National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES or FAST-NU) is a University in Pakistan with headquarters at Islamabad and campuses at Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar. The university offers Undergraduate, Graduate and PhD level degrees in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Telecommunication Engineering, Business Administration, and Mathematics. It is honoured as the first multi-campus national university in Pakistan. Its history dates back to 1985 when the Foundation for Advancement of Science and Technology put together an effort for developing sciences in Pakistan and to fulfill their aim they set up institutes for computer science in the two major cities of Pakistan: Karachi and Lahore. Later on they expanded it to the capital city of Pakistan, Islamabad and to Peshawar also. NUCES is recognized as one of the top engineering university by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan as well as Pakistan engineering council ([PEC]).[5]
The National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences received its charter in 2000 in the Federal Area (capital). It became the first truly multi-campus university of Pakistan with campuses in Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar and Lahore.
Departments
The university has four departments in each of its campuses. These are:
- Department of Computer Science
- Islamabad campus head: Prof. Dr. Anwar M. Mirza
- Karachi campus head: Mr. Zafar Nasir
- Lahore campus head: Dr. Sarmad Hussain
- Peshawar campus head: Dr. Farooq Ahmad
- Department of Humanities & Sciences
- Islamabad campus head: Mr. Sher Afzal Khan
- Karachi campus head: Mr Saud Khan Awan
- Lahore campus head: Dr. S. M. Husnine
- Peshawar campus head: Prof. Chand Rehman
- Department of Management Sciences
- Islamabad campus head: Mr. Mobashar Sadik
- Karachi campus head: Dr. Nadeem Syed
- Lahore campus head: Dr. Zafar Iqbal
- Peshawar campus head: Dr. Sahibzada Ghiasul Haq
- Department of Telecom & Computer Engineering
- Islamabad campus head: Dr. Waseem Ikram
- Karachi campus head: Dr. Imran Tasadduq
- Lahore campus head: Dr. Anjum Ali
- Peshawar campus head: Dr. S. Amjad Hussain Shah
[edit] Campuses of NUCES
The University has campuses at Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.
[edit] Islamabad Campus
The Islamabad Campus was shifted in phases from its previous location at G-9/4, to a newly built campus in the sector H-11/4 covering 15 acres (61,000 m2) of land. The architecture of the building is reminiscent of the traditional Mughal design. The campus includes five computer laboratories (1. Graduate lab, 2. Research lab, 3. Final Year Project lab, 4. Common lab-I, 5. Common lab-II) all equipped with Intel Core 2 and Pentium 4 computers, a number of telecom laboratories, a library and a cafetaria. Various sports facilities, that include Cricket , Football , Volleyball, Badminton, and Table-tennis, are also available on this campus. Recently the Government of Pakistan has also allotted another 40 acres (160,000 m2) of land in H-11/4. The university intends to build a new state-of-the-art facility at this location.
- Current Director: Dr. Aftab Ahmad Maroof
Earlier these people have served as the director
Dr Ayub Alvi (1996-2000)
The Islamabad Campus offers the following degree programs: All the engineering programs offered are PEC recognized. [6][7]
- Bachelor of Science
- Electrical engineering with specialization in Telecommunication (new Program from 2009)
- Computer science
- BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration)
- Master of Science
- Computer science
- Electrical engineering
- MBA (Master of Business Administration)
- PhD
- Computer science
NU-FAST is also well-known for its colourful functions and seasonal events. Example of this is the recent even that took place, where students of batch of 2006 gave a welcome reception to the fresh batch of 2007 in the Islamabad campus
Research Centers[9]
[edit] Research at Islamabad Campus [10]
[edit] Centre for Agro-Informatics Research (C@IR) [11][12]
C@IR is a research center dedicated to development of indigenous IT solutions to serve the Agriculture sector. Currently a 26 month long Rs. 30+ millions Agricultural Decision Support System (ADDS) project is underway with a 30+ strong team, the ADSS is accessible via www.agroict.org/adss. The ADSS project aims at developing (i) an Agriculture Data Warehouse (ii) a web based OLAP tool (iii) fast data mining tool and (iii) a yield loss forecasting system.
[edit] Machine Intelligence Group (MInG) [13][14]
This group is conducting research on theoretical aspects and practical applications in various fields of computational and machine intelligence (neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, etc.). It is focused on bringing together the expertise from the fields of machine learning, computational intelligence, image processing, data mining, and multi-agents to design and develop practical intelligent systems. Priority is given to applications related and suited to Pakistani environment. The group is supervising several PhD and MS theses and undergraduate projects.The group is headed by Prof. Dr. A. Rauf Baig [15][16]
[edit] Software Engineering Research Center (SERC) [17]
The objectives of this centre are to carry out research and development in software engineering and allied application areas. The centre promotes theoretical research in the software engineering area, resolve problems faced by the software industry, and helps establish software engineering practices in the industry. Through SERC, the University seeks to help and support the local software industry in establishing and improving their processes and practices through continuous feedback and training. SERC aims to achieve these objectives by collecting the industry data to understand productivity, cost, and quality parameters. This will hopefully also help in developing more suitable process and lifecycle models for different types of projects being undertaken by our local industry in the offshore and distributed environment. Software Architecture, Software Project Management, Software Quality and Process Improvement are main areas of research.
[edit] Next Generation Intelligent Networks Research Center (NeXGIN RC) [18][19]
NeXGIN RC is established at the Islamabad campus to conduct state-of-the-art research in different domains of Next Generation Networks (NGn): Security, Quality of Service (QoS), Convergence of the fixed and mobile networks with a special focus on IMS and 3 GPP. Application of wireless sensor networks in Tele-medicine and secure Mobiles OS. Our academia-industry collaborative research efforts have culminated in three research projects worth more than PKR 34 million funded by ICT R&D fund. --M A K 17:43, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Research at Karachi Campus [20]
[edit] Centre for Research in Ubiquitous Computing (CRUC) [21]
Center for Research in Ubiquitous Computing (CRUC) was formed in March 2006. Ubiquitous Computing (computing everywhere for everyone) promotes the idea of integrating computation into the environment, rather than having computers in daily life. The idea will enable people and machines to move around and interact with information and computing in informal way, to sense changes in their environment and to automatically adapt and act based on these changes. At CRUC the research focuses on several topics:
- Pattern Recognition & Multi-Lingual Interfaces
- Multi Agent Systems
- Wireless Networks & Grid Computing
- Human Computer Interaction
- Knowledge Engineering & Information Retrieval
- Robotics & Sensor based Communication
- Augmented & Virtual Reality
- Algorithms
Technology Competitions and Exhibitions
NUCES, still popularly known as FAST (Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Technology), not only fostered academics but also put immense support toward the extra curricular activities and became one of the few universities of Pakistan with so much support for student activities as a result many student organizations originated to make a mark.
[edit] Digitaleyez (Karachi)
An all Pakistan Inter-University Photography, Media and Design competition,Digital eyez is a Photography centric event that was held at FAST, Karachi in 2008. It was attended by photographers from all the top universities of the country. The event also held competitions in animation, web designing, on spot layout and quiz.
[edit] SOFTEC (Lahore)
SOFTEC (SOFTware Exhibition and Competition) is one of the most important and commendable[citation needed] software competitions in Pakistan. SOFTEC (softec.org.pk) is organized every year at the Lahore campus of NUCES. It is the largest information technology event of Pakistan[citation needed] with contests and exhibitions of software from all over the country and the neighboring countries of South Asia. It mainly comprises Software Competition, Dynamic Programming Contest with the collaboration of ACM's[30] NUCES Chapter, Kids Corner (where students from Grade School display their ideas), G3n. X (Generation Xtreme) Gaming Competition and book festival.
The 12th SOFTEC (third International) was held on 05-6 May 2007. The 4th International & 13th National SOFTEC was held on 30-31 August,2008 and even budget goes up to Rs.5 million. http://www.softec.org.pk
[edit] ProCom (Karachi)
ProCom is the software Programming Competition that is organized every year at the Karachi campus. ProCom comprises two main competitions, Programming and Software competition. Students from all over the country are invited to take part in these competitions.
In 2005, the scope of ProCom was extended to include Hardware and Gaming competitions. ProCom '05 received recognition and appreciation from the offices of the President and the Prime Minister. The event received wide accolades from the industry, the participant institutes and the media.
In April 2006, the 7th annual ProCom event was held. The past six ProCom events have been highly successful at the Student Level, Information Technology events in Pakistan, particularly Karachi. Since its inception, ProCom has been one of the most popular Information Technology events in Pakistan.
[edit] NaSCon (Islamabad)
The Islamabad campus holds a software exhibition every year by the name of NaSCon.[31] In the year 2005, NaSCon included the Software Exhibition and Competition, Speed Programming Contest, Poster Design and Quiz Competition, two day Gaming Competition alongside Pakistan's very first Multimedia competition which included music videos.
In the year 2006 event (held April 30 and May 1, 2006), included, in addition to the Software and Engineering Projects, Quiz Competition, activities like Speed Programming, Engineering Problem Solving Competition, Gaming, Movies/Song videos Competition, and Creative Poster Competition for different age groups. Seminars by eminent professionals on the current trends in Engineering and Information Technology were also held.
[edit] Student Organizations
[edit] IEEE Student Branch
The IEEE Student Branch is a IEEE student entity, under which the university can organize Seminars, Conferences, Congresses, Lectures and invited talks of Professionals, Acamadecians and Researchers. Three independent IEEE Student Branches are existed in its 3 campuses - Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. IEEE NUCES-Karachi organized IEEE PSC 2007 on July 6-7, 2007, ProCom.Net 2009 on May 02, 2009 and number of seminars and workshops. They also participated in IEEE PSC 2008 on August 16-17, 2008, IEEE KSSC 2008 on December 26, 2008 and now going to participate in IEEE PSC 2009 at IEEE NSEECS, NUST, Islamabad during May 29-31, 2009.
[edit] The Webmasters
The Webmasters is a student organization with a commitment to professionalism and upholding the standards of excellence of FAST-NU Karachi. The individuals on the team are not only web design & development elites, but also possess a strong sense of ethics, character and discipline.
The main function of the team is the continual development and maintenance of the Karachi campus portal khi.nu.edu.pk with features including Courses Forum, Student Blog, Career Centre, Campus News and our Graduate Profile among an ever expanding list of information services.
Their efforts are not limited to the above. The WMs also conduct seminars to increase awareness of the market’s demands, hold events & workshops with the aim to provide motivation and opportunity for students to learn new things, and organize competitions to expose those who have the greatest potential. DIGITALeyez (Media Event) was another marked success that the WMs bagged, in the year 2008.
[edit] OSAF
FAST Football League
The first season of FAST Football League was conducted in the Karachi campus by a group of students interested in the sport. There were five teams competing for the title namely, Warriors FC, FC Party, Cool Spurs, and Gunners FC were amongst the contenders. Unfortunately the season did not finish and the eventual champion is yet to be determined.
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