ISLAMABAD ( BMZ REPORT)
The three-day international conference on ‘Frontiers of Information Technology’ (FIT-2015), organized by COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), which concluded in Islamabad on Wednesday, generated tremendous interest in the IT community, providing an opportunity to researchers from around the world to share the latest breakthroughs in the field.
The hallmark of the conference was the ‘Best IT Innovation Award (BITA)’ with prize money of Rs.1 million for the best innovative idea presented during the moot. The Award recognizes and encourages innovative ideas for indigenous solution of problems by applying Information Technology. It offers an effective platform at the national level to identify individuals, organizations & companies whose innovations can drive us towards knowledge based economy.
The recipients of this year’s BIT Award were: Awais Shafique, M Arslan, Hooria Annum and M. Raza Kazmi from a local university. Dr. Engr. Javaid Saleem Qureshi, Chairman, Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) graced the event as chief guest. He congratulated the winner of the Best IT Innovation Award and expressed the hope that it would be translated into a successful product.
Chairman PEC also congratulated Dr. S. M. Juniad Zaidi, Rector, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) and his team for introducing the Award, which recognizes and encourages creativity in IT in a befitting manner.
The theme for this year’s Conference was ‘ICT for Education,’ which saw an unprecedented level of participation from international delegates and the acceptance ratio of technical papers in FIT was comparable to that of other renowned international conferences.
During the proceedings, Dr. Sajal K. Das, from Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA, gave a keynote address on ‘Beyond Cyber – Physical Era: What’s Next,’ highlighting emerging research challenges, and opportunities. A series of ‘invited talks’ were organized as part of technical sessions, delivered by world-renowned scholars and researchers.
A ‘PhD symposia’ provided a forum to PhD students to present their research. A panel discussion on ‘Smart University: Myths and realities,’ focused on the scope of IT smart universities. Besides this, ‘Tutorial sessions’ were also part of FIT-2015, in which various topics of interest to the IT community were discussed.