Former Prime Minister of Jordan Inaugurated COMSATS Meeting in Amman - Jordan

A simple but elegant inaugural ceremony of the 9th meeting of the Coordinating Council took place on the 1st of March, 2006 at the Royal Scientific Society (RSS), Amman, Jordan. The chief guest on the occasion, His Excellency Dr. Adnan Badran, the former Prime Minister of Jordan and the President Philadelphia University, Amman, graced the occasion with his presence.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief guest stressed upon the developing countries to devote more time to research and development. He said the prevailing education system in our countries did not encourage minds to think and develop. It only supports memory-based achievements, which may not lead us anywhere. Dr. Badran believed the conditions were worse in the Arab countries since they had oil-based material wealth and they were using it to buy products from the West. He cautioned that once the oil factor was gone, they would have no technology of their own to fall back upon. It was thus high time the developing world relied on R&D more and focused on indigenous technology for their own good.

Dr. Badran lauded the efforts of COMSATS in promoting research-based collaboration among its esteemed Centres of Excellence. He hoped such cooperation would go a long way towards building capacity in the developing world to undertake indigenous technology based projects and programmes for the overall socio-economic development. Moreover, he expressed words of appreciation and showed trust in the leadership Dr. Hameed Ahmed Khan, the Executive Director of COMSATS and Prof. Dr. MHA Hassan, the Chairman Coordinating Council and the Secretary General of Third World Network of Scientific Organizations (TWNSO).

Dr. Khan in his welcome remarks pledged COMSATS’ commitment for development while addressing a decent gathering of heads and representatives of COMSATS Network of Centres of Excellence, diplomats, scholars and scientists from around the globe. Prof Dr. MHA Hassan also spoke on the occasion and emphasized the need to prioritize scientific areas of immediate attention and to direct efforts in the same.

COMSATS and Royal Scientific Society (RSS) jointly organized the subject meeting in Amman, which continued till the 2nd of March. The Coordinating Council meeting is an annual event that takes place in COMSATS member countries, last such meeting was held in March 2005 in Cairo, Egypt. Programs and projects of all the Centers of Excellence, which are 14 in number, are reviewed annually and a strategy for the future course of action is discussed and designed during the course of the meeting. In the recently held meeting nine member Centres were represented by their heads of representatives, which comprise from the countries of Pakistan, Jamaica, Jordan, Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Turkey, Tanzania, and China. On a special invitation representative of Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) - Thailand, attended the meeting and thoroughly introduced to the Council members the activities and academic areas of AIT for future collaboration and intellectual networking.