CEID at Research & Technology Showcase 2022

Here are some of the highlights from the Sindh Higher Education Commission’s Research & Technology Showcase 2022. This exhibition was held on 19th-20th May and in collaboration with NED University of Engineering and Technology. With almost 340 projects displayed by researchers and students across the province, it was a momentous milestone in history. It was a pleasure to see innovative and state of the art solutions developed for real world problems.

During this event, CEID at DHA Suffa University actively participated and presented its startups including Slosh AI Solutions, Vivid Labs, Istehaar, and Handoff. The startups promoted their products and engaged in meaningful conversations throughout the two-day event. Details of these startups are as follows:

Slosh AI Solutions was founded in 2019 to develop smart assistive tools for radiologists. Their goal is to develop accurate and cost effective AI solutions for the healthcare industry. As of now, they are developing smart solutions revolving around chest x-rays.

Website: https://slosh.ai/

Vivid Labs is a Karachi-based startup that focuses on delivering immersive 3D experiences. They proudly presented their latest project, Next Gen Classrooms, at the Expo exhibition. The concept behind these classrooms is to utilize the technology of VR (Virtual Reality) to offer real-time experience. It allows students to visualize the lessons they are being taught in schools or colleges. Students and professionals approached them with inquisitive queries regarding the technology and its potential in the tech industry.

Website: https://vivid-labs.com/

Ishtehaar is an IoT-based solution, designed to evolve marketing strategies. Their basic idea is to attach HD screens on the back of automobiles to promote brands. This solution would eliminate the need of using enormous billboards and replace them in a tech-savvy manner. As it is a Final Year Project with an intention to become a startup, students benefited from the positive criticism and professional feedback.

Handoff is a social platform that serves as a common platform for people and celebrities. The idea behind the platform is to offer a platform where people can schedule and plan meetings with celebrities. This app offers accessibility without having anyone go through much trouble.

Website: https://handoff.app/

It was a refreshing sight to watch industry experts discuss ideas and offer constructive feedback. This event served as an opportunity for people to display their innovative solutions and landscape the tech industry of Pakistan. The day concluded with Mrs. Syeda Shela Raza, presenting an award to the Vice-Chancellor (Engr. Prof. Dr. Muhammad Afzal Haque) and Dean (Engr. Prof. Dr. Johar Khurshid Farooqi) of DSU.

 

DSU Computer Science Department collaborates with “Digital Eggheads” for industry based learning for the Social Media course

DHA Suffa University (DSU) always strives to provide an optimal learning & knowledge sharing experience for students. This is achieved by many ways including providing industry exposure coupled with the classroom learning. By maximizing industry engagement for students, they can not only enjoy a better learning experience but at the same time they get an opportunity to acquire industry adeptness as well. This way the students gain industry-relevant knowledge along with theoretical classroom learning. Such experiences make their adaptability in their relevant industry easier and at the same time, the employer also gets an industry-ready employee.

In this regard during Fall2021 a course titled “Social Media Marketing” was offered to the students of the Computer Science (CS) department. For this course the CS department at DSU collaborated with a digital agency, “Digital Eggheads” (DE). This collaboration was purely for academic purposes to help students in their learning by sharing industry best practices with them.

Under this collaboration two senior members Mr. Safeer E Hussain, Co-Founder & Director Operations, DE and Zainab Abdul Rehman, Head of Strategy, DE engaged throughout the semester and helped in:

  • Reviewing the course content and suggested changes/updates.
  • Conducted sessions on social media strategy and related topics. Through these sessions the students were guided about industry best practices for developing a social media strategy for an organization. This led the students on the right path for carrying out their semester course projects related to developing a social media strategy for an organization.
  • Further DE helped in the evaluation of the projects as well. The objective of such evaluation was not only to assign marks but the expert and candid feedback on the projects from the DE representatives helped the students understand their highlighting points and shortcomings as well.

The semester teaching was carried out by applying “Project based – learning by doing” methodology. Students were divided into teams and each team was asked to find an organization that had zero or very little presence on social media but at the same time had a strong need to grow their social media marketing. The teams had to apply the classroom learning to develop social media marketing strategy for their selected organization and also implement the strategy. The teams served as Social Media Consultants for their selected organizations. This was a guided project where constant guidance and monitoring was provided by the faculty at DSU, Ms. Eram Abbasi along with Mr. Safeer and Ms. Zainab from DE.

This teaching methodology with industry engagement provided the students a fun learning experience as they enjoyed implementing the theory concepts into practical work. They experienced rich learning situations which included enjoying success and coping with failures, communicating with clients and satisfying their requirements, working in teams, team building and dealing with team conflicts, handling customer queries and satisfying their needs, and many more. They even experienced situations which they never thought of while going through the classroom learning until they experienced it themselves.

One of the team members presented her experience as; “Overall it was a nice exposure of working with the corporate sector. With all other learning one important lesson that we learned from this project was that we should not trust verbal conversation. It is really necessary to document each and every verbal commitments to avoid conflict ahead”

While sharing his experience another student says “The project gave us exposure as to how a social media strategy is developed in real world. Many lessons learned, like; how important is the customer persona in strategy development. The success or failure of a good strategy very much depends on identifying the right customer persona. Another important lesson we experienced was that one should be confident when being creative. One should think out of the box, be creative and step ahead. Nothing will then stop you”

A student shared his experience this way. “The Social Media Marketing course was very informative and fun to study. Thanks to the trainers/faculty for teaching us this course in a very friendly environment. The project work really boosted our confidence. The course helped us to develop confidence to step forward and present your ideas in front of externals”

Another experience shared was; “It was a great learning experience, the course, the project and the corporate experience. It helped us understand how things actually work in the corporate world. Gave us experience on how to make our thought process clear. We actually felt improvement in ourselves”

Hence, the semester ended with a rich learning and knowledge sharing experience for the students. Thanks to “Digital Eggheads” for providing such memorable learning experience for the CS students DSU.

 

Virtual Incubation Center running at DHA Suffa University

Center for entrepreneurship and Innovation Development at DHA Suffa University is running its Virtual incubation under which a large number of startups have been mentored and grown through CEID.

Following are some of the startups of our recent cohort:

1- SLOSH is an AI-based startup in Pakistan working on brain tumor detection using machine learning and deep learning algorithms.

Founder: Aiman Khan

Email: slosh.solutions@gmail.com

Website: http://www.slosh.ai/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/slosh-ai-solutions/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SloshAIsolutions/

2- MAPALYTICS is a technology company that provides smart 3D solutions for multiple industries. Using customized 3D scanning tech they generate high resolution scaled 3D models. Mapalytics generates VR, AR, and holographic projection content using these models. The uses include digital heritage preservation, digital tourism, e-learning, real estate marketing, digital exhibitions etc.

Co-Founder: Syed Muhammad Osama Ahmed Gillani

Email: contact@mapalytics.org

Website: http://www.mapalytics.org/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mapalytics/about/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MAPALYTICS/

3) SMT-Self Management Training is a humanitarian company and its mission is to make the best use of knowledge, community, and technology to empower differently-abled people by making them emotionally, physically & financially independent

Founder: Romela Hameed

Email: connectwithsmt@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smt-self-management-training-77a261180/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/connectwithsmt/

4- Corsys design develop design innovative and creative products and services in field of Embedded Systems, Drone Development & Services, Mechanical Structures, Application Development & Game Development.

Founder: Syed Muhammad Ashar Ali

Email: info@corsys.com.pk

Website: http://corsys.com.pk/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/corsyspk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/corsyspk/

CEID at DSU Concludes the ‘SheCan’ Women Entrepreneurs Workshop

On 20th August, 2021 the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Development (CEID) at DHA Suffa University (DSU) organized a memorable ceremony to celebrate the successful entrepreneurial journey of women who went through a rigorous training program on starting their dream business. The training called “SheCan” was held for enthusiastic women of our country who participated in the workshops and received hands-on training to become successful business women.

During the pandemic, a lot of people lost their jobs and they being the only breadwinners of the household, their families suffered from financial crisis. The SheCan training was targeted to empower women by training them on how to run their low budget as well as home-based businesses and contribute to their family income within the convenience of their houses.

Chief Guest at the ceremony was Dr. Farhan Essa Abdullah, CEO Dr. Essa Laboratories. Other than that many prominent women entrepreneurs attended the ceremony.

Many senior personalities and students from DHA Suffa University (DSU) attended the event. Among DSU officials were;

Engr. Prof. Dr. Muhammad Afzal Haque (Vice Chancellor)

Prof. Dr. Ahmed Saeed Minhas (Pro-Vice Chancellor)

Engr. Prof. Dr. Johar Khurshid Farooqi (Dean)

Dr. Rizwan Tanveer (Head of Dept. Computer Science)

Dr. Shama Siddiqui (Faculty member)

Ms. Eram Abbasi (Director Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation Development)

 

SheCan – Women Entrepreneurs Workshop

SheCan – Women Entrepreneurs Workshop organized by The Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center (CEID) at DHA Suffa University (DSU) kicked-off on 5th August 2021 with a lot of enthusiasm by the participants and high hopes to start their dream business. The workshop started with an introduction followed by a briefing on the workshop plan. An icebreaking activity was conducted which served as an energizing booster for the participants. This activity helped participants to open up with lots of creative ideas sharing with each other in a friendly manner.
Initially the participants had queries as to how to take the first step to start their business. All their confusions were addressed by sharing stories of successful entrepreneurs combined with detailed discussion on the Ideation process.
Majority of the participants did not know where to start their businesses from, but the workshop facilitator, Ms. Eram Abbasi painted the picture of ideation process in such a way that all participants very excitedly started working on refining their idea. All the queries and puzzlements by the participants were addressed through this highly interactive session.
Successful women entrepreneurs were invited to share their success stories. Ms. Nadia Makhdumi, running her home based business as a nutritionist was invited to share her inspiring entrepreneurial journey and also share some tips for the participants on starting a home based business. She shared lots of tips about adjusting to the situations life throws at you and being patient and calm while learning and growing through new experiences. Another guest speaker Ms. Kanwal Gohar (Alumni of DSU) joined very soon to talk about her business journey. As she started her business during the pandemic situation, she had an exciting story to share regarding the challenges she had to face, and the lessons she learnt throughout.
After the inspiring stories another activity was carried out with the participants which further helped them refine their business ideas.
Dr. Farah Essa, President of Open Karachi was invited to inspire the participants. OPEN being an international platform for businesses to grow, Dr. Farah shared details about how OPEN facilitates entrepreneurs. She supported home-based-women-run businesses by motivating them to not only start their business but also strive to take their business global.
Finally, to end the session an exciting home activity was assigned to the participants. By the end of the session all the participants were highly motivated and energized to start their dream business come to life.

SheCan (Women Entrepreneurship Workshop)

DSU Alumni making strides in all fields of life.

Meet Danya Shahid, a successful women entrepreneur. She will be joining at SheCan (Women Entrepreneurship Workshop) to share her success story.

Details about SheCan workshop are available at https://www.facebook.com/events/161342292619573/

SheCan is a workshop for aspiring women entrepreneurs organized by The Centre of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Development (CEID)

https://www.facebook.com/DSU.CEID/

#DSUalumni #Womenempowerment #WeAreProud #CEID #SheCan