This project was the brainchild of Late Dr. Zahir Ali Syed (director UIT) who was killed in a suspected robbery attempt on 11th June. He wanted to bring in the best that he can.
This is my Alma Mater and lately projects are focusing on what can be done with limited and available resources, loss of Dr. Zahir was a huge blow.
MERL is Housed in different Universities in Pakistan which Coordinates/pool resources across multiple universities for R&D.
www.uit.edu
Who is Dr Zahir Ali Syed?
He got a PhD degree from the University of Southern California/Stanford University and a MS degree from MIT, both in Electrical Engineering. Published a number of papers, obtained a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics from Karachi University. Was the top student of Karachi University for 1974 and was awarded the Dawood Gold medal and the Quaid-e-Azam Scholarship to do PhD. in USA.
He had over 30 years of professional experience in senior management positions in a number of sectors that included Education, IT, Social, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He had experience of running and teaching in a Degree Awarding Institute, Development of Strategy, Plans and Policies; Drafting Legal Contracts; in Designing and Conducting Business Plan Competitions, Designing and Implementing IT Solutions, Process Improvement, Project Management, Quality Assurance and Software Development.
He was serving as Director Usman Institute of Technology (UIT), a premier higher education institute imparting Electrical Engineering and Computer Science education and Co-Chair of MIT Enterprise Forum Pakistan that is working to promote entrepreneurship in Pakistan
Previously, he was the CEO of Cambridge Advisors Network (CAN), an Entrepreneurship and Business Advisory firm, and Executive Director of The i-Care Foundation which is Pakistan’s first, donor advised philanthropic fund. He was Director of the Karachi Institute of Information Technology (KIIT) which was a degree awarding institute, he was also involved in various capacities at a number of leading Universities of Pakistan. Was Director of National ICT R&D Fund, established Avanza Solutions Pakistan and also helped establish the ABM Group of companies. Dr Zahir was a consultant at LSI Logic Corporation USA.