SWABI, Sept 28: Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Pervez Butt has said that national progress and prosperity is linked with the dedicated and brilliant work of its engineers and scientists.

He was speaking at the prize distribution ceremony of the All Pakistan software, multimedia, quiz, speed programming competition and exhibition Softcom-2003 in the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology here on Saturday.

The three-day software competition and exhibition was organized by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the GIKI students chapter and Mr Butt was chief guest on the occasion.

He said that the government has given top priority to the development of science and technology to bring the country at par with the developed nations while all out efforts are under way to make Pakistan scientifically and technologically advanced.

The PAEC chief said that research was core of scientific development. Research organizations/institutions, he said, should generate their own funds to become vibrant and balanced organizations.

“We should encourage the students to go for higher education to the reputed institutes/universities abroad but they should come back to Pakistan to play their due role in the progress of the country,” he said.

Mr Butt said that the government would offer lucrative jobs to them according to their talents after the completion of their studies. “Now Pakistan has made tremendous progress in all fields and those who returned from abroad have tremendous opportunities to work here. Everybody knows what had been achieved by Pakistan. It has all become possible through dedication and hardwork”, he said.

He urged the youth to work with dedication for their country after completion of their study. “I also studied abroad but decided to come back to work in our homeland”, he said, adding that acquiring knowledge abroad was a good approach but deciding to stay there was not a wise decision.

Earlier, he awarded the prize to the winners. The software competition first prize was captured by Akkaas team which comprised Asim Ali, Rashid Mehmud, Zakaullah and Asif Munir and the second by Asad Ali, Zulfiqar Ahmad Awan and Osman Qayyum of Army Public College of Management and Sciences, Rawalpindi.

In the multimedia Animation competition the first prize went to Javed Asghar, Nauman Saeed Anwar and Adnan Umer of FAST NU Lahore and the Web related competition was won by Muhammad Iqbal of APIIT Karachi. The Quiz competition was won by the team of University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, comprising Rashid Mehmood, Taimur Hassan and Adil Salman and he got Rs 15000 and the speed programming competition winner was Mansoor Mustaqim of University of Karachi and he was awarded Rs 10000.