Written by by Dr. Jonathan Addleton – FCCU Rector
Despite the extreme heat, we welcomed many visitors and hosted various academic, student, outreach, and other activities on campus.
For example, the Mass Communication Department hosted a two-day “Regional Hub” event on June 20-21 funded by the International Communication Association (ICA) and organized around the theme Communication and Global Human Rights. Dr. Firasat Jabeen and her colleagues did a wonderful job in inviting speakers from across Pakistan and beyond, with some participating on-line and others joining in person from universities in Punjab, Sindh, KPK, and Balochistan. This is the first time an ICA event has been held in Pakistan, paving the way for the even larger regional ICA conference that Forman will host in early December.
Similarly, Forman’s Computer Science Department held its annual Computer Science Senior Projects Exhibition (COMSPEX) in early June, featuring more than 20 projects aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Many from the IT industry attended including representatives from TKXEL, Devsinc, Venturenox, and Khazana Enterprises, among others. Omair Ahmed, Saad Yasin and Ahmad Tariq were awarded “Best Senior Project in the Applications Category” for their project IntelliRoads: Next-Gen Traffic Management System for the Cities of Tomorrow, supervised by Dr. Muhammad Haroon Shakeel.
In the Research Category, the Best Senior Project Award went to Saad Muzzafar, Muhib Nadeem and Yamna Hassan for their project B-NIAS: Bi-directional Neural-Interfaced Automation Symbiosis. As for Best Poster, that award went to Hamaz Ahmed, Subhan Wasif and Maheen Khurram for their project Thought Visualization Using LLMs.
The COMSPEX event was well covered in the local media including the Lahore Rang morning television show:
In a similar vein, students enrolled in the Communication Campaign Design course offered by Forman’s Mass Communication Department were invited to ARY News/Hum TV to discuss their class project; supervised by Assistant Professor Dr. Syed Saqib. It was titled Digital Detox and focused on electronic waste management. Beyond electronic waste management, other topics covered during the Communication Campaign Design course, all organized around the UN SDGs, included nutrition for pregnant and lactating women; breaking gender stereotypes; environmental outreach; and combatting drug use, among other concerns.