Microsoft Pakistan Wednesday organized the Campus Connect Day 2022, an Education Transformation Framework initiative that is taken to attain its goal of seamless knowledge transfer through digitalizing the education system and transforming learning practices of higher institutions across Pakistan. The event was attended by hundreds of academicians, vice chancellors of different universities, faculties, and government officials from both the public and private sectors. It is worth mentioning here that for over 12 years, Microsoft has been engaging with the Higher Education Commission and institutions across Pakistan to help transform education through the power of technology and this year again the engagements are built upon the four key pillars of the Microsoft Education Transformation Framework (ETF): Student Success, Academic Research, Secure and Connected Campus and Teaching and Learning.
The core objective of this hybrid blended event was to share the programs offered and delivered as part of the ETF and showcase the country’s top educational institutions that are diligently learning and implementing Microsoft technologies.
Also, how Microsoft is supporting the institutions in leveraging Microsoft’s customized products and services to digitize their core functions. Microsoft classroom features such as “Microsoft teams” that can help students, faculty, and staff to collaborate digitally. The benefits of other useful tools and platforms such as Microsoft Azure in Education and Academic Research – a power tool to improve services and reduce overheads at the same time.
The event successfully brought under discussion ways to engage students in a hybrid model environment, access to appropriate devices and learning platforms, technology integration and student well-being, and the impact of continuous professional learning on educators.
The event was also attended by leaders of education across Pakistan including Chairperson, Higher Education Commission, Dr. Shaista Sohail, Microsoft Country Education Lead, Mr. Jibran Jamshed and DG IT Mr. Nazeer Hussain. While expressing her thoughts, Dr. Shaista Sohail said that “Education sector is the backbone of any economy and since we know Microsoft is genuinely striving here in Pakistan for a great cause, we assure our absolute support in unleashing the true potential of technology in Pakistan”.
Country Education Lead for Microsoft in Pakistan, Mr. Jibran Jamshad said that “the last couple of years made us realize the massive impact of technology in our lives and the Education industry is no exception. The use of technology is equally needed for the public and private institutions and at the federal or provincial level.
“By driving customers through a cloud-first journey and modernizing their data centers/operations, gearing up students for future-ready skills through Microsoft certifications, modernizing classroom practices via hybrid learning, automating the back office through Dynamics 365 ERP and campus management system, we are trying not only to transform the system according to the need of the hour but also increasing efficiency and productivity”, he said.
Director General IT, HEC, Mr. Nazeer Hussain also shared his thoughts and said that “we, at HEC, are happy to extend our partnership to Microsoft, both to enhance the technological capacity of educational institutes and to address the challenges posed during pandemic as well as the emerging post pandemic situation. Microsoft has been a key partner in the transformation of Pakistan Education System through provision of cutting-edge IT solutions.
During these challenging times, Microsoft has beefed up its support for remote learning platforms like Teams among others. We count on Microsoft’s continued support and innovative solutions to benefit students, faculty members and educational administrators and enable Pakistan to compete with stakeholders in the international academic community”, he said.
