The impact of innovation
As we build ITU in Lahore, we hope it will revive our economy, create jobs and enhance competitiveness of IT industry.
The writer is the vice-chancellor of the newly-established IT University in Lahore. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
When I arrived at MIT, in 2002, after completing my PhD at University of Cambridge, I was a little underwhelmed by the campus of MIT. Compared with the University of Cambridge, which had a campus that sprawled an entire city, MIT seemed like a collection of plain-looking buildings, with several key departments in rented space.
What made MIT special was not as much its campus or facilities, but its focus on solving real-world problems and the entrepreneurial streak it inculcates in its students. MIT alumni have started 25,800 companies. These companies employ more than three million people and generate annual revenues of over $1.9 trillion. If MIT was a country, it would have the eleventh highest GDP of any nation in the world.
It is not just MIT that has had this kind of impact. If we combine the companies founded by Stanford University and MIT alumni, these companies annually add $4.7 trillion to the world economy. They have generated 8.4 million jobs since 1930. If we treat Stanford and MIT as a single country, it will be the world’s fourth richest country in the world with a GDP higher than Germany’s!
This is the impact technology universities can have on the fortune of a country. Not too far from home, this was recognised by Jawaharlal Nehru many decades ago, which led to the creation of the now-famed Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).
Graduates of IIT have led the information technology (IT) revolution in India and hold many key positions worldwide, bringing both business and enterprise home. India has some of the biggest IT companies in the world, including Tata Consulting Services, which has annual revenues of over $10 billion. As a point of comparison, Pakistan’s entire annual software export is less than two billion dollars.
Unfortunately, research and development in universities in Pakistan has rarely translated in improving the high-tech economy of Pakistan. For many decades, universities in Pakistan lacked funding and focus on research. While the advent of the Higher Education Commission has led to an increased focus on research, this research has rarely translated into improving the competitiveness of our technology industry. Especially in engineering and technology, research papers must translate into intellectual property, innovative products and services. In a field like IT, it often does not take much beyond the proverbial two-students-in-a-garage to start a billion dollar company. Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft, Google, HP, Facebook were all started like that.
However, instilling an entrepreneurial streak in our next generation of innovators and academicians will require planning and investment. As an example, the British government invested $65 million to establish the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) in 2000. The programme was aimed at replicating in Cambridge the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the top US universities.
It is with this spirit that we are starting the Information Technology University (ITU) in Lahore. Starting with a graduate programme in Computer Science, the curriculum of ITU is designed to encourage students to work on real-world and locally relevant problems. Students will work in cross-disciplinary research labs, with the aim of building solutions that have real impact beyond research papers. In the entrepreneurship course, students are expected to develop an early version of a working product, alongside a business plan. In a course called development lab, students work with local communities to devise technology solutions for people living at the bottom of the pyramid. The corresponding research lab at ITU is focused on addressing the fundamental disconnect between technology designed for the developed world and the physical, economic and social realities of a country like Pakistan. Going simply by sheer market size, billions of dollars are waiting to be made with the appropriate entrepreneurial ecosystem.
As we take the first steps towards building the MIT of Pakistan, we hope that it will play its part in reviving our economy, creating jobs and enhancing the competitiveness of our IT industry.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 27th, 2013.
What made MIT special was not as much its campus or facilities, but its focus on solving real-world problems and the entrepreneurial streak it inculcates in its students. MIT alumni have started 25,800 companies. These companies employ more than three million people and generate annual revenues of over $1.9 trillion. If MIT was a country, it would have the eleventh highest GDP of any nation in the world.
It is not just MIT that has had this kind of impact. If we combine the companies founded by Stanford University and MIT alumni, these companies annually add $4.7 trillion to the world economy. They have generated 8.4 million jobs since 1930. If we treat Stanford and MIT as a single country, it will be the world’s fourth richest country in the world with a GDP higher than Germany’s!
This is the impact technology universities can have on the fortune of a country. Not too far from home, this was recognised by Jawaharlal Nehru many decades ago, which led to the creation of the now-famed Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).
Graduates of IIT have led the information technology (IT) revolution in India and hold many key positions worldwide, bringing both business and enterprise home. India has some of the biggest IT companies in the world, including Tata Consulting Services, which has annual revenues of over $10 billion. As a point of comparison, Pakistan’s entire annual software export is less than two billion dollars.
Unfortunately, research and development in universities in Pakistan has rarely translated in improving the high-tech economy of Pakistan. For many decades, universities in Pakistan lacked funding and focus on research. While the advent of the Higher Education Commission has led to an increased focus on research, this research has rarely translated into improving the competitiveness of our technology industry. Especially in engineering and technology, research papers must translate into intellectual property, innovative products and services. In a field like IT, it often does not take much beyond the proverbial two-students-in-a-garage to start a billion dollar company. Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft, Google, HP, Facebook were all started like that.
However, instilling an entrepreneurial streak in our next generation of innovators and academicians will require planning and investment. As an example, the British government invested $65 million to establish the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) in 2000. The programme was aimed at replicating in Cambridge the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the top US universities.
It is with this spirit that we are starting the Information Technology University (ITU) in Lahore. Starting with a graduate programme in Computer Science, the curriculum of ITU is designed to encourage students to work on real-world and locally relevant problems. Students will work in cross-disciplinary research labs, with the aim of building solutions that have real impact beyond research papers. In the entrepreneurship course, students are expected to develop an early version of a working product, alongside a business plan. In a course called development lab, students work with local communities to devise technology solutions for people living at the bottom of the pyramid. The corresponding research lab at ITU is focused on addressing the fundamental disconnect between technology designed for the developed world and the physical, economic and social realities of a country like Pakistan. Going simply by sheer market size, billions of dollars are waiting to be made with the appropriate entrepreneurial ecosystem.
As we take the first steps towards building the MIT of Pakistan, we hope that it will play its part in reviving our economy, creating jobs and enhancing the competitiveness of our IT industry.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 27th, 2013.