PESHAWAR:Minister for Science, Technology and Information Technology, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Atif Khan, on Tuesday distributed certificates among winners of National Idea Bank (NIB) competitions held at University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar here.
The competitions of different areas were organized including Education,
Health, E-Commerce, Construction, Agriculture and Natural Resources. In total 1200 innovative ideas were shortlisted for the NIB competition.
The minister said the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa increased the budget for Science and Technology which would not only create job opportunities but would also facilitate youth to bring innovative ideas.
He said the government was investing in the fields of Information Technology. Recently the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the World Bank along with key local community and academic partners conducted the Digital Youth Summit 2021 which was known for engaging youth from academia and bringing together industry and investors at same platform.
Prof. Dr. Iftikhar Hussain, Vice Chancellor UET Peshawar said, the National Idea Bank was an initiative of the President of Pakistan Dr. Arif Alvi, a unique collaboration between academia, government, industry and communities for identifying and showcasing innovative ideas that were capable of solving indigenous problems by using technology in business and governance models.
He said in the present era when digitization had become indispensable for
socio-economic-development of a country, Pakistan needed to establish a strong platform of professionals and experts to identify innovative ideas for real issues through technology.
To promote an entrepreneurial culture and self-sustainable businesses for youth, the National Idea Bank organized this competition to encourage collaboration for developing innovation based startups, prototypes and ideas where a large number of innovators and entrepreneurs had submitted their ideas.
He appreciated Dr. Nasru Minallah, Director ORIC and his team for their efforts.
The winners included Faisal Farid grabbed first position (category E-commerce), Yusuf Javed bin Mansoor secured 2nd position (Construction), Ibrahim Afridi got 3rd position (Natural Resource), Mehtab Khalid got 4th Position (Education), Asif Habib got 5th Position (Agriculture) and Rahim Ullah grabbed 6th Position (Human Health).