Past Events

June 29, 2020: H.E. Prof. Dr. M. Iqbal Choudhary, Coordinator General COMSTECH met with Mr. Muhammad Naeem, Chairman Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission on Monday, 29th June, 2020 in his office. The Leadership of both organizations have deliberated on several collaborative projects for building capacity of OIC Member States in Science and Technology.

This workshop was organized by the Islamic Organization on Food Security (IOFS) and hosted by Government of the United Arab Emirates (Food Security Council) with the partnership of OIC General Secretariat, COMSTECH, IsDB, ICBA, ICARDA and FAO.

Dubai Decleration

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.

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

As had been announced, the IsDB Transformers Roadshow for Pakistan was held on 4^th May 2019 at the COMSTECH Secretariat, Islamabad, Pakistan.

It was a full day event organized jointly by the IsDB and COMSTECH for highlighting and encouraging innovative ideas of young Pakistanis. The event was participated in by the IsDB team led by its President H.E. Dr. Bandar M. H. Hajjar and also included the Chief Scientific Advisor to the President IsDB Dr. Hayat S. Sindi. The Roadshow climaxed a month of preparatory stages where applicants from Pakistan submitted their innovative ideas for addressing various problems faced by Pakistani society in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the UN.

From the 232 received applications 20 projects were shortlisted by COMSTECH and the respective teams were invited to the Roadshow where they made their presentations to an international Jury comprising:

The main events of the day included mentoring sessions for the contestants, conducted by the members of the international Jury. The themes of these mentoring session were;

• Attracting impact investment
• Pitching to the business
• Scaling up/ Commercialization
• Marketing and Communication

After an intense competition, the Jury announced the following 4 winners:

The closing session of the event was graced by Dr. Zafar Mirza, Minister of State, Ministry of National Health Services Regulations and Coordination, the President IsDB, and the Coordinator General COMSTECH Dr. Tariq Banuri. The winners were awarded cash prizes of US$3000 each and support from IsDB to participate in the Annual Roadshow event to be held in Senegal later this year.  The speakers at the closing session lauded the exciting initiative of the IsDB in promoting creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship amongst the Pakistani youth. The IsDB President and the Chief Guest highly appreciated the efforts of COMSTECH in organizing this event, and in general, in developing various S&T initiatives for the OIC member states.

The function was followed by a well-attended press conference addressed by the President IsDB, the Minister of State for Health and the CG COMSTECH. The IsDB President highlighted the efforts of IsDB in promoting development projects in Pakistan. The CG of COMSTECH and President of IsDB expressed the resolve to continue to work together on various S&T initiatives for the betterment of the OIC countries.

Professor of Medicine
Consultant, Gastroenterologist & Hepatologist
Aga Khan University of Health Sciences, Pakistan

Date: 10^th July 2020,
Time: 03:00 pm Pakistan Standard Time; 02:00 pm Gulf Standard Time;
10:00 am Greenwich Mean Time

COMSTECH has arranged web based seminar to discuss implication of COVID-19 for the patients with cardiovascular, diabetes, chronic lung and chronic Liver and Biliary diseases. Discussion will also be carried out on molecular mechanism of COVID-19. This webinar is open to physicians, academicians, scientists and general public from all the member OIC states.

Poster of Webinar
Abstract of talk
Speaker’s Profile

Procedure to join:

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 875 1544 8204
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Contact Information: 

Address: COMSTECH Secretariat, 33-Constitution Avenue, G-5/2, Islamabad 
Phone No. : 92 51 9220681-3
Fax : 92 51 9211115, 9220265, 9205264
Email: Khazima@comstech.org ; comstech@comstech.org ;