ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The OIC Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH) organized a meeting of Focal Persons of COMSTECH Consortium of Excellence (CCoE) to discuss progress and review various initiatives of CCoE.
In his opening remarks, the Coordinator General COMSTECH Professor Dr. M. Iqbal Choudhary said that the most important asset is the human resources and what we can do to furnish it by giving quality education.
Talking about the African region, he suggested that Pakistan should expand its diplomatic presence in the region to help make outreach and interaction with African nations easy.
Professor Dr. Iqbal Choudhary asked the participants to find out how we can use CCoE platform to benefit Pakistan.
The Coordinator General COMSTECH informed that the role of COMSTECH in CCoE is to facilitate the interaction of member universities with the OIC member states but the key role to run this initiative is of the member institutions. COMSTECH would fund and facilitate travel arrangements, whereas local hospitality will be arranged by the host institution.
The major agenda items of the meeting included for discussions were frequent interaction among the institutions, information sharing, active participation in COMSTECH events, update on CCoE activities, introduction to COMSTECH technology and innovation portal, and COMSTECH-ICCBS international exhibition among others.
The participants of the meeting assured their utmost cooperation in the effective implementation of various initiatives of the consortium.
It was also agreed that consortium member institutions would work closely together through experience, expertise, and knowledge sharing. The meeting of the consortium would be held on a quarterly basis, and the next meeting would be hosted by Government College University, Lahore.
A joint MoU signing ceremony among CCoE member institutions and COMSTECH would also be held soon.
Currently, 26 leading universities and research institutions of Pakistan and from other OIC member states are members of CCoE. Scholarships, fellowships, technician training, and technology commercialization are the major programmes of CCoE.
The OIC Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Pakistan launched “COMSTECH Consortium of Excellence (CCoE)” comprising of leading academic and research institutions of Pakistan and OIC member states in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, in November last year.
 organized a meeting of Focal Persons of COMSTECH Consortium of Excellence (CCoE) to discuss progress and review various initiatives of CCoE.){kind=link}