ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunication Syed Amin Ul Haque on Monday said the agreement between NTC, Khazana Enterprise, and Computer Research Private Limited for Academic ERP (eDU SMARTZ) a step towards achieving PM’s vision of Digital Pakistan. “This agreement between two would effectively prove a solution for automating the entire campus managing all operations related to educational setup as per International Standards,” Syed Amin Ul Haque made these remarks at a signing agreement between Khazana Enterprise and Computer Research Private Limited for Academic ERP (eDU SMARTZ). The signing ceremony, held at National Telecommunications Corporation (NTC) Headquarters, was attended by Managing Director NTC Miraj Gul, Khalid Shamsi CRPL CEO, Sameer Shamsi CEO Ecreaterz Pvt ltd, Ahsan Rasheed Khan Khazana Enterprises, and senior officials of NTC Headquarters. According to the details, NTC, Khazana, and CRPL have entered into this Digital Services Solution Agreement under Public-Private Partnership (PPP), where NTC will provide the platform through its deployed Infrastructure and locally hosted software / Application developed by CRPL. This would ensure the integrity of the data in a secured environment. This Academic ERP gives unprecedented leverage to the management in planning and administering the activities for the whole academic year. Acknowledging the NTC’s role, the minister congratulated NTC Management for their efforts in the phenomenal development of ICT infrastructure for the Public Sector with State of the art technologies. “Indeed it is a matter of great pride and honour for NTC under the umbrella of Ministry of IT and Telecom to achieve this milestone as per Governments Vision,” said the minister, mentioning that in this digital age reducing the ‘Digital Divide’ the need for Academic Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) was crucial. He said the educational institutions in Pakistan were facing a prime challenge in the management of Data. The educational departments continue to maintain records manually due to the existence of system dissimilarity resulting in mounting disengaged data. Therefore, the digitilization of manual records is imperative to increase efficiency, establishing and maintaining quality and standards in education. To cater to this gigantic problem, the Minister remarked that NTC, under the umbrella of MoIT, came up with this innovative solution of academic Enterprise Resource Planning ( ERP) by involving its business partners. “Ministry has always reposed their trust and confidence in NTC for taking a lead role to foster digitalization in Public Sector,” he said, adding that this is first of its kind program where ERP for Academia is deployed on NTC Cloud-based Data Center. “This is a Success story of a Public Sector Organization and a step towards the 4th Industrial Revolution,” he said. As a pilot project, the deployment of this solution will be done for different Universities in Karachi and will be expanded nationwide later on. The main features of this Academic ERP are including Campus Management, Learning Management, Financial Management, HR Management, and Asset / Inventory Management. “Under the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, “Digital Pakistan,” the ministry has accorded highest priority to the development of ICT infrastructure, services and applications in Pakistan,” he said, mentioning that the NTC is fully cognizant to the vision of Prime Minister and today’s signing is a step towards achieving his vision. He further said NTC had taken revolutionary steps in providing state-of-the-art telecom/ICT services in the Public Sector. “NTC is not only recognized as a major Telecom key operator but as a profit, efficient and forward-looking public sector entity,” he said. The Ministry of IT and NTC are all-geared to play their part as the government’s vital functionary in terms of ICT services. “We are here to implement the Prime Minister’s IT vision, i.e., “Digital Pakistan” in letter and spirit,” he remarked.