Country Director Pakistan, Asian Development Bank, Visits LUMS
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Mr. Young Ye, Country Director Pakistan, Asian Development Bank (ADB), and his team recently visited LUMS to explore the digital revolution and its potential future in energy, agriculture, water, urban infrastructure, and public sector management.
The delegation was welcomed by Dr. Tariq Jadoon, Acting Vice Chancellor and Provost; Dr. Abubakr Muhammad, Executive Director, Centre for Water Informatics and Technology (WIT); Dr. Naveed Arshad, Director, National Centre in Big Data and Cloud Computing (NCBC); Prof Nauman Zaffar, Director, National Incubation Centre Lahore (NICL); Ms. Nuzhat Kamran, Director, Office of Advancement, as well as other faculty members.
With the world currently grappling a water and climate change crisis, rapidly expanding populations like Pakistan face a significant challenge due to the lack of efficient water treatment solutions; Dr. Muhammad talked about low-cost indigenous solutions that can be used to combat this. He gave a presentation on WIT’s significant efforts to catalyse positive change in Pakistan through its work on environmental monitoring.
Mr. Ye spoke about the urgent need to address governance and management challenges and how to rationalise water usage, control water quality and related costs in Pakistan. He also emphasised the importance of changing the current pattern of sustainability and resilience.
The discussion centred around ways to leverage technology to catalyse development in the public sector and provide policy recommendations. The delegation also discussed the use of technology data and machine learning to address the challenge of Pakistan’s runaway urbanisation. Dr. Momin Uppal, Director, Centre for Urban Informatics, Technology, and Policy (CITY), shared the centre’s aim to address mobility issues within cities in Pakistan, focusing on sustainable development, and constructing resilient urban areas to foster a healthier future.
The ADB delegation expressed the desire to collaborate with LUMS to develop cutting-edge technology to revolutionise processes, drive meaningful progress through innovation and efficiency enhancements and propel growth in the country. Towards the end, the ADB team was given a tour of the state-of-the-art LUMS facilities and laboratories. 
