Addressing the ground breaking ceremony of Centre for Mathematical Sciences (CMS) here at Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), he said this was a century of innovations and only those nations were progressing well who had equipped themselves with knowledge and technology.
The PIEAS, being run under aegis of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) took this initiative towards vision of fulfilling regional mathematical and computational needs.
Ahsan Iqbal, who is also Minister for Planning Development and Reforms said, standards of development had changed and now the development of a country depended upon a few things.
"We need to enhance our production capacity and improve our standard continuously. We need to introduce knowledge and information revolution in the country and introduce innovations in all sectors," he said.
The Minister said Pakistan had huge potential to get place among top economies of the world for which "We need to conduct research on modern ground," adding that the government had already started projects to establish centres of excellence for artificial intelligence, cyber security, big data, cloud computing and robots.
He said digital Pakistan was aimed at equipping the young generation with modern technology to ensure its effective usage.
"We must put Pakistan on road to prosperity with help of all areas and segments of the country," however, it is only possible when we have competitiveness, stability and continuity in policies.
The Minister said for providing better opportunities to the youth, the government had increased development budget of the HEC from Rs. 22 billion in 2016-17 to Rs. 35 billion in 2017-18 and now to Rs. 47 billion. "We plan to take budget of HEC to Rs. 100 billion," he added.
Ahsan Iqbal said present government has laid foundation of knowledge economy in the country. The basic of literacy, he said is computer literacy which would transform entire system based on modern technology.
He said the Centre was his own brainchild and added that he was proud to lay foundation of fulfillment of another dream as mathematics should be our national priority.
He hoped that the Centre would be completed in eighteen months' time and would start providing positive synergy required to beat the gravitational forces hindering the progress of the country.
Ahsan Iqbal stressed the need of promoting inquisitiveness in students and suggested that the Centre to be named after Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, the great Muslim mathematician.
He said many other countries expressed their interest in becoming part of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a sign of great change.
In his address, Chairman PAEC, Muhammad Naeem thanked the Minister and the incumbent government for their continued support for PIEAS as well as other establishments of PAEC.
He appreciated the contribution of Prof. Ahsan Iqbal in promoting culture of R&D in the country and termed him as knowledge-friendly person.
Prof. Dr. Nasir Majid Mirza, Rector PIEAS, in his welcome speech, highlighted need for establishment of CMS and identified its significance towards macro growth of the country.
He elaborated the strategy for encouraging the students to collaborate with researchers within the campus and beyond for building strong ties with the industry that forms the very basis for ideology behind the CMS.
He emphasized that it would be a great place for students having interest in Mathematics and its role in the growing research fields such as Advanced Design, Fluid Structural Analysis, Biology, Medicine, Surface Physics, Social Sciences, Business, Climate, Finance, Advanced Materials and many other areas of research would be phenomenal.
Executive Director HEC, Prof. Dr. Arshad Ali also shared his views and emphasized need for promotion of constructive sciences, which lead to welfare of mankind.
It merits mentioned here that the CMS includes establishment of a state-of-the-art high performance computing facility which will enable scientists and engineers from all over Pakistan to carry out high quality research in their respective fields.
Additionally, proposals for development of high-tech experimental R&D laboratories related to applied mathematical sciences and computations are also part of the plan. These services will not only be available to students and researchers of PIEAS but also to other universities as well as R&D organizations in public and private sector.
The technical parameters of CMS establishment project aim to stimulate research, collaboration, and networking in and around field of Mathematics, to sustain important research directions and to promote interdisciplinary research.
PIEAS is currently producing quality trained scientists and engineers to meet requirements of vital national organizations. The target of producing highly trained applied scientists possessing expertise in mathematical sciences for national industrial and strategic needs is expected to be achieved in 8-10 years.
On this occasion, Prof. Dr. Shahid Qamar, a faculty member at Department of Physics and Applied Mathematics at PIEAS gave a presentation on the CMS.