A two-day workshop attempts to connect academia and industry Dr. Zahir Ali Syed, Rafiq Ahmed Lakhani, Rana Muhammad Awais, Engr. Sana Sohail, others talks to ER Online about ‘Internet of Things’ revolution.
Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most emerging technologies in the world. IoT has a future scope and potential to earn revenue and this is the reason that the universities all over the world are aggressively working on IoT. The faculties are trying very hard to make students efficient on IoT concepts and its usage for better and prosperous future of the world.
A two-day workshop was organized at Usman Institute of Technology (UIT) on November 27-28 with the collaboration of Rastek Technologies and Mindstorm Engineering. It was aimed to spread awareness in students about the practical implementation of IoT.
Dr. Zahir Ali Syed, Director Usman Institute of Technology said that IoT was one of the emerging fields in the world of technology. As we know that the Pakistani nation is 8-10 years behind in the field of technology as compared to other developing countries, this is the best chance for us to train our students on IoT because it has a very large scope in the future and this is the best time to enter in this field.
IoT improves data processing because it connects Artificial Intelligence, Big data, Data Analytics, Cloud Computing and etc. It is the best technology to solve the issues of cyber security which is one of the major threats nowadays, he says.
He further said industry Academia Linkage was his passion because it was very important. The gap should be minimized between educational institutes and Industries. “UIT sends its faculty members to the industries for training as to how machines work in the engineering sector. When faculty comes back then students are sent with the trained faculty members and faculty members teach students the practical implementation of the concepts taught in the class.
Rafiq Ahmed Lakhani, CEO Rastek technologies said it was the future of industry-academia linkage. IoT is a very simple concept. Every device nowadays is connected with the internet. Now a concept is emerging that everything that is feasible should be connected to the internet to convert data into information efficiently. You can imagine the revenue connected with IoT as 20.6 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2020 and the estimated revenue is around $3.3 trillion. This technology is new so we have a chance to catch it right now so we can have a better future.
Although Rastek technologies is playing a vital part in industry-academia linkage by organizing events in different educational institutes, the federal government should also take some steps to reduce the gap between educational institutes and industries, he says.
Rana Muhammad Awais, the Founder and CEO Mindstorm Engineering introduced his company as a concern working on multiple domains which include industrial automation, IoT, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and etc.
The vision of Mindstorm engineering is to support betterment of industries and homes technically. “We should make smart homes and smart industries to achieve quick and efficient results. We have developed our IoT kits which are of beginners’ level that is for the use of students. Students can develop their skills in IoT by working on these kits. Different sensors are used in the implementation of IoT that could be related to your homes or industry. The initiative is quiet clear to make smart environment.”
Engr. Sana Sohail, the Chief coordinator said: IoT is basically the industrial revolution which is used worldwide in artificial intelligence, machine learning and etc. IoT simply means to connect everything to internet for controlling networks and devices through internet. The purpose of this workshop is to empower the youth. System has been changed these days. Hardware and software integration is necessary too and IoT works on the same principle. This is an open workshop that the multiple students from different universities showed massive interest in this workshop and we received 55 registrations for this workshop. The response is quite good. This will not stop here we will surely organize such workshops in future also for the betterment of Pakistan.”
Umar Janjua, the Lead Trainer at Mindstorm Engineering said IoT in this age has become a buzz word because it is in and has massive market value. IoT is to connect multiple networks of your home or industry to a single main network. Mindstorm Engineering is the training organization which trains the students as well as the professionals on different technical concepts related to automation, IoT and machine learning. I received great response from the students. I found students very enthusiastic, they wanted to learn something very new. The tasks provided to the students were completed efficiently and timely by the students. I like to train professionals more because a professional’s query is sometimes a teaching for me too. Their questions are of professional level which help me to increase my knowledge. The two days are not enough to learn IoT. In these two days we tried to clear the basic concepts of IoT in the minds of students which will help them in future.”
Samiullah, the President of Volunteer Pakistan Organization (VPO) said the aim of VPO was to gather people from different communities at one place and to empower the youth and for that purpose we organized two days workshop on IoT. In future also we have plans to organize some more energetic workshops to empower the youth. We selected IoT for this workshop because IoT is a very unique and interesting concept. People don’t know the proper use of internet so to make them aware we selected the topic of IoT for this workshop. Internet can be used to automate home and industrial appliances.
Manual working is finished now the world is moving towards automation. Everyone wants to perform tasks without any difficulty by sitting on their desks without moving a centimeter. IoT can make this world automated.”
We found this workshop very informative. Please visit our official YouTube channel to watch detailed video interviews in order to gain information related to IoT and Industry Academia Linkage.
Find all the interviews at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg6ha0visbXZYrjCRMdMgfg?view_as=subscriber
