ISLAMABAD: Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI) and Huawei Pakistan have formalised their industry-academia partnership through a virtual event to solidify the creation of a four-year BS degree in artificial intelligence (AI).
The program is the first such partnership and serves as a milestone in an already successful four-year-long partnership that started with the establishment of the Huawei ICT Academy at GIKI in 2016.
Rector GIKI Jehangir Bashar shared his optimistic remarks about the programme at the agreement signing ceremony. He said, “Huawei has always been one of the top ICT companies in the world while GIKI is recognized internationally. It would be a good fit, and thus we have the GIKI BS in AI partnered by Huawei.”
CEO Huawei Pakistan, Mark Meng speaking on the occasion said that Huawei will share the best AI knowledge with GIKI and that students will have the opportunity to be linked to the industry. He added that Huawei and GIKI have joined hands to make this initiative run successfully.
The VP of Huawei Middle East, SpaceLee said that AI can be used to improve all major industries, bringing forth the new future. He said that AI, 5G & Cloud will reconstruct the world. He further said that GIKI is a pioneer to be partnered with Huawei on such industry-academia cooperation for AI.
President GIKI Board of Governors and SOPREST, Farid Rehman said that the partnership provides the next and higher level of collaboration, which will strengthen the mutual cooperation in the field of AI between the two organizations.
GIKI, with Huawei’s support, has designed the curriculum, theory, and lab courses. GIKI will be authorized to use Huawei AI learning resources under the qualified instructors who will be enabled through the ‘Train the Trainer’ program.
Through this process, it is planned that the students will learn theory, gain practical experience with a global outlook, have their Huawei career certifications, and be granted ample job opportunities.
The partnership was established in December of 2019 when both parties signed an MoU to launch a pilot undergraduate degree program for Artificial Intelligence in Pakistan. With the success of the degree program in Artificial Intelligence, Huawei and GIK look forward to future cooperation in the fields of intelligent computing and cloud computing and so on. Through such programs, Huawei and GIKI shall support the regional information and communication technology education, share knowledge, and create more opportunities.
