Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering secured funding in Student Startup Business Competition (SSBC2K19)

Mehran University of Engineering & Technology is one of the Nine Universities of Pakistan who signed an MoU for Student Startup Business Centers (SSBC) sponsored by Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Promotion of Education in Pakistan (PEP) Foundation (PEP) to inculcate startup culture amongst students and provide seed money along with incubation space to play their role in building eco system.

In the competition arranged by Mehran University Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (IEC), forty five (45) ideas were shortlisted out of 90 total submissions in first place. In further scrutiny, 9 ideas were selected for pitch in front of the experts’ panel from academia and industry and two startups are declared successful in the competition; “Uni Cycle” from Telecommunication Engineering and “Elementary Education for Visually Impaired” from Electronic Engineering department securing PKR 300,000 and PKR 200,000 seed money respectively.

A cheque distribution ceremony was held at IEC MUET on 1^st February 2019. Mr. Tahir Chaudhry, Chief Executive, Falcon Engineering, Founding member and Chair, Industry Academia Linkage at Open Source Foundation of Pakistan, worthy Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Muhammad Aslam Uqaili, Pro Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Tauha Hussain Ali, Dean Faculty of Architecture & Civil Engineering Prof. Dr Khan Muhammad Brohi, Director ELDC Dr. Habibullah Pathan, Prof. Dr. Zahid Ali Memon, Manager IEC Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Umrani and other dignitaries attended the ceremony.

Unicycle from Telecommunication department is the brain child of the students Rafay Shah (15 TL79) Osama Shaikh (15TL125) and Makhdoom Abdul Aleem (15TL131) under the supervision of Dr. Zulfiqar Umrani.

In developing countries like Pakistan, insufficient educational resources are available for special children. There is lesser number of schools for special children with only primary education utilizing traditional methods for Braille communication. People are deprived of getting into schools due to distant areas, minimum transport facilities and expensive fees. Traditional systems are difficult to use and time-consuming. In contrast, modern systems utilize electronic methods for user friendly and easier communication but are expensive.

Students of department of Electronic Engineering maintained to secure seed money of 200,000/ Rs in the second cohort on better education opportunities for special kids. The students (16ES124) Muhammad Ahmed, (16ES106) Hassan Ahmed and (16ES40) Sidra Memon in the supervision of Dr. Attiya Baqai have proposed an easy and inexpensive frame work for blind elementary education with specifically designed hardware and software application. This framework will not only provide a user interface to learn and write in Braille from student side but also helps the teacher to assess the students’ performance. The software application will maintain and update an automatic database for each student.

On this occasion, Prof. Dr. Mukhtiar Unar Dean Faculty of Electrical, Electronics and Computer System Engineering, Professor Emeritus Dr. Bhawani Shankar Chowdhry, Dr. Tayab Din Memon Chairman Department of Electronic Engineering and Prof Dr. Faisal Karim Shaikh, Chairman Department of Telecommunication Engineering congratulated teams on their success, appreciated their ideas and encouraged them for playing their role for betterment of community and serving the humanity.