COMSATS holds its 1st Consultative Committee and 12th Coordinating Council.

Meeting in Nigeria ISLAMABAD, 27 April, 2009 (Balochistan Times) -- COMSATS (Commission on Science and Technology for sustainable development in South- Pakistan) holds its first Consultative Committee and the 12th Coordinating Council meetings on Monday in Abuja, Nigeria. The three-day meetings were jointly inaugurated by the Minister of Education, Government of Nigeria Monday i.e. April 27, 2009 at the National Mathematical Centre (NMC)-Abuja, Nigeria. NMC is also one of the members of COMSATS Network of Centres of Excellence, says a message received here today. The Consultative Committee is meeting for the first time since the inception of the Commission in 1994 under the chairmanship of the Federal Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of Pakistan. The Committee comprises representatives of national scientific focal points in COMSATS member countries, who are mostly the Federal Ministers/Secretaries from the Ministries of Science and Technology/Education. The Coordinating Council, on the other hand, comprises the heads or representatives of COMSATS sixteen S&T Centres of Excellence. Over a 100 participants from universities, R&D institutions of Nigeria and other COMSATS member countries, i.e., Egypt, Ghana, Iran, Jamaica, Pakistan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, attended the inauguration ceremony. In his introductory remarks, Executive Director COMSATS, Dr. Imtinan Elahi Qureshi, considered the two events a unique opportunity for interactive dialogue among the senior officials of respective governments, whereby a fruitful and productive course of action for S&T policy making and collaborative efforts can be devised. He presented COMSATS as a novel platform with a clear mission aimed at empowering the countries of South through capacity building in S&T and facilitating South-South and North-South cooperation. Identifying the S&T gap between the North and South, he asserted the need to use multilateral fora such as COMSATS as a possible means to overcome the shortcomings faced by the South. ED COMSATS further apprised the participants of the role that COMSATS has been playing for science-led socio-economic development as well as the challenges faced by COMSATS Secretariat. Islamic World Science Net (IWSN), COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) and COMSATS Internet Services (CIS), as well as many other collaborative projects among the member countries were seen as major achievements of COMSATS, he added. In his concluding remarks,Dr. Qureshi called for the continued support of the Government of Pakistan and financial and collaborative participation of COMSATS member countries to enable COMSATS to overcome the operational gaps in its set-up. It is hoped that the deliberations of the delegates during the event would render COMSATS the opportunities to make the necessary technology alliance and enhance its effectiveness in the pursuit of sustainable development.

(THROUGH ASIA PULSE)