Daily Times

The Search Committee formed by the Punjab Higher Education Department will interview candidates for the post of vice chancellor for the Information Technology University (ITU) on today (Saturday).

Five candidates have been declared eligible out of around 20 applicants. PUCIT Principal Professor Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar and ITU Vice Chancellor Dr Umar Saif are the two strong candidates for the post.

Professor Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar, the stronger of the two, earned his MS and PhD from the US and is the lead author of five books in computer science published in the US by the top publishers of the world-Addison-Wesley and CRC Press/Taylor & Francis. He is known in the country to be a top academic administrator.

Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar is the only shortlisted candidate with over a decade long experience at the University of Portland, Oregon, USA, a United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organisation-listed university as assistant professor and associate professor. He also served as head of Computer Science Department at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

During his 12-year tenure at PUCIT, he has turned around the college from a sub average undergraduate institution to the largest and finest single source of quality IT and computing graduates offering undergraduate degrees in computer science, IT, software engineering and GIS. PUCIT graduates fulfil most of the needs of the local IT industry. Dr Sarwar also established PUCIT new campus and started graduate programmes in Computer Science and GIS in the college. These programmes have gained respect in a rather short period of time. Dr Sarwar is known for recruiting top students and faculty and retaining them.

Dr Umar Saif is the founding VC of ITU. He earned his PhD from UK and a post-doc from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has won national and international awards due to his innovative ideas and entrepreneurial work. He is also the chairman of Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and has launched several programmes in this capacity, including e-Rozgar. He also oversees the Plan9 and PlanX, the two incubators and accelerator housed at the Arfa Technology Park.

During his over five-year tenure as VC ITU, he has launched programmes in computer science, electrical engineering, economics and business administration. He has focused more on inculcating entrepreneurial skills in ITU graduates due to his control over PITB, Plan9 and PlanX. Due to his various other commitments, he has not been able to pay much attention to ITU during its formative years. The university has thus not made a mark for producing quality graduates.

Published in Daily Times, July 21^st 2018.