Daily Times

LAHORE: The Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT) organised a nationwide Soft Expo 2016 at the Old Campus over the weekend.

The expo was jointly organised by the PUCIT ACM student chapters. Around 800 students from 48 universities had submitted 78 projects; out of which, 48 projects were selected for display. Around 630 students from 42 universities participated in this annual software extravaganza.

Moreover, competitions in final year software projects, speed programming, online gaming, intelligent software agents (code bots), and graduate research were the key features of the expo. It was reported that the event was also live broadcasted on Face book for the first time.

In the Code Bots competition, the teams wrote intelligent agents in real time. In the Graduate Research Symposium, students showcased their MPhil/PhD research work through poster sessions and 15 minutes presentations.

Chief Guest Dr Muhammad Ali Maud said that SoftExpo’16 was a venue that had a professional look and vibe, and such an event was long awaited. He stressed the need for solving indigenous problems of the country using independent thinking and self crafted solutions.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chairman and the National Information and Communication Technologies Research and Development (ICT R&D) acting chairman Dr Syed Ismail Shah visited the various events and appreciated students’ work.

In his speech, he advised the youth to focus on global and higher objective. He said that they should use technology for social well being and collective good, adding that innovation of 3G and 4G technologies, and penetration of smart phones have opened new avenues for design of computational artifacts even in developing countries like Pakistan.

Higher Education Commission (HEC) Executive Director Arshad Ali was the chief guest at the closing ceremony. He congratulated the PUCIT administration for organising such a disciplined national event with diversified participation.

He also promised support from the HEC for such events in future. He said that this event was a practical example of long-awaited academia-industry collaboration. He also encouraged the faculty to apply for HEC research grants.

He urged the PUCIT administration to participate in the student exchange program with universities in the less developed regions of the nations. PUCIT Principal Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar congratulated the organisers led by Dr Waqar Jaffrey and Anzar Ahmad, sponsors, and judges for making the event a huge success.

He thanked the PTA chairman and the HEC executive director for taking out time for this important technical student activity. He said that the purpose of the event was to make students exposed to competitive environment, exchange ideas with students from other institutions across the nation, and improve their ability to express themselves in a public forum.

The local technology industry extended generous financial support and provided judges for the various competitions. 15 companies sponsored the event and 14 provided panels of judges. Primary sponsors included Ozi Technology, Habib Bank Limited, Confiz Solutions, Ebryx,and PITB TechHub. Thousands of visitors including PUCIT alumni from over 150 local technology companies visited. 40 judges from 8 academic institutions and 14 technology companies helped decide the winners.

The academic institutions included Lahore College for Women University, Lahore University of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, FC College University, Information Technology University, Bahria University, and PUCIT. The technology companies were Confiz Solutions, OZI Technology, Systems Limited, Techlogix, DevBox Solutions, lambaman.com Consultancy, Makesbridge, Mentor Graphics, ModeMetric, Servis Sales Corp., SoftHof Limited, TRG, Venturedive, and Visionnet Systems.