Campus Conversations Completes a Circuit at IEEE

The Panelists and IEEE City Heads

Perhaps one of the most important parts of any person’s professional life is perhaps their higher education. This stage of our lives determine our careers and what we do with the time we have here. This is when we are at our weakest and strongest; we are malleable and flexible, but at the same time, adamant that we want to make a difference, that we want to make our mark on the world. This is when we shine.

A key decision we make in this stage is the institution we choose. These institutes play a significant role in our training and grooming. They groom and train us for years, for our professional life and at the same time, prepare us for the struggles ahead. This grooming is vital for our growth as skilled individuals in the professional world. Inherently, these institutes shape our thinking, our skills and our abilities, specially when it comes to technology.

Applied learning is possibly one of the best methods to develop a person’s skills. It is at the core of fields like engineering and business management and significantly enhances our experience of the professional world. One of the most crucial functions of our educational institutes is understanding where applied learning can be utilized, and making sure that their students are exposed to the professional world as best as they can. However, applied learning is a two sided affair; the other side being the industry.

If we talk about the technology sector and the numerous technology training and educational institutes in Pakistan, there is an immense gap between the two entities and this results in an under applied and untapped resource pool; our students. The sooner these students, these fledgling individuals are thrust into a more practical setting, the sooner they will learn how to achieve equilibrium with the rest of the professional world.

At the Campus Conversations held at the Usman Institute of Technology in Karachi, on the 30th of October, 2010, with Ashraf Kapadia, Chairman PASHA/ CEO Systems Ltd., Farhan Ibrahim, Country Manager Technology, Oracle Pakistan, Farooq Wahab Naiyer, CISO Dubai Islamic Bank and ISACA (Karachi Chapter) and Salman Quadri, CEO Saltec Powerlink, representing the industry. Campus Conversations is CIO Pakistan’s attempt at bridging this gap, and giving the students and the industry a platform to interact and share their concerns and ideas. One of the major topics of the discussion was the opportunity for students and fresh graduates to apply their theoretical knowledge and gain some professional experience in their chosen fields.

Speaking at the event, the panelists listed down several key factors in response to the students’ queries, with the most pertinent one being the lack of effort from the students to go beyond their text books. Sure, opportunities are scarce, but only for those who cannot take the initiative and develop their own path. Entrepreneurship is perhaps one of the best, albeit hardest, routes for any technology student to take nowadays. However, once this path bears fruit, it comes in abundance. The best examples are Etilize and Scrybe.
Students generally complain that they do have ideas but the industry doesn’t offer enough support and there aren’t enough opportunities out there to implement them. This might be true to an extent, but there is always another option: entrepreneurship. Highlighting the importance of entrepreneurship, Farooq listed several venture capitalists and organizations that offer startup capital to individuals. One of the key requirements to get their attention, however, is to come up with the right plan at the right time, and to present it in the right way.

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It is imperative for students to understand the importance of developing proper plans, and presenting them in such a way that they are acceptable by the industry The industry looks at numbers and their bottom line. The best way to catch their attention is to present your ideas highlighting its viability and marketability. According to Salman Quadri, engineers need their skills. “Perfect the basics to the level of ensuring you know how to draw specs correctly. These are usually things that are done outside of the curriculum and in your personal time. If you’re not enjoying this kind of stuff in your ‘home’ time, you’re not going to make for a very good engineer.”

A For Attitude?
Attitude is everything… it’s considered to be 90% of most battles. Both professors and industry reps agreed that majority of the students were missing the attitude to do ‘whatever it takes to get the job done’. It appears that most students hesitate to get under the worktable; most aim for the manager position and the snazzy benefits. “It takes a long while t get there,” explains Farhan.
Another key issue highlighted in the discussion was the lack of initiative within the student body. It all boils down to the students: it depends entirely on them whether they put in the effort needed to make a mark or simply laze away in the many distractions that technology offers. Success is dependent on the individual’s ability to struggle and push forward: the individual’s motivation to achieve something.

It’s all in the basics
However, the most rudimentary step is knowing yourself. The better you know yourself, the easier it will be for you push forward. If you know where your skills lie, you can start focusing on the next step: grooming and training. In Farhan’s words, “You need to determine where your strengths lie and then start taking the next step. The first step is knowing what you can do, where your interests lie. The second step is grooming and preparing yourself for the professional world, all the while keeping realistic expectations.”

Ashraf Kapadia highlighted the importance of being realistic and practical, and understanding that the only way to achieve success is by going through every step: shortcuts simply give you a means to harm yourself and your career. Another panelist commented that, “The problem with our society is that before understanding what certain fields or subjects mean, students focus more on how much they can earn from that job. That is, in effect, one of the worst things any student could do.”

But then the students also kept the questions coming. Wajih, an engineer explained, “I’m so passionate about Embedded Systems but find that there are less than a handful of companies where I will be able to find a job. But I’m really passionate about it. Should I consider changing my focus?” The answer that all the panelists gave back was ‘Keep doing what you love doing.”

At the end of the day, it’s about how the potential of a student or fresh graduate can be tapped. Educational institutes and the industry both play a pivotal role in the grooming and counseling of our student body, yet, they still fail to understand each other’s needs. The core issue here is a lack of direction and guidance for students, and that can only be addressed if this immense gap between them and the industry is bridged. There is a tremendous need for a stronger, more flexible platform that interlinks the industry and the students body and gives them a means to communicate and share. With students yearning for guidance and mentoring, it is imperative for Pakistan’s future to have some plan of action, some body that trains and grooms this youth potential. This resource pool is vital to push the country’s technology industry to the forefront of the global market.

Getting Down to the Commitments
As with every Campus Conversation, each panelist is requested to make a commitment to the audience. The audience, in this case, was a group of students from a diverse range of Universities from across Pakistan, hence the panelists were making commitments to all the students through IEEE.

Farooq Wahab Naiyer: ISACA will set up their first student chapter at UIT and subsequently make the offer to any university that was there. Along with the chapter, ISACA will also facilitate curriculum content to the University that expresses an interest in taking up the offer to learn more about the fields of Information Security and Information Assurance. And Farooq and his team of IS professionals are willing to make themselves available to provide counseling or mentoring to students who are interested in learning more about the profession.

Salman Quadri: Saltec-Powerlink spends an annual Rs.20 million on RnD and Salman announced a fund of Rs.2 million where he would work with IEEE and CIO Pakistan to identify students and projects who could use these grants.
Ashraf Kapadia: As always, the CEO of Systems Ltd and Chairman of P@SHA has volunteered for lectures and mentoring sessions to any students who wish to share his experiences and gain insights into the local IT industry.

Farhan Ibrahim: Farhan will help to facilitate Oracle Education’s Oracle University program at UIT and to other Universities attending the session. He will also coordinate with the Mentor Nashta program and make himself avaialable for counseling or mentoring sessions.

If you’re a student and would like to register yourself with us to attend a CIO Mentor Nashta, please click here. If you’d like us to organize a Campus Conversations at your University, please write to us at: cc @ ciopakistan. com (please remove the spaces from the address)