Daily Times

The annual week-long space festivity, World Space Week 2022, organized by Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, in collaboration with the National Center of GIS and Space Applications, concluded impacting over 2000 students from over 40 schools and colleges across Pakistan.

With the preliminary round conducted online from Sept 19-23, 2022, the final round of the WSW 2022 was held on-ground at IST, from Oct 6-8, 2022.

As part of the global celebration and acknowledgment of the contributions of Space Technology towards betterment of humankind, World Space Week is celebrated every year in more than 100 countries worldwide.

It is the largest annual space event of the world aimed to build up the workforce of tomorrow by inspiring students and educating all segments of the society on the bounties of space, motivating young space enthusiasts towards the career streams in Space Technology.

Pakistan is one of the major contributors in the WSW space festivities, with activities and events arranged across Pakistan. Institute of Space Technology has been celebrating World Space Week since 2005. Following the theme titled “Space and Sustainability”, the National Center of GIS and Space Applications organized over 100 activities and competitions around the theme, highlighting the significance of developing sustainable solutions using space technology.

The modules were divided under 12 different categories, including Space Recitations, Space Quiz, Space Creative Writing, Space Applications, Space Innovation, Space Technology Demonstration, Space Models and Collectables, Space Fine Arts, Space Performing Arts, Space Architectures, Space for UN SDGs and Space Life. With the centric theme of harnessing space technology for developing sustainable solutions, the categories were designed to entice and inspire students with different interests and talents.

Encouraging young space enthusiasts to pursue career in the multifaceted field of space technology, these categories rendered the creative, artistic, entrepreneurial, technical, academic, literary and research skills of the participants, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of this field.

To encompass all segments of society, the 3-day event also featured informative sessions including workshops, seminars and observation sessions to enrich understanding of space technology and help young space fanatics develop broader concepts of different domains of space sciences.

The competitions were followed by a lengthy adjudication process, wherein over 50 qualified Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from public and private, academic and research institutions of Pakistan contributed to the efforts for space education and popularization by dedicating their time.

The final day ended with an acknowledgement ceremony to honor the participants, and particularly the winners of the competitions.

Souvenirs were awarded to winners of each competition by the honorable guests, Dr. Syed Wilayat Husain and Dr. Ihtzaz Qamar for members of Dr. A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories.