The Information Technology University (ITU) ( ur, ) is a

public university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in state ownership, owned by the state or receives significant government spending, public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private unive ...

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest ...

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. Founded in 2012, the university was founded and headed by

Umar Saif Umar Saif ( ur, ; born 1979) is a Pakistani computer scientist and academic. He is currently serving as CEO of SurveyAuto, Chief Digital Officer of the Jang Group and the Chief Investment Officer of Khudi Ventures. He is also serving as an advi ...

and is modeled after the MIT. The university is located within the high-rise

Arfa Software Technology Park Arfa Software Technology Park (previously known as Software Technology Park) is a skyscraper building and information technology park in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab, Pakistan, built in 2009. It is home to the Information Technology Universi ...

, while its permanent 183 acre campus is under construction on Barki Road. The university has varying degrees of partnerships with the

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

and also publishes the
MIT Technology Review
', Pakistan edition. The university is home to several

tenured Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...

academics, Pakistan's largest

startup incubator Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture ca ...

and maintains partnerships with EdX, IBM and the

US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other na ...

. It hosted

International Development Design Summit The International Development Design Summit (IDDS) is a collaboration to find cost effective technology solutions for the third world. It was first held in 2007 at MIT. It is held annually to study problems in the developing world and create rea ...

, organised by

IDIN IDIN (International Development Innovation Network) is a global network led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's D-Lab. It is funded by the United States Agency for International Development and Global Development Lab. History IDIN s ...

and

United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible f ...

(USAID).

History

Foundation and Vision

ITU was established in 2012 in order to advance scholarship and innovation in the areas of science, technology and engineering. ITU aspires to emulate the success of

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

through focus on cross-disciplinary applied research, the cultivation of an entrepreneurial culture in teaching and research, the maintenance of a close collaboration with the Information and Communication Technology industry and the development of strong ties with government funding agencies. With a structure that combines the best features of both public and private sector universities, ITU aims to serve as a center for excellence in academia, research, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Faculty

The university was formerly led by

(PhD from

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

) who has previously taught at the Cambridge–MIT Institute. Dr. Sarfraz Khurshid (PhD from MIT) is the current Vice Chancellor of the University. It has four faculties: * Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences * Faculty of Business and Management Sciences * Faculty of Sciences * Faculty of Engineering ITU offers following programs:
BS (Computer Science)

BS (Electrical Engineering)

BS (Computer Engineering)

BS (Management and Technology)

BS (Economics with Data Sciences)

MS (Computer Science)

MS (Data Science)

MS (Electrical Engineering)

MS (Development, Technology and Policy)
#

Executive MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accou ...

Innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or service (economics), services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a ...

Technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scie ...

and

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

(EMBITE)
PhD (Computer Science)

PhD (Electrical Engineering)

Research

ITU is home to several research centers and labs: * Center for Technology and Governance (CTG) * Technology and Research in Emerging Networks and Distributed Systems (TRENDS) * Neighborhood for Emerging World Technologies (NEWT) * Abdus Salam International Center of Mathematics * Center For Speech and Language Technologies * National Centre For Academic Integrity * Bio-Inspired Simulation & Modelling of Intelligent Life * Embedded Computing Laboratory * Scientometrics Lab * Data Science Lab * Business Analytics Lab * Vision Processing Lab * Innovations for Poverty Alleviation Lab (IPAL) Between 2013 and 2016 the university has conducted PKR 700 million (approx. US $7 million) in research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). It has received research funding from

Higher Education Commission (Pakistan) The Higher Education Commission (colloquially known as HEC) is a statutory body formed by the Government of Pakistan which was established in 2002 under the Chairmanship of Atta-ur-Rahman. Its main functions are funding, overseeing, regulati ...

, Government of the Punjab,

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH ( English: ''German Agency for International Cooperation GmbH''), often simply shortened to GIZ, is the main German development agency. It is headquartered in Bonn and Esch ...

(GIZ),

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

and

Department for International Development The Department for International Development (DFID) was a department of HM Government responsible for administering foreign aid from 1997 to 2020. The goal of the department was "to promote sustainable development and eliminate world poverty". D ...

(DfID).

First Convocation

The university's first convocation was held on December 17, 2017. `The university awarded its first Honorary Doctorate Degree awarded to Dr. Adil Najam, the inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original c ...

, and former Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). 139 students of

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

and Electrical Engineering graduated in the first convocation.

Second Convocation

Information Technology University held it
second convocation
on March 6, 2019 at Aiwan-i-Iqbal, Lahore. In total 181 successful graduates were awarded degrees. The successful graduates included 61 of BSCS, 56 of BSEE, 12 of EMBITE, 43 of MSCS and 9 of MSEE.

Lahore Technology Award

ITU gave Lahore Technology Award at its first convocation to the

’s

Nergis Mavalvala Nergis Mavalvala (born 1968) is a Pakistani-American astrophysicist. She is the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she is also the Dean of the university's School of S ...

for her work in the gravitational theory.

References

External links

ITU official website
{{authority control Public universities and colleges in Punjab, Pakistan Computer science institutes in Pakistan 2012 establishments in Pakistan Universities and colleges in Lahore Educational institutions established in 2012 Engineering universities and colleges in Pakistan