For man who drafted Pakistan’s first IT policy, an honorary degree

Dr Zaidi was awarded the Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 2007.

The man who drafted Pakistan’s first IT policy, Dr S M Junaid Zaidi, has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, said a press release issued on Tuesday.

Dr Zaidi, awarded the prestigious Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 2007, is the founding rector of the Comsats Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), which was chartered by the government in 2000 and has grown to have campuses in seven cities, over 20,000 students and 2,500 faculty members.

Dr Zaidi’s professional experience spans 36 years, said the press release. His expertise ranges from devising Build-Operate-Transfer mechanisms to Technology Commercialization and Utilization, Project Planning & Management, Industrial Information Networking, Operations Research, System Designing, Technology Policy Analysis, Technology Monitoring & Forecasting and Technology Transfer.

He holds a doctorate in Optimisation of Algorithms on Networking from the University of Birmingham in England. Before CIIT, Dr Zaidi served in many distinguished high profile positions at the United Nations (UN) and in the Government of Pakistan, said the press release.

In his time with the UN, Dr Zaidi served as an adviser to the Malaysian government and later at the UN ESCAP Asia and Pacific Centre, where he was part of advisory missions to Fiji, Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand and Vietnam as a UN expert on IT and helped them establish their technology transfer and industrial technology information systems.

He also wrote two concept papers for the government and Comsats, which led to the establishment of the Virtual University and Comsats Internet Services.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th, 2012.