KARACHI: Institute of Business Administration with the active support of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Programme (BBSYDP) has trained over 450 underprivileged youth in different courses like Web Designing, Web Development, Multimedia & Graphic Designing, IT Entrepreneurship, Software Development and Office Automation.

In this regard IBA organized a certificates distribution ceremony on Thursday at JS Auditorium in IBA City Campus.

Provincial Minister of Education and Literacy Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar, Special Advisor to CM on Science & Information Technology Dr Sikandar Ali Shoro, Secretary BBSHRRDP Shariq Ahmed, Dean and Director of IBA, Dr Farrukh Iqbal, Director of Information & Communication Technology, Imran Batada and other guests from IT sector participated in the event.

This year IBA also organized a symposium for the top rated projects of the students who took different IT courses in which CIOs and CEOs of different organizations took keen interest. This helped the students to demonstrate their projects before the industry experts and professionals which can result in better job opportunities for them.

IBA developed a documentary which showcased the whole training process as well as the efforts of trainers and students regarding the entire 4 months programme. High achievers (top 3 students) from each class were invited on stage where the chief guest presented them their certificates and the highest percentage holder from each class also received an electronic tablet - which was the courtesy of the ceremony’s sponsors: Commtel, and DWP.

On the occasion, Imran Batada Director ICT & CICT congratulated all the students and also shared how they have been successful in changing the mindset of the students as few of the students came and were interested in joining IBA degree programmes, a few of them got job, a few of them sold their final year projects. Recently IBA has also hired one resource from this batch.

Speaking on the occasion Provincial Minister of Education and Literacy Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar said that this is indeed a great initiative under the umbrella of Sindh government’s Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Programme that was initiated in the year 2008 and has provided training and education to the youth of Sindh to facilitate them for employment and curtail poverty.

The Programme aims to provide opportunities for short-term employment and skill development to approximately 100,000 semi-literate and educated unemployed youth in Sindh for a period varying between 3 months to one year.

He said that his government’s focus is on education and we are glad that IBA Centre of Information & Communication Technology has come forward for this programme and trained 450 plus students in this batch alone. He said that he was very excited to know that, not only students have learned here but they also get internship and jobs.—PR