11 September 2004	Saturday	25 Rajab 1425

ISLAMABAD, Sept 10: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman, Dr Attaur Rehman, on Friday said the commission had established Science and Technology Economic Development Fund (STEDF) to facilitate technology incubation activities in the country.

He stated this while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the establishment of a Technology Incubator Centre (TIC) and an Institute of Geographical Information System (IGIS) at the National University of Science and Technology (Nust).

Both institutions have been established at Nust under the auspices of the Higher Education Commission. Dr Attaur Rehman said the STEDF would be available to most public-sector universities for establishing national technology incubator centres on their premises in order to boost knowledge- based economy in Pakistan.

Because, national economies had become knowledge-based worldwide and the country would have to make its economy knowledge-based for the sake of its survival in the modern world.

He said the HEC was giving special importance to the needs of the modern world and was working on business, socio economic and technology development plans, besides, using science and technology to improve ratio of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. The establishment of the centres was a step in the same direction, he said.

He said two technology incubator centres of similar nature, one in the field of agriculture and another in the field of biology, would be established at Faisalabad and Karachi, respectively during the current financial year.

Afterwards, the incubator activities would be spread to other disciplines in the country as well. Dr Attaur Rehman also appreciated the efforts of the Nust rector, Lt-Gen (retired) Syed Shujaat Hussain, and Director- General, TIC/IGIS, Mansoor Malik for playing their due role in setting up of centres which were the first of their kind in Pakistan.

The establishment of both the institutions, he said, was a milestone in the history of science and technology in Pakistan, which would reduce the gap between the industry and academia.

He said the IGIS would help reduce digital divide in Pakistan as Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) were emerging technologies, which were widely used in decision-making and planning.

He also hoped that the IGIS would emerge as a centre of excellence and would be well-equipped with state of the art GIS and RS technologies and would benefit researchers and academicians.

He said the efforts of national scientists and researchers would bring technological revolution in Pakistan and make it one of the leading developing countries in the world.

A number of leading scientists, researchers and academicians also participated in the ceremony and praised the efforts of Dr Attaur Rehman and the HEC for upgrading the higher education sector in Pakistan by bringing it on the par with international standards.