Daily Times

The three-day 16th international conference on Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT-2018) organised by Comsats University Islamabad (CUI) began on Monday at Comstech Secretariat.

International speakers from Canada, France, Germany, Macau, Norway, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States are participating in FIT-2018. The theme of this year’s conference is Innovation — The Way Forward.

Federal Minister of Finance, Revenue & Economic Affairs Asad Umar graced the occasion as chief guest of the opening ceremony. The finance, revenue & economic affairs minister, in his speech, highlighted the importance of Information Technology in economic development of Pakistan.

Professor Dr Reiko Heckel, from the University of Leicester in his keynote address on Building the Plane & Learning to Fly – Innovation, Technology + Skills highlighted the importance of innovation, with the help of technology and skills and presented novel solutions to IT specialists to learn and fly in present era.

During the three days conference, a series of invited talks are organised as part of technical sessions and world renowned scholars and researchers will deliver these talks. PhD symposia will be providing a forum to PhD students to present their ongoing research; these symposia will be conducted by elite academicians from the arena of IT. Tutorial sessions will also be a part of FIT-2018 in which various topics of interest for IT community will be organised and delivered. The Best IT Innovation Award with prize money for commercialisation will be awarded to the best innovative idea. On the last day of the conference, a panel discussion on Innovation — The Way Forward will be focusing on the scope of innovations in universities.

A focus group discussion on converting a dream into reality raising Pakistan’s IT exports to $10 billion per year will also be held during the conference. This discussion will be led by Pakistan’s most intellectual brains in various fields including IT, Mathematics, Engineering, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

Published in Daily Times, December 18^th 2018.