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S&T Based Economic Development and Cooperation in ECO Region - 22 Jan, 2016

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President ECOSF Lectures at the GC University Lahore on 22 Jan, 2016

Vice Chancellor of Government College (GC) University, Lahore Dr. Hassan Amir Shah and Dr. Ikram ul Haq invited President ECOSF Prof. Dr. Manzoor H. Soomro to speak on "S&T Based Economic Development and Cooperation in ECO Region" under the auspice of ORIC-the Office of Research Innovation and Commercialization  on January 22, 2016. Dr. Soomro in his lecture demonstrated philosophically how S&T plays a major role to promote and sustain scientific and technological development leading to economic development. He emphasised that infrastructure , human resource are essentials and education play the crucial role to maintain the feed in of  thinkers and innovators to nurture the scientific and technological innovations.  He further said that critical thinking and critical observation are the basic concepts of "inquiry", especially for the children as learning through inquiry at grass root level will build a habit among pupils to enquire about the science phenomenon. Realizing the strengths of "inquiry based learning", thinkers and scientists around the globe have been promoting "inquiry based science education (IBSE)" which in turn inculcates innovation among the children. He said ECOSF is promoting IBSE at primary level in its all the ten Member Countries to move a step forward to ensure a sustainable supply of young talent linking advance research and industrial development to cope with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He further said ECOSF is encouraging international cooperation and for the last two years the Foundation has developed good collaboration with La main a la pate Foundation France, the International Science, Technology and Innovation Center for South–South Cooperation under the auspices of UNESCO (ISTIC) Kuala Lumpur, the Science Education Program (SEP) of Inter-Academy Partnership (IAP)- a global network of 130 academies of sciences, engineering and medical and Islamic Development Bank (IDB)   as all these organizations patronize the concept of IBSE. 

While talking about the cooperation Dr. Soomro said that ECOSF has developed cooperation between Pakistan and Tajikistan in the field of scientific research and exchange of researchers and that the GC University and other Pakistani institutions can benefit from the opportunity. He emphasized that in the present day global ecosystem, name of the game is; "Cooperation and Collaboration". The concept of alliances and togetherness enables communities and countries to perform better when it comes to competition in the dynamic world that we have today! There are many examples of Regional and Global Economic Cooperation Organizations (G-8, G-20, ASEAN, and ECO etc.), Unions, Federations as well as those on political, cultural and even religious basis.

Dr. soomro shared the key role of ECOSF in promoting science, education and research in ECO region viz, promoting IBSE for teaching STEM at schools, attracting students to science education (through popularization activities; science fairs, youth science forums, clubs, museums, mass media, exchange of visits etc), promoting higher education (through joint scientific research in priority areas, sharing of expertise & experiences), fellowships for brilliant students of the region.

Prof. Soomro finally concluded the lecture by saying that the key to Socio-Economic Development lies in promotion of critical thinking and creativity at grass root level- promotion of Inquiry Based Learning, understanding and appreciation of Nature- Appreciative Inquiry, higher education: Academia - R&D-industry linkages & innovation, appropriate use of innovative strategies, and commercialization of research results.  Cooperation in these non-political actions leads to positive International Cooperation!

After the lecture a Q & A session was moderated by Prof. Dr. Ikram-ul-Haq and finally the Vice Chancellor Dr. Shah thanked Dr. Soomro for sharing his wisdom with GCU faculty and researchers. He then presented a GCU memento of their 150 years celebration.

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