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October 15, 2013 Contents:
Innovation Hero of Pakistan Farasat and the use of Internet enabled phones to improve health.
Innovation Hero 1 Training & Development 2 Upcoming Event 2 Brief R&D News 3 Agri technology and Innovation 3 Article: R&D depts. link to boost arid region 4
Editorial Team Chief Editor Zahid Iftikhar Managing Editor Rozeen Shaukat Associate Editor Mujahid Ali www.irp.edu.pk mujahid@irp.edu.pk Phone: +92 42 3584 6988
For a long time, —management lacked timely, authentic information from health workers visiting health centers in the city and in rural areas. In 2009, Farasat joined Punjab Health Sector Reforms Program (PHSRP) as the Program Director and soon got involved in the Punjab Model for Proactive Governance, an initiative taken by Government of Punjab to seek feedback from citizens, availing various services provided by the government, through technology. The model has been piloted for various services, such as property registration and health related services. The program gives Internet enabled phones to staff who go around rural Punjab to collect information from medical centers. Staff are asked to visit all facilities at least once a month and upload their monitoring reports through these phones on a simple application. These reports are location and time stamped, preventing fraudulent reporting. Reports are fed into the computer system which can generate graphs on situations regarding absenteeism of doctors and staff, medicine stock levels, availability and functionality of equipment etc. Managers then access this information through an online dashboard and make decisions based on this timely and accurate information. The project has already scaled to 90 handsets, covering half of Punjab. Farasat is now planning to replicate this in other areas of public sector such as Agriculture, Irrigation, Livestock, Excise & Taxation etc. Source with Thanks: Innovation Punjab Report 2012
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Workshop was conducted in FaAST Unives Training & development
IRP organized a two day workshop on NVIVIO.Workshop was organized on 5-6 October at FAST University Islamabad. Dr.Shafique from DLIS-University of the Punjab trained the faculty members, researchers and student of FAST University.
IRP is organizing Two Day On-line workshop (Webinar) on "LITERATURE REVIEW MADE EASY “by using Endnote & NVivo software for Citation and Writing Literature Review .The workshop will train attendees on how to manage academic and nonacademic resources with the help of software from browsing to citation, reviewing and developing concepts. Participants will learn how to combine potentials of software NVivo & Endnote for very rich review.
Resource Persons: Dr.Shafiq Ur Rehman,PhD in Library Science.He is Assistant Professor at DLIS-University of the Punjab & Dr.Amira Khattak.She is HOD & Assistant Professor at Department of Management Sciences, Iqra University ,Islamabad Campus. Date 02-03 November,2013 from 09:30AM-05:30 PM(GMT+5) Contact for details: Mohammad Zeeshan Sheikh Cell +92 321 451 6964 , ctd@irp.edu.pk
Upcoming Event
PePcon,the print and e-publishing conference for professional designers, production artists, trainers, and publishers interested in keeping up with best practices and the newest innovations in software and publishing workflows. Venue City: CHICAGO Date; June 15–18, 2014 p: +1-206-935-6135 f: +1-206-299-3086 email: info@pepcon.com
www.pepcon.com
Research your idea. See if there's a demand. A lot of people have great ideas, but they don't know if there's a need for it. You also have to research your competition.
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Brief R&D News Around 1000 innovators (scientists and business people) are expected to participate in upcoming Innovation Summit at University of the Punjab in March, 2014. Institute of Research Promotion (IRP) is Looking for marketing students to do applied theses on training need assessment. Rs. 5000 will be paid for good work. Institute of Research Promotion (IRP) offers to bring any innovative idea, get support from industry, use the platform of IRP, organization will help you in commercialization of your idea. For more details contact rahmat@irp.edu.pk Scientists of Punjab University presented process improvement technology in chemical industryRESO CHEM .University industry exchange is regular work by IRP now. CFBC Coal technology was presented to industry and found as potential solution for industrial boilers. Looking for more industry to share. IRP is looking for ideas to set up industrial information Centre
The Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company’s joint venture with the government, will not only mitigate the energy crisis by exploiting Pakistan’s plentiful coal reserves, it will also create over 10,000 direct and indirect jobs for Pakistanis. Institute of Research Promotion organized successfully the one day seminar regarding ― Flower Technology ‖ on 3rd October,2013.As end result of seminar ,Haripur University will set up a Centre of applied research, launch of journal and will organize a conference on flower tech.
Agri Technology & Innovation Bangladesh Develops World’s First Zinc-Based Rice Variety Oct 01, 2013 Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) has developed the world’s first zinc-based rice variety which is expected to address zinc-deficiency in rural Bangladesh and fight lifethreatening diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia, BRRI scientists claim that the new ―pure seed‖ variety, BRRI Dhan 62, took about 10 years of research. BRRI Dhan 62 will contain about 19 milligrams of zinc per kilogram of rice, compared to up to 11 milligrams of zinc per kilogram of commonly available rice. The new variety will also have a higher protein content of around 9% compared to 5% - 7% in common rice varieties in Bangladesh.
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China Scientist Achieves Record 14.8 Tons Per Hectare Rice Yield A team led by China’s hybrid rice expert, Prof. Yuan Longping (also known as ―father of hybrid rice in China), has claimed that it has achieved record average rice yield of 988.1 kilograms per mu (about 14.8 tons per hectare) using a new hybrid rice variety "Y liangyou 900."The new record is higher than the previously held record of 900 kilograms per mu (about 13.5 tons per hectare), but slightly behind the targeted 1,000 kilograms per mu (about 15 tons per hectare) by the Chinese Agriculture Ministry in 2013. Officials of the China National Rice Research Institute, the Wuhan University and the Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences have confirmed the results obtained by Prof. Yuan’s team.China is the world’s largest rice producer and a leader in hybrid rice. Over 50% or around 15 million hectares of the country’s total rice area is under hybrid rice cultivation. China’s average rice yield stands at around 6.5 tons per hectare, about 50% higher than global average of around 4.4 tons per hectare. http://oryza.com
R&D depts link to boost arid region RAWALPINDI - Vice Chancellor (VC) Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (PMAS-AAUR) Prof Dr Rai Niaz Ahmad has said that change and uplift of the arid region might not be too productive due to isolated working of different R&D organizations of Agriculture Department.He emphasized that focus should be on rainwater harvesting, water resource development and value addition of farm produce.He stated while chairing a meeting Friday of different agriculture departments of Punjab at the varsity to discuss and formulate working paper for the forthcoming P&D meeting on the Water Vision and development of arid region of Chief Minister Punjab. Representative of ICARDA, Soil Conservation, Agriculture Department, BARI Chakwal, ABAD, Punjab Agri. Extension Department, Institute of Space Technology and Additional Secretary Planning Agriculture Department Ahmad Ali Zafer were also present on the occasion. The VC said that water was an essential element for agriculture and livestock and mismanagement of this valuable resource has compounded problem, which was badly affecting the economy of the country.He further said that a plenty of rainwater was being wasted before reaching the ultimate destination i.e. crop. He was of the opinion that efficient use of water in agriculture sector was needed and suggested the techniques of water harvesting to overcome the problem of water scarcity. In the meeting, participants reviewed previous work done by ABAD, Agriculture Engineering Field Wing, Soil Conservation, Water Management Wing, Agri. Extension Wing, Forest, Livestock and Small Dams Organizations and earmarked the potential area for further development in Potohar Area. They agreed to develop mechanism for collaboration of various departments to achieve output oriented results and discussed the responsibilities of various institutes in Potohar Area
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Development Programme.In the meeting, research activities being carried on at the institutions were also elaborated and representatives of different organizations agreed to strengthen the interaction and collaboration among institutes. They highlighted the significance of close linkages with organizations and hoped that it would not only help them to resolve common issues but also enhance the mutual understanding for the development activities/programs. The representatives of different organizations highlighted the location, topography, demographic, climate and other characteristics of Potohar region along with problems impeding the development of the area and discussed future action plans. They also presented the glimpses of efforts made by their organizations for uplift of the area through implementation of various projects and their impact thereof. The participants appreciated the efforts of VC for arranging this important and need of the time meeting and said that this initiative would improve the well-being of the farming community of Potohar area and would strengthen economy of the country.The Nation
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