LAHORE: The nationwide 2-day software extravaganza at Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT) involving various student competitions in computing research, programming, gaming, and software development, SoftExpo 2017, started at the Old Campus on Saturday. Prof. Dr. Nizamuddin, Chairman PHEC, and Prof. Dr. Zaffar Mueen Nasar, Vice Chancellor University of the Punjab, inaugurated the event at PUCIT Old Campus. The event was broadcasted live on Facebook. The PUCIT ACM Student Chapter and local tech industry is jointly organizing the mega event. Over 700 students from 46 universities from across the nation are participating the event. 25 experts from technologies companies and 16 from academia are adjudicators of the various events. Over 6000 people visited the tech festival on the first day. Teams from various academic institutions from Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Multan, Sargodha, Faisalabad, and Sahiwal including PUCIT, UET, GCU, COMSATS, LUMS, NUST, FAST, UCP, VU, and FC College University are participating in the event. The technology companies Ebryx, Careerz360.pk, Dockit, SoftHof, and Percentip are sponsoring the event. Competitions in final year software projects, speed programming, online gaming, intelligent software agents (code bots), and graduate research are the key features of the expo. In the code bots competition, the teams wrote intelligent agents in real time. In the Graduate Research Conference (GRC), students showcased their MPhil/PhD research work through three-minute theses presentations. The GRC with poster sessions, and code bots, online gaming, and scavenger hunt competitions will continue tomorrow. Participants took deep interest in the discussion panel, The Secrets of Successful Entrepreneur, moderated by Sadeeqa Riaz Khan. CEOs and founders of five technology companies took part in the discussion. The speed programming competition, The Clash of Coders, finished today. The PUCIT teams won the first and third positions, and a team from LUMS stood second. Dr. Nizamuddin and Dr. Nasar visited the various events and appreciated student work. They also greatly admired PUCIT’s efforts in the promotion of student interest in IT through such innovative activities. They advised the participants to focus on global and higher objectives, and carry forward their ideas to start their own companies that could be registered in the financial markets such as Nasdaq. Dr. Zaffar Mueen Nasar further said that SoftExpo is a venue that had a professional look and vibe, and is an example for other academic units at PU to follow. He reiterated his resolve to promote quality education and research at PU in order to move the university up in international rankings as well as provide indigenous solutions to country’s problems. PUCIT Principal Dr. Syed Mansoor Sarwar congratulated the organizers led by Dr Waqar Jaffrey and Anzar Ahmad, PUCIT ACM Student Chapter, sponsors, and judges for their help in making the event a huge success. He thanked Chairman PHEC and Vice Chancellor for taking out time for this important technical student activity. The closing ceremony of the event will be held at the PU Senate Hall at 6:00 pm on Sunday. The Punjab Minister of Higher education, Syed Raza Ali Gillani, will be the chief guest.