ta in ing to Human ResourceDevelopment worth Rs. 467 millionwere also approved. Funds were alsoapproved to conduct 4 Scientific events,worth Rs.1.71 million.

National ICT R&D FundPrologue

National ICT R&D Fund was established with a vision totransform Pakistan’s economy into a knowledge basedeconomy by promoting eff icient, sustainable andeffective ICT initiatives through synergic development ofindustrial and academic resources.

The company was established in 2006 by the Ministry ofInformation Technology, under Section 42 of Company’sOrdinance 1984. National ICT R&D Fund has taken up achallenging task of capacity building in the arena of ICTand nurturing it towards sustained development of anR&D culture. Joint Industry-academia research is one ofthe key vehicles we use to promote innovation in theICT industry and to promote a research culture in ouracademic institutions.

ContentsPrologue 1

Approved Projects (2007 - 08) 1

Projects Funded by National 2ICT R&D in the last quarter

National ICT Scholarship 3Program 2008

Closing Ceremony of 3Outreach ScholarshipProgram 2007

Industry Apprenticeship 3Program

ICT Centric University 4Excellence Program

MoU between National 4ICT R&D Fund andMicrosoft Pakistan

Content Creation with 4Youth Participation

E-Learning and Evaluation 4System

First issue — 2008

National ICTR&D Fund

The Team of National ICT R&D Fund

Newsletter

Honourable Minister Mr. Qamar Zaman Kaira’svisit to National ICT R&D Fund

Some important projectsfunded by the National ICTR&D Fund in the last quarter:

Development of Open Source HumanMachine Interface (HMI) is a project beingdeveloped by Buraq Integrated Solutions. HMIbased Industrial Automation is absolutelynecessary where strict monitoring and controlmeasures are required. The aim of the projectis to have locally developed real time,standardized, mission critical and scalableHMI.

The product will benefit the local industry byhaving affordable costs, high reliability andsecurity. Future export of such product will

provide additional commercial and economicbenefits.

Campus Career Portals is another venturefunded by National ICT R&D Fund. Thisproject is being developed by Naseeb OnlineServices (Pvt) Ltd. It proposes an efficient,scalable and distributed system of matchingstudents, academia and industry to achieveindustry demand recruitment. It will alsogenerate valuable statistics, and effectivelymatch graduates within their respectiveindustries with pinpoint accuracy. The projecthas the potential to benefit industry, academiaand students.

Some of the other significant projects are RealTime MIMO & Cooperative MIMO Systems

“The productwill benefit the

local industry byhaving affordable

cost, highreliability and

security. Futureexport of such

product willprovide

additionalcommercial and

economicbenefits”

“The projecthas the potential

to benefitindustry,academia

andstudents”

National ICT Scholarship Program 2008

1234567891011

29,627,33529,550,92529,875,73827,180,48520,679,87837,068,57340,395,88982,127,25515,608,000

120,635,3401,708,450

VLSI Design4G Wireless Developmente-Healthe-EducationSocial NetworksMobile Device Software SystemsNetwork Security/Multimedia and P2P SystemsOpen Source DevelopmentUniversity Excellence ProgramHuman Resource DevelopmentConferences

22222345174

# CategoryNo. of

Proposals Amount in Rs.

Category-Wise Summary:

(in millions)

Proposals Status (2007-08)(in numbers)

2

27

022

8 32

1,018.22 374.34

437.00125.153.27

1,673.17

test-bed for Wireless Broadband Systems byIqra University, Software Defined Radio UsingNetwork on Chip Based Architecture by NIIT,Investigating Wavelet based Video Coding inVideo Conferencing Application by LUMS,Remote Patient Monitoring Systems by FAST-NU.

National ICT R&D Fund has the mandate tofund sound technical R&D proposals. Thecompany encourages concrete proposals in thef ield of Information and CommunicationTechnology. The organization believes in anaccurate mobilization of its resources whereemphasis is given to achieve technicalexcellence, innovation and its diffusion andpositive impact on the economic growth of thecountry and for the benefit of the society atlarge.

National ICT ScholarshipProgram 2008

In line with the policy objectives, National ICTR&D Fund has been actively involved incapacity building through its Out-reachScholarship Program (OSP). In 2006 and2007, 590 fully funded scholarships worthRs.800 million were awarded. In addition tothis 880 teachers were trained in modernpedagogical techniques and 9,100 students

were trained under “Foundation Training”. In2008 the National ICT R&D Fund has re-launched its National ICT ScholarshipProgram, which offers 550 fully fundedscholarships in the top ICT universities of thecountry. This year’s Program includes“Training of Teachers” (TOT) and “FoundationTraining”.

The aim of this initiative is to provide accessto deserving and talented youth from ruralcommunities and less developed cities andtowns, to enter the ICT profession. NationalICT R&D Fund’s objective is to build humanresource capacity in ICT related disciplinesand also to empower the economicallychallenged groups of citizens.

Another MilestoneAchievement: ClosingCeremony of OutreachScholarship Program 2007

January 29, 2008: The closing ceremony ofOutreach Scholarship Program (OSP) 2007,to acknowledge the milestone achieved by theMinistry of Information technology throughNational ICT R&D Fund, was organized at PMSecretariat. Honourable Prime Minister of theIslamic Republic of Pakistan, Mohammed MianSoomro was the chief guest of the ceremony.

The initiative behind this event was torecognize the achievements and to appreciatethe remarkable success of OSP 2007 and

Details of each funded project is given on our website:

www.ictrdf.org.pk

IndustryApprenticeshipProgram

National ICT R&DFund has sponsoredan internship programat Pakistan SoftwareExport Board. In thisregard, the launchingceremony of PSEBInternship programwas held on 30thJanuary 2008, atM a r r i o t H o t e l ,I s l a m a b a d . D rAbdullah Riar, FederalM i n i s t e r f o rI n fo r m a t i o n a n dT e c h n o l o g yi n a u g u r a t e d t h eceremony. ManagingDirector PSEB gavethe welcome address,fo l l owed by thea d d r e s s o f t h eFederal Minister onthe importance ofI n f o r m a t i o nTechnology. He alsoemphasized that thegrowth of ICTs, withproper training to theyouth will empowert h e c o m i n gg e n e r a t i o n s o fPakistan, in almost allf ields by preparingthem for the workforce and to improvethe ir out look onhealth education andgood governance.The ceremony endedwith a note of thanks.

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MoU between National ICTR&D Fund and MicrosoftPakistan

A Memorandum of Understanding has beeninked between National ICT R&D Fund andMicrosoft Pakistan to jointly launch “PakistanDeve loper Conference 2008” and“Innovation Accelerator Program”. The MoUwas signed by Dr. Qasim Sheikh, CEONational ICT R&D Fund and Sherif Seddik,Regional Director Microsoft North Africa,East Mediterranean and Pakistan.

The MoU between Microsoft and NationalICT R&D Fund wil l init iate learningopportunities for the students and facilitatetechnical research by providing training anddevelopment tools. The aim is to developadvanced solutions in the field of InformationTechnology.

untiring efforts of all the participants whohelped in executing OSP 2007. It was agesture of commendation for al l thestakeholders, students, teachers and keyindividuals who had made this program asuccess.

Besides conferment of awards to thesuccessful students, teachers and principals,the h igh l ight of the ceremony waspresentation of the OSP souvenir to thePrime Minister of the Islamic Republic ofPakistan.

A Banner advertisement was launched atwww.dawn.com. The idea was to targetexpatriates and other intelligentsia andapprise them of the mandate of National ICTR&D Fund. The National ICT R&D Fund iscommitted in its endeavour to promote aresearch culture in academic institutions. Wewant to complement the intent of bothindustry and academia drivers who areinitiating R&D projects.

ICT Centric UniversityExcellence Program

In July 2007, National ICT R&D Fund hadlaunched an ICT Centric University ExcellenceProgram in collaboration with LahoreUniversity of Management Sciences (LUMS).This is the f irst program in a series ofprograms aimed at enhancing the capacity ofthe teaching faculty of Computer Science and

YOUR BRIGHT IDEAS SHALL LEAD TO ANational ICT

R&D FundPROSPEROUS PAKISTAN

We Fund ICT Technical R&D Projects

Information Technology departments ofvarious public and private sector universities.

A total of 45 participants from 18 universitieshad attended a 4-week intensive training witha focus on improving their knowledge baseand skills to impart better quality educationat under-graduate level programs. The maincomponents of the program were:

a) Data Structures and Algor i thms,

b) Object-Oriented Programming

ContentCreation withYouthParticipation

Proposals are invitedfrom IT institutions,professional trainingorganizat ions andprogram managementcompanies to design,develop and executea nation-wide studentc o m p e t i t i o n f o rcontent creation inlocal and nationallanguages. Throughthis competition wewant to introduce oury o u t h t oo p p o r t u n i t i e sp r o v i d e d b yc o n n e c t i v i t y t ocyberspace.

E-Learning andEvaluationSystem

Research proposalsare invited from ITi n s t i t u t i o n s ,professional softwared e v e l o p m e n tc o m p a n i e s a n dacademics to developthe state of the art" E - L e a r n i n g a n dEvaluation System"f o r t e a c h i n gmathematics, physics,chemistry and biologyc o u r s e s , to t h estudents of 9th and10th grade.

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