Wheelie! A Universal Wheel Chair!

on 16/05/2019

Wheelie is such a wonderful innovation. This innovation proves that the youth of Pakistan is full of talent and brilliance. Students of University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore belonging to Electrical Engineering Department has introduced a universal wheel chair that minimizes the dependency of the people who can not walk and has to stay on a wheel chair for the rest of their lives. This is the final year project of students of UET,

  1. Muhammad Abdullah
  2. Mariam Asif
  3. Ammara Shahid
  4. Saqib Javed

Supervisor: Dr. Kahsif Javed

Co-Supervisor: Umer Shahid

Now What is Wheelie?

Here comes Wheelie! A Universal Wheelchair. Why universal? Because it has these cool features in it to aid any kind of a paralyzed human. What cool features you say? 1) A typical joystick control of the wheelchair if my legs are paralyzed but hands work. 2) English and Urdu voice commands if I have difficulty using my hands. 3) Head gesture control if I’m also mute or feel any difficulty while speaking. 4) Eye pupil control if even my neck is paralyzed or I have full paralysis. 5) Also 5 Sonars in all directions and downward make sure I do not hit anything while moving and stop if the stairs come.

Demonstration Of Wheelie!

By Students!

Must Watch!

ICT-MUET and SSUET Leads for becoming part of EU Capacity Building in Higher Education Project

on 07/05/2019

MUET and SSUET Delegates participates in the 1st CENTRAL project meeting in Thailand held at College of Arts, Media and Technology (CAMT) , Chiang Mai University (CMU) having the Theme: “Integration of ICT Tools in Innovative Educational Practice & Business Modeling” to reflect on the joint long-term persistent endeavors to reveal the full potential of robust communication techniques, networks, systems, and services to provide capabilities that will revolutionize the global use of ICT in education, finally for business incubation.


CENTRAL (Capacity building and Exchange towards attaining Technological Research and modernizing Academic Learning) aims at developing and implementing academic educational curricula with an international orientation in content and/or form, aimed at preparing students for performing (professionally/socially) in an international and multicultural context and designed for domestic and/or foreign (international) students.


CENTRAL is aimed at enabling employability, internationalization and interdisciplinary engagement of students and graduates, as well as research staff. Three countries of Europe and three countries of Asia including Pakistan are the partners of the consortium of this one million Euros project.
Professor Chowdhry, Coordinator from MUET informed that the project also aims at the development of ICT and skill-based curriculum as per needs of stakeholders:
• Development of Online Project-based Learning model and software usable for all partner HEIs
• Development of mutually beneficial business training module, business models and joint ventures.
• Conversions of ideas into innovative products leading to joint research and publications. n

Engineers in Rotary By Falak Naz Soomro

on 07/05/2019

More than 1.2 million professionals, community leaders, and businesspersons are part of the Rotary. Members of Rotary, known as Rotarians, provide social reforms by humanitarian welfare, promote high ethical criterion in all walks of life most specifically helping in building peace in the world. In more than 200 countries there are 33,000 Rotary clubs which are neither political nor religious and open to every individual without any restriction of race, culture or creed.

Service is the main objective of Rotary and to make it even stronger, district and international structure is designed to support the clubs so that they may serve the community nationally and internationally.Composition of members and building clubs promotes equal participation of both male and female, and all the Rotarians treat each other with due respect which builds unity among them as it is said, “If you want to move fast, go alone BUT if you want to move far, go together.” Rotary clubs are not just reserved to community service and social welfare but they also enhance the skills and qualities of an individual that help him/her in social and professional life.

The Rotary acts like a ‘leadership hub’ that trains its members by giving them a position of president, vice president, general secretary. Groomed leaders can easily be found in the organization. Not the leadership only, Rotary is also a networking hub which helps you communicate and strengthen your personal relations being solely based on professionals be they lawyers, doctors, engineers, social scientists or business personnel. A Rotary scholar Aslam Faqeer who availed a Rotary Funded Project and joined Marco Faggella’s program, aimed at training engineers around the world on ‘how to make buildings safer in earthquakes’ supervised over 120 master’s students and practicing engineers in Pakistan.


He had received a scholarship and studied at Italy and, on his return joined as Assistant Professor and supervised this program. His research focuses on how structures will perform if they are made according to the International Standards.
In this conference of Rotary International, one of the speakers, Heera Lal Bhawani shared his perspective about how engineers joining Rotary can help them learn management and leadership skills to carry out their projects and utilize team spirit for serving society and polishing your abilities in many ways.
Personal development and growth
Getting involved in Rotary you get to explore yourself, your skills, strengths and weakness and on the basis of that one can polish what they are lagging behind in.

Leadership Skills
Providing designated positions as President, Vice president Rotary helps you influence and motivate other members who can be future leaders and coached leaders
Better Citizenship in the community
It consists of responsible, active citizens with the zeal to serve the community and for that reason, it promotes better citizenship

Public Speaking Skills
Communicating with the people and being part of debates on public issues helps you enhance your speaking abilities on different issues helping you in your professional life and also in sharing your ideas clearly and smoothly.

World Citizenship
Wherever you go around the globe if you are part of Rotary and wearing ”Rotary International” pin, you are more than welcome to join any of the clubs around the globe. This is how you will make friends wherever you go no matter how known or unknown the place is to you, you will still feel at home.

Traveling Assistance
While traveling if, in need of assistance of any sort such as hotel, doctor, lawyer, and advice one will get proper assistance through the local Rotarians.
Being an engineer having just a technical knowledge would not be that fruitful but also it requires different skills which are mandatory to succeed in social and professional life. This will not only help to serve the community but also carry out engineering tasks easily. n
(The writer is an engineer and an ambassador of ER in MUET, Jamshoro)

Islamabad’s arbitrary decision hurt renewable energy project in provinces

on 07/05/2019

Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa believe that the decisions of the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) as regards the revision of ‘Renewable Energy Policy’ may hurt their renewable energy projects costing over US$3 billion. The issue is so serious that Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah was forced to write personally a handwritten letter to the prime minister how the committee’s decisions work as a disadvantage to provinces. Also, Chief Minister of KP, Mahmood Khan protested the CCoE decision. The provinces believe it is an intrusion into their constitutional jurisdiction on the part of the federal government and thus it should reverse the decisions of the committee. They have asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to reverse the CCoE decisions which are negatively affecting the development of renewable energy sources and over $3 billion investments.


The CCoE has discontinued the Renewable Energy Policy of 2006 and such decision was conveyed to the provinces in March. Now, work on Renewable Energy Policy 2019 is underway. Murad Ali Shah has written that the CCoE has taken arbitrary policy decisions in violation of Article 154 of the Constitution by encroaching and transgressing into the domain of the Council of Common Interests. The committee is a partisan forum where the provinces have no representation, he says.

The issue with Sindh is that as per CCoE decision all the renewable energy projects which have been issued letter of intent (LoI) but have not received a tariff from the NEPRA would be dealt with the new policy.
Sindh would suffer the most as 53 of its projects both wind and solar ones designed to generate 3,425MW have been slashed from the list of active projects. It would deprive the province of foreign direct investment of $2.3bn and loss of the confidence and time of the investors. Besides Sindh, the decisions of the committee would not only jeopardize committed investments but also discourage future renewable energy investments in KP.


KP government which is concerned seeks personal intervention” of the prime minister and wants a number of projects exempted from the CCoE decision so as to facilitate their completion. Interestingly enough, Islamabad neither issued any new policy nor shared any draft with the provinces and also any legal framework for competitive bidding under the new policy. It leads to the province to suspect that the center is intruding into the jurisdiction of the provinces.
The provinces have demanded that the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) be directed to process all applications given LoIs under 2006 policy and decide the tariff besides stopping the cabinet committee from stepping in the domain of the CCI.n

Why development projects seem dead in Sindh

on 07/05/2019

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said the federal government was delaying fiscal releases for federal projects in Sindh and thus the development process was severely affected in the province.
Shah has not claimed it for the first time; he has repeatedly blamed Islamabad for Sindh’s sluggish development progress but it’s a half-truth. The federal government, some people in the federal capital say has failed to meet revenue targets for the current fiscal year and thus it is likely that the shortfall may touch Rs.500 billion. It means the provinces would share the shortfall minimizing releases to the provinces. Yet another official who talked to Engineering Review said since the federal government had to show something good to the International Monetary Funds (IMF), the efforts for revenue collection would see acceleration. But still, it is more likely to be falling short of the target.

If it is so, then Sindh’s development releases will surely suffer. Of the Rs.500 billion shortfall, Sindh may get around Rs.50 billion less than its due share. It would affect its development effort in the province. But it will specifically hit federal projects in the province.
This forced Chief Minister Shah to raise the issue with Chairman Sadiq Umrani, the Chairman Senate whom he met in April in Karachi. Shah told him that Sindh had paid its 50 percent share to the National Highway Authority yet the work on Jamshoro-Sehwan dual way project was slow. So is the progress of Nai Gaj Dam Project in Dadu district. The cost of the project had increased to Rs.60 billion against the original cost of Rs.48 billion. But all these projects are not moving slowly because of the federal government, claims an official. ‘K4, RBOD and Greenline are also hit by the bad governance of the provincial government.’

These reasons have also severely affected development schemes of the Annual Development Program (ADP)—the principal development program of the province.
Senior planning chiefs in Sindh say there are three reasons which have affected the development pendulum of the province. They include mismanagement, lack of capacity and transfer postings of the officers. These reasons have resulted in no completion of ADPs for over a decade. “Sindh has now a tradition of spending not more than 60 percent of its total development outlay”, an official says. Thus, 40 percent allocations of the ADP stand lapsed. Former planners attribute this performance with the lack of capacity of the provincial government. Also, it is because Sindh plays with the digits at the time of budget proposals just to show its fake progress.


An added factor which has crept in the province and thus affected the development is the campaign of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Numerous projects have come to a grinding halt for investigations in the alleged corruption. Most of the provincial bureaucracy avoid to become part of the decision making due to the fear created by NAB operations in Sindh, claims a former secretary. Sindh Chief Minister who is also facing allegations attempted to restore the confidence of his officers in a grand gathering at CM House Karachi. But inaction on the ground suggests he did not succeed to attain his objective.
In such a situation, some officers in Sindh’s planning and development section see a better move for having a new chief planner Naheed Durrani. Ms. Durrani is the daughter of former chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and believed to be an able officer who has performed in various Sindh government departments. What has to be seen is if she will be able to synchronize the priorities of Sindh government and with the PPP’s—two centers which are connected with each other and otherwise too simultaneously.n By Manzoor Shaikh.