Second National Research Conference on Management and Business held at SZABIST

Second National Research Conference on Management and Business held at SZABIST Karachi Campus. The theme of the conference was "Building Bridges between Industry and Academia". It emphasized on the liaison between corporate-industry and government-academia sectors. Therefore, the theme broadly covered the management of public, private, commercial and non-profit sectors of the economy through intervention of academia.
"Science, logic and pragmatism played a significant role in the economic development of Europe in the epic of reformation, " said Naseer Memon, GM-CSR Engro Corporation, while he shared his views as keynote speaker in the two-day national conference
According to him academia needs to contribute in the creation of knowledge whereas industry uses this knowledge; this will foster the development. He said that in Pakistan there is a need to strengthen the link between the academia and the industry for better utilization of the knowledge for economic progress.
Dr. Manzoor Ali Isran, Head of the Department Management Science Department of SZABIST, asserted that the bridges between the industry and the academia are weak. He also informed the researchers and scholars that the state has very limited resources to contribute in the education and research whereas industry possesses valuable resources to contribute in the development of the society.
Dr. Altaf Mukati, VP (Academics) SZABIST said that the gap between the academia and industry would be fulfilled by many ways including (1) customized curriculum incorporating the requirements of the industry (2) projects initiated by the industry for academic research (3) projects proposed by the academia and industry will work on those projects. He suggested that local industry need to allocate sufficient budgets of the research and development activities.
Jahangir Siddiqui, Head of JS Group, suggested that for better 'industry-academia' association we have to learn from the leading universities of the developed countries. He also proposed that Pakistan has to focus on the 'sustainable technologies' as it has a crucial role in the long term economic development.
Shahnaz Wazir Ali (S.I), President SZABIST, placed strong emphasis on scholars to go on contributing through their active participation in bridging the link between industry and academia. She appreciated the role of HEC in advancing the academic research based on the problems of the industry.-PR