Daily Times

Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar has taken retirement from the Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT) effective from tomorrow (Wednesday) after serving as professor and principal for over 12 1/2 years.

The PUCIT was established in December 2000 and Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar became the longest serving principal of the institution. With a PhD in Computer Engineering from the United States, he joined PUCIT after serving at the University of Portland as assistant professor and associate professor for over a decade. He served at the Lahore University of Management Sciences as a professor and Computer Science Department head and also at Kuwait University.

During his tenure at PUCIT, he transformed the institution from a sub average undergraduate university to the largest and finest single source of quality computing graduates offering undergraduate degrees in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems. Today, PUCIT is a top brand in computing education in the nation with 5 percent acceptance rate in admission to its academic programmes. Over 20,000 apply for admission to its various degree programmes every year.

PUCIT has received the highest ‘W’ ranking in back-to-back accreditation reviews by the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) National Computing Education Accreditation Council. About 15 percent of over 220 accredited computing programmes in the nation have this ranking. PUCIT graduates form around 30 percent of the workforce in the local software industry as well as serve at technology giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Google. The college alumni have also formed over 70 small to medium size enterprises within and outside Pakistan.

Bringing best practices from international universities, Dr Mansoor Sarwar also established a college placement office. This office organises yearly job fairs at PUCIT, bringing the top local technology companies on campus for student recruitment. Due to their technical preparation and the longevity they provide at workplace, PUCIT graduates are recruited on preferential basis.

Dr Sarwar also established PUCIT New Campus and started MPhil and PhD programmes in CS and GIS in the college. These programmes have gained respect in a rather short period of time. The college has around 3,000 strong student bodies at both campuses. Throughout his management career, Dr Sarwar demonstrated to be a top academic administrator who recruited excellent students and faculty and created the requisite ecosystem to retain them. From no PhD faculty when he joined the college, today PUCIT has over 20 PhD teachers and 15 are pursuing their doctorate degrees. The college faculty includes five Fulbright scholars, two Erasmus Mundus scholars and one DAAD scholar.

In addition to more than 50 international research publications, Dr Sarwar is also the author of six textbooks. All of his books have been published in the US by world’s top publishers like Addison-Wesley and CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, making him the only Pakistani to have achieved this distinction.

The second edition of Linux – The Textbook has been published by CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, Florida, US on October 12, 2018.

His books have been used in over 200 American universities and colleges, including the University of Texas at Austin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Arizona, Stevens Tech, University of California at Santa Barbara and Syracuse University. These books are also being taught in several other countries, including Canada, UK and Australia. The Chinese and Spanish translations of my books are being used in China, Hong Kong, Spain and Mexico.

“More than 50,000 copies of my books have been sold throughout the world,” he says.

Dr Sarwar has also served in several national and provincial bodies related to computing and computing education, including National ICT R&D Fund, Punjab IT Board, several high-level HEC committees related to computing education in the country and the steering committee for Punjab Land Record Management Information System. Dr Sarwar’s contributions for the uplift of computing education in the country will go a long way.

Published in Daily Times, November 20^th 2018.