The Future is Here? Campus Conversations Heads Over to SZABIST

With the help of the IEEE Society, Campus Conversations head over to SZABIST to speak with a power panel that consisted of Rahim Lalani, head of TRG Tech; Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA, Naveen Naqvi, Blogger and News Anchor; Faisal Khan, CEO of NACSPL; and Shakir Husain, CEO of Creative Chaos.

If anyone thought the gap between the industry and the academia was a dangerous one, it couldn’t have been more apparent than when the discussion began with the SZABIST students.

Issue: Students don’t consider the local job market to be worth much

A repeated issue that students don’t see much value in working with local companies. Ask a random sampling what kind of company they wish to work with right after graduation and the common response is ‘multinational’.  It all comes down to the fact that the universities are simply unaware of what local organizations are doing.

Issue: Companies don’t invest in making enough noise about themselves and the opportunities they offer

We can’t blame either side. If the students are unaware of what local companies are doing, then perhaps the organizations are simply not spending enough time or money in doing so. But is it really their responsibility to do so? I mean, what about the teachers? Isn’t it there responsibility to affiliate themselves with companies that they can affiliate their department with and make the transition process easier? Or is it only about associating students with companies who are willing to spend money on the students?

Point to note here is as soon as the Campus Conversation session ended, a bright young student who we’ll call Bill gates, had been actively interacting with the panel approached the speakers for a sponsoring opportunity. My reaction? “Woah Billy boy… We haven’t even wrapped up yet!”

Perhaps this behavior is encouraged by those members of the academia who view the corporate industry as potential cash cows: sponsor us and we’ll give you access to these bright students.  Think again professors – that’s not what the industry is after.

Students need to have access to the industry. Whether its filling water bottles or photocopying manuals, the opportunity to work in a professional, social environment is exactly that: an opportunity. Organizations are willing to invest in interns that demonstrate excellence in the work they have been assigned to do because it accounts for experience. Experience has a cost associated to it – A cost that has to be borne by the organization.

Jehan Ara says, “We do regular seminars where we reach out to the academia but few show an interest.” While it may be correct that the industry doesn’t make a lot of noise, it would be incorrect to say that the opportunities don’t exist.

Issue: Students reach out but get no response from the Industry

While that can be true, most of the IT companies in Pakistan are relatively small shops. Small shops need to have CVs and emails or candidates that stand out without too much effort for the organization to find them. The average organization gets half a dozen CVs a day amidst the hundreds of emails they have have to respond to. If anyone really wants to get through to them, they have to stand out.

There is work being done locally. In fact, Shakir Husain joined the session a day after the global launch of the Face2Face mobile app, which was the flagship product developed and launched by a company he invested in, Proximity Global. “It’s a cutting edge product that we’ve launched and we have great expectations for the role it will play in proximity-based social media. We developed it right here in Pakistan. Finding people to work on it, is no easy task,” he says.

Responding to one of the comments made by students that CEOs never respond to university requests, Faisal Khan says, “As a CEO, it is my job to resolve issues so that the company can keep going. That’s my job. And there’s a new fire that needs to be put out each day. If I get a query or an email from anyone, student or not, that query has to do something for me that will make me respond to it.” Retorting back to the students, Faisal explains, “Most of the emails I get from students and universities is ‘we need this event sponsored’, or ‘will you give us money for this project’. If students and professors were smart, they would write to people like me to have us involved in their academia – not just give money and be in touch from a distance.”

Issue: Students have it too easy in University

According to Rahim Lalani, you should enjoy the years you have available to you for studies. “Sure, you should apply and enroll for internships, but you should use the 4 year undergraduate program as learning ground for the rest of your professional career. There will be lots of time to work and earn money but the student life gives you the opportunity to learn on someone else’s dime. A student who doesn’t use that time wisely is missing out on vital learning.”

According to Naveen Naqvi, a lot of interns who had been hired at Dawn News while she was working there, had been taken on into full time working positions. “The industry needs to know how serious and passionate a youngster is about learning the job. Once he or she proves himself,  that’s it. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

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