NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) announced the winners for Seventh NCR and Teradata National Information Technology (IT) Excellence Awards ceremony held today at the Jinnah Convention Center, Islamabad where in a grand setting, the best of the best in the information technology (IT) industry were given much coveted awards.Minister for IT and Telecom Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari officiated at the awards ceremony and thanked Teradata and NCR for encouraging IT professionals of Pakistan through the awards. He also congratulated the winners for achieving excellence in their respective fields during his address about the importance of the awards.
According to Mr. Khuram Rahat, Teradata manager for Pakistan and Bangladesh, “I am very pleased to host the Seventh NCR and Teradata IT Excellence Awards as this is a novel concept of recognizing people in the IT industry at the national level who have been instrumental in introducing, promoting and implementing IT in Pakistan. The first awards of this kind were launched in 1997 as part of Pakistan’s Golden Jubilee to recognize professionals in the information technology arena at a national level.”
The winners of the seventh NCR and Teradata National IT Excellence Awards are:
Software Development – Mr. Rashid Latif
Micromiles is the sole game development company in Pakistan. The new mobile game development model has been created by our winner for the Software Development Category. There is currently no industry standard to create games, but the model created by this winner is not only helpful in making games easier but also saves a lot of time.
Internetworking – Mr. Hamid Nawaz
The winner for this category while working at NADRA managed the Machine Readable Passport Network. He has worked in the dual role of Project Manager as well as Engineering Manager for technology acquisition, design and integration required to reach the goal of deployment of a secure network for 28 sites within Pakistan and 10 Foreign Missions. He led the project engineering /management activities for all networking elements.
IT Software Export – NetSol Technologies Ltd.
This company was founded in 1995 with a vision of becoming a global information technology solution provider. Today, with a global resource base of more than 600 diversely qualified and experienced resources across multiple products and services, the company is truly an entity with a focus on IT service offerings. It has a functional and active presence in USA, UK, Australia, China and Pakistan through its subsidiaries and sister concerns.
Their continued growth and investments in newer markets, products and services augurs well not only for the company itself but also for the future of Pakistani IT services companies in general and more importantly, towards the branding of Pakistan as a favourable IT consulting & services destination in the years to come.
IT Promotion – Mr. Mahmood Sharif
The winner in this category is currently working as Manager MIS at Karachi Port Trust (KPT). He has personally managed the gigantic task of computerization of KPT from scratch and thereby identified areas where Human Resource Management was required. Because of this process, there has been a considerable reduction in paperwork through use of Electronic Data Interchange.
IT Research and Development – Prof. Dr. Arshad Ali
This winner is currently working as Director General, NUST Institute of Information Technology, Rawalpindi. He has over 36 national and international publications to his credit. He conceived the design of the Chaff and Flare dispensing system at the Air Weapons Complex Wah. The system is in use by the Pakistan Air Force and is exported to other countries. He has also initiated research collaboration with Centre for European Nuclear Research (CERN) Switzerland, and earned the Associate Institute status of CMS-CERN for NUST
IT Education – Dr. Shoaib Ahmed Khan
This winner is currently working as a member of the Board of Trustees at Centre for Advanced Studies in Engineering (CASE), Rawalpindi of which he is a founder. He conceived the idea of establishing a higher centre of learning and founded CASE as a not for profit trust. CASE is the largest postgraduate engineering program in the country with around 500 MS and 80 PhD students. He is a founder of the Centre for Advanced Research in Engineering (CARE), which is taking care of projects of dire technical needs of the country.
IT Media & Publication – Mr. Zubair Kasuri
The winner in this category is the Editor in Chief of the country’s leading Telecom magazine ‘Flare’. In 2005, Flare was declared the ‘Best Telecom Magazine in Pakistan’ at the Geo Future Exhibition at Karachi; it participated as the official magazine of the event. Flare also covered ITCN Asia as its official magazine. In July 2005, he was awarded Best Telecom Reporter at Geo See Future in Karachi.
IT Student – Ms. Ayesha Binte Ashfaq
The winner in this category is currently a student of MCS at NUST, Rawalpindi. She has been doing active research and development work on RFID and Traffic Monitoring and Control for the past two years. Her project secured second place at Visiospark-a national IT event held at Comsats Wah, and was put forward as one of the top 20 projects all over Asia at Softec held at FAST Lahore. Her research paper has been accepted for publication and presentation at IADC 2006, San Diego, California, USA. In addition this winner has extensive software development experience and she has developed an Inventory Management System.
For the first time, there were two winners for the Life time Achievement Award.
Lifetime Achievement Award 1: Dr. Mohammad Ayub Alvi
When BCCI-FAST was established in 1980, he was brought in from UK to advance Science and Technology in Pakistan. He helped in creating world class IT institutes at Lahore and Islamabad.
The winner in this category has his Ph.D , MSc from UMIST, UK and B.Sc from University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore in 1975. His services to the IT industry includes establishment of BCCI-FAST Institute of Electronics at Lahore in 1983, he worked as project director till 1989. Establishment of FAST Institute of Computer Science at Lahore by the end of 1989 and worked as Director till September 1996. Then in he moved to Islamabad to setup FAST Institute of Computer Science at Islamabad and worked as a Director till 2000. He was appointed as Dean, Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering of the FAST National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences.
He is the founding member of the IT Commission of Pakistan; now know as Electronic Government Directorate. He is also the founding member of the National Computing Education Accreditation Council, established by Higher Education Commission. He has helped create Pakistan’s first Electronic Admission Test System for a University.
Lifetime Achievement Award 2 – Brig (Retd) Saleem Ahmed Moeen
The winner for this category is the Chairman of the largest IT Organisation in Pakistan having developed Homeland Security Solutions/Systems of International Standard. He joined the Army after obtaining a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Engineering & Technology Lahore, and also holds a Masters degree in Strategic Studies.
He designed and implemented centres which were instrumental in registering 77.5 million citizens in less than four years. He is also the designer of the Multi Biometric Electronic Passport which was launched in October 2004 and since then; more than one million new passports have been issued.
NADRA is a major Public Sector Success Story in Pakistan. And during his Chairmanship of NADRA, he has thoroughly transformed NADRA into a dynamic organization.
Special Award
A special award was presented to Syed Bader ul Islam, the outgoing Managing Director in appreciation for his dedication and commitment for over 25years to the organisation.
Anwar Maqsood and Hina Bayat were the hosts for the evening while Tina Sani gave a stunning live performance.