The Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology (SSUET) has been playing a major role during the past two decades in equipping the youth with technical education.
“SSUET graduates are serving in various countries of the world with placement on highly important positions and making new breakthroughs not only in Pakistan, but also in Europe, America and other countries,” said SSUET Chancellor ZA Nizami while addressing the 15th convocation of the university held at the Karachi Expo Centre.
At the convocation, some 1,000 graduates of the 2008 batch were awarded degrees in the engineering disciplines of Electronics, Computer, Civil, Biomedical and Telecommunication, besides Computer Science.
The chancellor said, “It is our strong conviction that good engineers and technologists can combat the forces that are responsible for weak economic conditions of the country and financial constraints in the domain of progress. They can find ways and means to transform poverty into plenty.”
He asked the new graduates to come forward to accept the challenges that the country is confronting, like dwindling energy and water resources, dependence on foreign reliance, and primitive systems and machinery in industry.
He emphasised the need for effectively exploiting the country’s latent natural resources, like huge deposits of coal at Thar as well as copper and other valuable minerals in other parts of the country so as to haul out the country from economic turbulence and attain autarky in every stratum of national life.
Presenting the annual report, SSUET Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Saiyid Nazir Ahmed highlighted the successful journey of the varsity from its inception to its present glorious stage, and informed the participants that the university’s annual budget has soared from Rs 17.22 million in 1994 to a record Rs 712.3 million in 2012.
He said that the university provided Rs 370 million worth equipment to laboratories in all the departments and spent Rs 195 million on new buildings and structures.
He also said that besides a financial assistance of Rs 10 million and Rs 40 million worth scholarships to deserving students during 2011-2012, the university provided Rs 7.7 million to needy students and Rs 2.3 million to deserving employees.
He pointed out that the university, which started with merely 200 students in 1994, currently has over 5,600 students on roll and has given around 9,820 graduate engineers to the nation since 1998, when its first convocation was held.
At present, the university is dispensing six bachelor’s degrees, six master’s degrees and two PhD programmes, whereas its faculty has 22 PhDs teaching in various departments and as many as 15 faculty members are pursuing a PhD degree from the SSUET, the vice chancellor added.
Dr Ahmed informed the participants that the university supports its alumni in their career planning and placement, and out of about 8,660 graduates until 2011, 77 percent have been employed in lucrative jobs, whereas the remaining have proceeded for higher studies or have started their own businesses.
On the occasion, the chancellor conferred medals to Saniah Rehan for securing the first position in Computer Engineering, Muhammad Tarique Saleem in Electronic Engineering, Obaid Shakeel in Telecommunication Engineering, Farrukh in Biomedical Engineering, Husam Bin Arshad in Civil Engineering and Minhaj Anwaar in Computer Science.
Recipients of the Silver Medal for securing the second position included Sana Waseem for Computer Engineering, Noman Akhtar for Electronic Engineering, Bilal Saeed for Telecommunication Engineering, Amna Ghani for Biomedical Engineering, Zia Ali for Civil Engineering and Muhammad Arabi Tayyab for Computer Science.
The third position holders winning the Bronze Medal included Anam Ashraf for Computer Engineering, Muhammad Muzaffaruddin for Electronic Engineering, Muhammad Kashan Shahbaz for Telecommunication Engineering, Samia Kaleem for Biomedical Engineering, Muhammad Rafique for Civil Engineering and Rabia Rasheed for Computer Science.