Co-sponsored by COMSTECH

COMSTECH, in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) held a consultation Workshop for Development of a multi-national Project proposal on “Promotion of Plant Genetic Resources: Use, Varietal Development and Integration in the Seed System” on 11th of April, 2019 at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative office, NARC in Islamabad.

Representatives from governments from five OIC Member countries, namely Pakistan, Iraq, Jordan, Oman and Azerbaijan participated in the workshop. The meeting was also attended by the Deputy Country Representative of FAO, the Chairman PARC, the DG NARC and Adviser COMSTECH. One of the outcomes of the meeting was the offer from Pakistan to provide access to OIC countries to store up to 5000 germplasm at its own gene bank, as safety duplicates.

This activity is an expression of COMSTECH efforts to address food security, farm productivity and preservation of plant biodiversity as key priorities under OIC STI agenda 2026, through cooperation between Member States and development of human and technical capacity. Currently few of the OIC member states have the adequate facilities and manpower to address the vital concern of preserving the germ plasm and seed varieties of their exiting crop varieties and for exchanging and integrating new crop varieties into their own agricultural systems. This activity was held to find practical ways to address these needs led by the OIC countries that are more advanced in this domain. This effort was initiated during a meeting organized by COMSTECH in March 2018 where an OIC Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources was formed. After thorough deliberations and consultations between members of this group, led by PARC, a Concept Note for a project proposal has been developed in consultation with the FAO that outlines the goals, activities and required resources for these purposes.

In this expert level meeting presentations were made on the status of plan genetic resources’ preservation, development, and integration in the seed system of each participating country. The technical, human resource and legislative needs for these purposes were identified. In the 2nd session of the workshop the Concept Note for the Project prepared by FAO and PARC was shared with the participants. The main objective of the proposed project is to enhance technical capacity and performance of concerned institutions of both the public and private sectors to broaden their collaboration in plant genetic resource use and crop variety development facilitated by rapid flow of newly developed crop varieties in the seed system, to enhance farm productivity and ensuring food and nutritional security. Consensus was established on the basics of the proposed project and technical details such as costing, modes and sources of funding, and timelines were discussed in detail. The project proposal would be developed by the PARC in consultation with FAO and COMSTECH. Azerbaijan offered to host the next meeting of the Working Group later this year.

AFFORDABLE & CLEAN ENERGY FOR ALL

29 – 31 July 2019, Malaysia

COMSTECH and Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) UKM, Malaysia jointly organized a 3-day workshop, from 29 to 31 July 2019 to explore the issues and to share experiences and knowledge on renewable energy between energy professionals and academics of OIC countries.

The workshop gathered energy scientists, experts and young scholars from several OIC Member States. The workshop continued for 3 days and experts gave insights into new technological advancements, R&D and commercialization of renewable energy technologies.

The workshop was organized for capacity building in the light of the core mandate of COMSTECH to strengthen cooperation among OIC Member States in science and technology (S&T) and to enhance their capabilities through training in emerging areas.

The resource persons talked about following topics:

Solar PV Technologies & Development

Solar Thermal Technologies & Development

Biomass Energy – Frontier Technologies

Smart & Micro Grids

Pico, Micro Hydro Power Plants

Low Energy Architecture and Thermal Comfort

Renewable Energy Installations, Policies, Pricing & Employability: An OIC Perspective

Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Systems

Wind Energy Technologies

Marine Power Generation

The Future of Energy Storage Systems

Environmental & Economic Impacts of Solar PV Systems

On the final day, all the participants were given hands on training on HOMER Software. The HOMER Pro software is the global standard for optimizing micro-grid design, from village power and island utilities to grid-connected systems. It uses three powerful tools in one software, so that engineering and economics work side by side. The session was very interactive and all the participants learned the basics of using all the tools and dynamics of the software.

Resource persons and participants from Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, contributed to the workshop and shared their research and practices in the field of Renewable Energy (RE) technologies. A total of 38 participants from OIC Member Countries participated in the workshop other than Malaysia.

Students and researchers from different universities of Malaysia also presented their posters to showcase the advanced research being carried out in the field of renewable energy technologies. Their posters mainly focused on energy storage, fuel cells, integrated energy modelling, green buildings, etc.

On the concluding day, all the participants were taken to the SERI labs to showcase the research being carried out at their institute. SERI is already having many collaborative research projects with other energy institutes in OIC Member States.

Summarizing, the workshop explored the advanced research in renewable technologies, issues of cost and sustainability of various energy options, and challenges in the adoption of new technologies. The workshop focused on the analysis of different RE technologies, institutional policy and frameworks, and levelized costs of various RE technologies. The main suggestions to emerge from the workshop were:

to develop strategies for integration of RE Technologies

to have a sustainable energy mix

to design support policies that promote the integration of green technologies

to facilitate researchers from Member States for collaborations and funding opportunities

to facilitate Member States in enhancing their institutional capacity building

to develop a greener and sustainable transition to combat climate change

As a sideline activity, a brainstorming session on establishment of OIC Energy Working Group was conducted. Suggestions were invited from different stakeholders so as to formally establish the OIC Energy working group, in the third phase of this series of Energy workshops being organized by COMSTECH

February 22-24, 2016 at COMSTECH, Islamabad-Pakistan

Program Download

May 24-27, 2016
Venue: Forman Christian College University, Lahore

April 18-23, 2016 at COMSTECH, Islamabad-Pakistan
Organized by COMSTECH in collaboration with Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA), and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

13-15 December, 2016

Venue: COMSTECH Secretariat, Islamabad

January 10-11, 2017

Program of the Workshop

In a world where the gap between science and society continues to widen and where the science communication landscape is changing fast, there is a growing demand for people with professional skills in the effective public communication of science. Realizing the need, a workshop was jointly organized by COMSTECH and Technology Times in January 2017 at COMSTECH, Islamabad.

This two-day workshop exclusively addressed the needs of scientific writing and science communication. It endeavoured to impart required knowledge and expertise so that science could be presented in various media in an informative as well as entertaining manner and to attract and hold the attention of a common person.

The Workshop was designed to provide professional development opportunities for people working in environments where science and research outcomes need to be made accessible to the general public and to science policy audiences. The workshop comprised of the following modules;

Communicating Science to the Public

Communicating Global Challenges: Climate Change, Water, Food & Energy

Communicating Science to Policymakers and Science Diplomacy

Analysis of Media Reporting on Life Sciences

Issues & Risks Associated with Science Communication in Digital Age

Science Communication and Academia

Scientists, science communication officers and media persons benefited from the workshop. Many suggestions came from the participants, such as;

introduction of Science Communication as an exclusive beat in media houses;

curriculum reform to incorporate explicit training on Science Communication

adding strategic value of effective and innovative science communication for S&T organizations

continuing program to promote science popularization through Science Communication

support for existing science and technology media houses

April 10 – 12, 2017, Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstracts of the Talks and Profiles of the Speakers

Prof. Syed Qasim Mehdi, a scientist of exceptional talents and great achievements, breathed his last on 28th September, 2016.  To honour Prof. Mehdi’s seminal contributions to human genetics research in Pakistan, COMSTECH with support of Dr. Qasim Ayub (Prof. Mehdi’s long time research associate) organized a symposium in his memory. Many former students, colleagues, and family members of Prof. Mehdi attended the symposium paying a befitting tribute to Prof. Mehdi.

The symposium was spread over two and a half days. It started on 10th April’s afternoon with a tribute to Prof. Mehdi and insights into his life and scientific career presented by his friends and colleagues. This was followed by two days of scientific presentations. The first day was focused on human population genomics and the second on disease genetics. Talks were focused on 1) how genomic data have contributed towards the story of modern humans as they expanded from Africa to all corners of the globe, and 2) understanding the genetic basis of disease.

Young scientists were also provided opportunity to present their work in the field of human population and disease genetics. The total number of registered participants was 93, but many others participated in the sessions of their interest. The registered participants included one each from Senegal and Sudan, two from Azerbaijan, four from Iraq, and 85 from Pakistan.

May 22 to 26, 2017, Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstracts of the talks download

COMSTECH regularly organizes workshops, training courses and conferences to build capability of the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in emerging areas of science and technology. In this perspective a one-week intensive hands-on workshop on “Rational Design of Materials for Energy Needs: Computation & Experimentation” was organized by COMSTECH in collaboration with COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Islamabad from May 22 to 26, 2017.

The training workshop was aimed to introduce students, young researchers and young faculty members with modern trends in experimentation and computation with their applications in materials discovery for energy needs.

Foreign experts each delivered a series of lectures on various aspects of this theme besides guiding the hands-on computational activities. The foreign faculty comprised Prof. Talat Rahman, Prof. Laurene Tetard, Prof. Peter Dowben, Prof. Marisol A. Ortigoza and Prof. Ted Einstein from USA. Condensed matter experts from some local institutions also contributed lectures in the workshop. The practical exercises on computation and modelling of materials for energy needs were conducted, In addition to the foreign faculty, by Dr. Altaf Karim (CIIT, Islamabad), Dr. Gul Rahman (QAU, Islamabad), and Mr. Naseem Uddin & Mr. Tao Jiang (Research Assistants at the University of Central Florida).

Besides the local and foreign experts, thirty-five participants attended the workshop. Most of these participants were young faculty members and researchers. Several MPhil and PhD students also attended the workshop.

The workshop focused on the following themes;

A Crash Course on Quantum Mechanical Approach to Materials: Density Functional Theory (DFT) Methods

Crash Courses on Molecular Dynamics and Kinetic Monte Carlo Methods and their Applications to Surfaces.

Multiscale Modeling: Connecting the Scales together

Computational Catalyst Design

Tailoring Properties of 2D materials: Looking Beyond Graphene

Novel Pathways in the Rational Design of Materials: An Application to Clean Energy

Energy Storage and Conversion Materials

Photo Water Splitting

All participants were asked to fill out an assessment questionnaire anonymously to evaluate the training. Participants were asked to rate the overall programme, lectures, relevance of lectures to the course aim and objectives, significance of their learning goals and general comments related to the programme

Participants found the hands-on exercises very useful and many of them found the allocated time insufficient for these exercises. In response to a question “if any topic of participants’ interest was not covered”, few of the participants stated material chemistry and experimental techniques. Many of the participants were in favor of using both computational and experimental analysis side by side. Some of the experimental researchers mentioned that through this workshop they learnt about the problem solving style of theoretical scientists using theoretical calculations. One of the participants was of the view that “the concept of experiments and theory going in parallel should be introduced in universities on larger scale”.

May 22 to 26, 2017, Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstracts of the talks download

COMSTECH regularly organizes workshops, training courses and conferences to build capability of the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in emerging areas of science and technology. In this perspective a one-week intensive hands-on workshop on “Rational Design of Materials for Energy Needs: Computation & Experimentation” was organized by COMSTECH in collaboration with COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Islamabad from May 22 to 26, 2017.

The training workshop was aimed to introduce students, young researchers and young faculty members with modern trends in experimentation and computation with their applications in materials discovery for energy needs.

Foreign experts each delivered a series of lectures on various aspects of this theme besides guiding the hands-on computational activities. The foreign faculty comprised Prof. Talat Rahman, Prof. Laurene Tetard, Prof. Peter Dowben, Prof. Marisol A. Ortigoza and Prof. Ted Einstein from USA. Condensed matter experts from some local institutions also contributed lectures in the workshop. The practical exercises on computation and modelling of materials for energy needs were conducted, In addition to the foreign faculty, by Dr. Altaf Karim (CIIT, Islamabad), Dr. Gul Rahman (QAU, Islamabad), and Mr. Naseem Uddin & Mr. Tao Jiang (Research Assistants at the University of Central Florida).

Besides the local and foreign experts, thirty-five participants attended the workshop. Most of these participants were young faculty members and researchers. Several MPhil and PhD students also attended the workshop.

The workshop focused on the following themes;

A Crash Course on Quantum Mechanical Approach to Materials: Density Functional Theory (DFT) Methods

Crash Courses on Molecular Dynamics and Kinetic Monte Carlo Methods and their Applications to Surfaces.

Multiscale Modeling: Connecting the Scales together

Computational Catalyst Design

Tailoring Properties of 2D materials: Looking Beyond Graphene

Novel Pathways in the Rational Design of Materials: An Application to Clean Energy

Energy Storage and Conversion Materials

Photo Water Splitting

All participants were asked to fill out an assessment questionnaire anonymously to evaluate the training. Participants were asked to rate the overall programme, lectures, relevance of lectures to the course aim and objectives, significance of their learning goals and general comments related to the programme

Participants found the hands-on exercises very useful and many of them found the allocated time insufficient for these exercises. In response to a question “if any topic of participants’ interest was not covered”, few of the participants stated material chemistry and experimental techniques. Many of the participants were in favor of using both computational and experimental analysis side by side. Some of the experimental researchers mentioned that through this workshop they learnt about the problem solving style of theoretical scientists using theoretical calculations. One of the participants was of the view that “the concept of experiments and theory going in parallel should be introduced in universities on larger scale”.