PESHAWAR, March 28: An entrepreneur development club will be set up at the University of Engineering and Technology to enable graduating engineers to learn about business development strategies and small start-ups. This was stated by Dr Mansoor Khan, dean of the university’s faculty of engineering, at a Shell Tameer workshop on entrepreneurship at the UET here on Tuesday.

Dr M. Irfan Mufti, head of the mechanical engineering department, told the workshop that the administration had decided to include the subject of business development in the curriculum of BSc engineering.

“This will help the graduating engineers to learn about the basic and latest trends in business development,” he said. He said there was a need to improve projects at the undergraduate level which are market oriented and serve the real life problems of engineering.

The workshop was attended by a large number of students and teaching faculty members.

M. Tariq, provincial chief of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda), said it had been noted by industrialists that when graduates applied for jobs they were not acquainted with the latest market trends. “They may be technically sound, but they do not know how to solve real-life problems. Therefore, Smeda has taken up the task of creating a bridge between industry and academia.”