THE Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative has started bearing fruits in abundance as donations are transforming the lives of talented students, who otherwise might have struggled in oblivion.

Hundreds of brightest students from disadvantaged households have been able to get admission at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) through its National Outreach Programme (NOP) and attain quality higher education.

Different corporate organisations have also contributed and funded brightest students in their respective fields, who have emerged as shining stars and attained fame and honour for their homeland.

Sikandar Abbas Wattoo is one such student, who studied at LUMS’ Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE), with fully covered scholarship offered through Coca-Cola & LUMS Endowment Fund and is set to receive a gold medal for his BSc (Honours) in chemistry at the forthcoming 25th annual convocation.

Wattoo’s hard work and financial support from the beverage company has helped him earn the honour of accepting fully-funded scholarship for five-year PhD programme at Carnegie Mellon University, USA, beginning in August this year.

As the varsity offers one of the best polymer chemistry programmes in the US, Wattoo will be working on the atom-transfer radical polymerization with the pioneer of the technique itself, Krzysztof Matyjaszewski.

Wattoo says he had earned silver medal in matriculation from the Bahawalpur board and joined Government College University, Lahore, for FSc. At GCU, he said, he attended LUMS’ NOP orientation session and consequently applied and won. It was the largest batch of some 300 students, who got selected under NOP four years ago. “Eventually, Coca-Cola crept in in my life in 2009 and sponsored me with a fully-funded scholarship under its CSR programme,” he said.

At LUMS, he says, he studied maths as major subject, then moved to electrical engineering and finally switched over to his final love -- chemistry.

He says he worked on the synthesis of novel intensely and broadly absorbing nano-particles (IBANs), which have tremendous potential applications in solar cells. “I have my publications in Journal of Materials Chemistry published by Royal Society of Chemistry,” he says with a broad smile on his face.

Acknowledging excellent faculty, interdisciplinary and rigorous curriculum and encouraging environment at the university, he says, he will complete his PhD and then return to serve the Pakistani industry which is completely chemistry-based.

He says the LUMS NOP and funding through CSR endowment fund will have a multiplier effect as my family members, cousins and friends are interested in gaining quality higher education.

In the times to come, he says, he will himself continue this cycle of funding talented students from underprivileged backgrounds. “I am the first one in my family to go abroad to pursue higher education -- only because of Coke’s generous funding that has brought my dreams to life,” he added.

THE Lahore College for Women University’s mass communication department and Media Development Trust has signed a memorandum of understanding to create the industry-academia collaboration.

LCWU mass communication department head Dr Anjum Zia and MDT’s chief operating officer Asif Farooqi signed the MoU agreeing that they both will work together on media Credibility Index and create a hybrid pool of resources for sharing knowledge.Dr Zia says this agreement is a great opportunity for students and faculty members to enhance their technical skills and research abilities to compete in the ever-advancing global communication.

Besides publishing an annual report on “State of media in Pakistan”, Mr Farooqi says the Trust will also award two gold medals every year for toppers in graduate and postgraduate mass communication programmes.

He says the MoU will also help in creating knowledge-based society through experience and information sharing.

IN order to impart goal-directed, job-oriented and skill-based education to young girls, the Lahore College for Women University has set up a Women Institute for Leadership and Learning (WILL).

Vice-Chancellor Dr Sabiha Mansoor last week had visited the institute and took round of different departments, labs and training centre and hoped that it would soon serve as a Research Hub for MS, M.Phil and PhD students besides developing them as leaders in a challenging and academically stimulating environment.

WILL director Dr Sarah Shahid told the VC and the senior faculty that the institute would comprise three sub-institutes -- Centre for Career Counselling and Job Placement (CCJP), Student Service Centre (SSC) and Department of Gender and Development Studies.

She said the CCJP had been operating since October 2011 and offering career guidance and placement services to graduates.

She said the centre provided resources and strategies for making positive career choices, including choosing a college major and developing career plans, providing necessary skills to excel in the job market and creating job search materials, finding internships and full-time jobs, and making informed decision when choosing a career as well as going for successful career transitions.

In addition to traditional career and placement services, the centre also offers career exploration services that involve matching one’s skills and interests to potential occupations.

Dr Sarah lamented that females had been, and still are, at a disadvantage in all spheres of life, due to male dominance, stereotypical allocation of gender roles, gender bias, and subsequent biased upbringing.

In order to turn around this situation, she calls for a newer perspective of gender relations. One major development that has taken place as a result of this growing awareness is the emergence of gender/women studies programmes in universities all over the world, including at LCWU.

The WILL director said the SSC was established to focus not only on the academic needs but also on encompassing physical, psychological and social well-being of students. —mansoormalik173@hotmail.com