MoU between National ICT R&D Fund and Microsoft Pakistan

Islamabad, March, 19, 2008 - A Memorandum of Understanding has been inked between National ICT R&D Fund and Microsoft Pakistan to jointly launch “Pakistan Developer Conference   2008” and “Innovation Accelerator Program”. The MoU was signed by Dr. Qasim Sheikh, CEO National ICT R& D Fund and Sherif Seddik, Regional Director Microsoft North Africa, East Mediterranean and Pakistan. The signing ceremony was witnessed by Mr. Kamal Ahmed, Country Manager, Microsoft Pakistan, Mr. Javed Malik, GM S&E National ICT R&D Fund, Mr. Fawad Younus, GM Monitoring National ICT R&D Fund and other senior officials from both the organizations.

According to the MoU, “Pakistan Developer Conference 2008” will be organized with the objective of providing participants with a comprehensive technical overview as well as more insight on the latest ( both recently released and upcoming) Microsoft development and platform technologies. 

To bring the idea behind this MOU to reality, National ICT R& D Fund will provide sponsorship for the conference, participate in the development of the agenda and work with Microsoft for short listing local research projects to be presented at the conference. Microsoft will invite experts to deliver technical sessions, facilitate local researchers in presenting their research work and invite leading IT Companies to showcase innovative solutions for the participants of the conference.

Concurrently, the Innovation Accelerator Program will be rolled out for young talented Pakistani students to provide them with business and technical trainings to help them transform their winning project designs into potential technology solutions required by the industry. While business experts will be made available to help the students build a business proposition and plan to bring their ideas to market.  

Leading this initiative, National ICT R& D Fund will provide the sponsorship and take part in the selection of student teams and projects. Further, it will consider all proposals submitted by the students at the completion of the program for sponsorship. Microsoft will provide participating students with technical trainings to refine their project designs, arrange business trainings to develop entrepreneurial skills and train students in getting industry feedback on their developed solutions.