ISLAMABAD Nov 02 (TNS): Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has adopted a comprehensive plan to facilitate post-graduate students to market their research-based projects and innovative business ideas.
In this connection, a mega event is being arranged here on November 15 at the University’s main campus. The students of the higher educational institutions have been invited to present their projects and business ideas at the expo.
The event is also aimed at tackling the issue of unemployment, with a motto ‘say no to economic dependency’ and to motivate the idea ‘Be job developer, and not a job seeker’. It will enable the researchers to showcase their projects for marketing as well as developing linkages between academia and industry.
The innovation and creative work of the researchers will help them to seek entrepreneurship in the relevant industry. It will be first-ever career-making activity at the University’s level, said Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Shahid Siddiqui while presiding over a meeting that reviewed the expo’s arrangements.
The University follows China’s model promoting students’ entrepreneurship so as to enable the youth create earning opportunities through creativity and innovation. The expo will also serve as ‘Start up’ for the students to undertake their own small-scale business, he added.
While highlighting the AIOU’s consistent endeavor promoting research culture in the country, the Vice Chancellor said now they have embarked upon a plan to provide the students an opportunity to showcase their research-based projects for its use by the relevant industry. “We believe that the academic research must contribute to the country’s socio-economic development,” he added.
The expo is being organized in collaboration with Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other relevant institutions and it will act as a bridge between the students and the industrial sector for socio-economic uplift through innovative ideas.
Over the last three years, the University has been focusing on promoting research culture in the country, through various means including publishing research journals and holding national and international conferences. In a short span of time, fourteen research journals were published and about twenty-four conferences were arranged.
