Lahore School of Economics’ Ninth Annual Convocation was held at the main campus on Jan 14, 2012. Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, the Governor Punjab conferred degrees and awards to 809 graduating students of MPhil, MS Economics, MSc Economics (11), Masters in Business Administration (180), BSc Economics, Bachelors of Business Administration (600) and Master of Business Administration (Executive). Sardar Latif Khosa lauded the role of Lahore School of Economics in core specilization of Economics, Finance, Business Administration and related fields of studies including Social Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, Environment, Media Studies and Art and Design. The Governor also notes the Lahore School of Economics Research Program that is focused on improving the economic well being of the people of Pakistan.

The Lahore School’s faculty and student body are also engaged in undertaking important research. The Lahore School publishes a two academic journals viz. a leading economics journal – The Lahore Journal of Economics – and an important policy studies journal – The Lahore Journal of Policy Studies. It is engaged in a number of international research studies including with Colombia and Yale Universities. The Lahore School also has hosted since 2004 an “Annual Conference on the Management of the Pakistan Economy” with the 8th Annual Conference now scheduled for May 2012.

The Lahore School’s Annual Conferences on the Management of the Pakistan Economy are significant in that they provide the theoretical basis for policy making. As an example I would like to place on record that it was at the Annual Conference in April 2008 that the Lahore School recommended that an appropriate security blanket for the poor would be an old age pension scheme of Rs.1000 per month for widows. A number of influential policy makers were at the conference and we would like to believe that it contributed in a small manner to the development of the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) introduced in 2008-9 and which is widely acclaimed the world over. Incidentally that conference also recommended a school feeding and health care program in the field of education and hospitalization insurance coverage for serious illnesses in the health sector to complete a social security blanket for the poor. We hope sir, that you will consider these remaining two policy proposals to benefit the ordinary people of Pakistan in the future.

The Chairman thanked the Lahore School Board of Governors for their guidance and support. Dr Shahid Amjad Chaudhry also placed on record the services of Mr. M.A.K Chaudhry, who served as the Chairman, Board of Governors for 16 years and who recently passed away. His contributions to the development of this institution were immense.

The campus was very tastefully decorated and the Convocation was attended by a large number of parents.

Thanks to CIO Pakistan, IDG got together with Google Pakistan that they launched the Annual Pakistan Blog Awards in 2010. The award has become an annual feature and all Pakistani bloggers and readers to look forward to. This year, blogs related to Pakistan either through the topic, language or audience can context in Pakistan Blog Award 2011. The theme for 2011 is “Colors of Pakistan: Celebrating the New Media Spaces” and it aptly shows on the blog award site. Nomination will close by Monday morning (November 21, 2011). Voting will continue through November 25, 2011.

Lahore School Blog has been nominated here. Show your support for the blog by voting, rating and or leaving comments. Look for golden little star and click on the last one. Your vote is done. Check the image below for more help. Also leave your comments at the bottom of the page. Your comment and feedback matters a great deal.

Lahore School of Economics is hosting the first Junior World Entrepreneurship Forum on July 27-30, 2011. The Form aims at gathering the best students, politicians, entrepreneur and social entrepreneurs from Pakistan to contribute to the vision of entrepreneurship as a means of creating wealth and social justice. Here are the topics that will be discussed:

This aspect of the Forum’s work is closest to the traditional understanding of what entrepreneurship means. Sustainable long-term economic prosperity will depend on our ability to create significant numbers of new jobs, which means developing hundreds and thousands of successful new businesses – businesses that are agile, innovative, and above all, fast growing. The Forum adopts the same definition of high-growth firms as that espoused by the International Consortium on Entrepreneurship: enterprises with an average annualized growth in employees greater than 20% per annum over a three year period.

A recent publication of The Economist stated, “The World today is at ‘ground zero’ in its struggle to create hundreds of innovative new products for the bottom of the pyramid and in the process create millions of jobs to deal with the new population bomb.” The phrase ‘base of the pyramid’ dates back to the 1930s, but has gained particular currency in the last decade or so, as a way of describing the 3 billion people who survive on less than $2.50 a day. Eradicating such extreme poverty remains one of the World’s most intractable challenges, and playing our role in doing this is a key objective of the Forum.

Designing entrepreneurial cities

There’s one thing we do know about the World of 2050: it will be a World of cities. Cities now account for over 50% of World population, and this will rise to nearly 70% by 2050. And as people concentrate in cities, other resources like healthcare, culture, knowledge, and money will follow. But there is a price to pay: cities are already responsible for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions and this can only worsen as the World gets ever more urban. Cities, then, are at the heart of some of the key questions we have to address by 2050; but they could help us find the answers. This is because cities have always been the centers of commerce, knowledge, creativity, education, and innovation.

Just as entrepreneurship spans both wealth and social justice, so entrepreneurship education covers both formal education at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, and lifelong informal and formal learning. We need to inspire young people with the desire to run their own businesses, or to become more entrepreneurial – or ‘intrapreneurial’ – inside larger corporations. We also need to give more experienced managers the ability and agility to face new business challenges throughout their lives.

The Lahore School of Economics Seventh Annual Conference on the Management of the Pakistan Economy [May 4th, May 5, and May 6th] concluded  at the Burki campus today. The theme of this year’s conference was “Financial Sector Development and Management’. The conference brought together a group of distinguished researchers and policymakers from across Pakistan and internationally. The underlying objective of the conference is to promote discussion on key policy issues in financial sector development and in macroeconomic management. The conference was opened by Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, Rector Lahore School of Economics. Mr. Shahid Kardar, Governor State Bank of Pakistan will deliver the inaugural address. Researchers from PIDE, Quaid-e-Azam University, NUST, IBA Karachi, IBM Karachi, LUMS, Lahore School of Economics as well as a number of international universities participated in the conference.

The conference span three days and consist of five sessions. The first session covered matters concerning macroeconomic management and the role and effectiveness of instruments of fiscal and monetary policies in controlling inflation while ensuring growth. The second session included papers that evaluate the impact of financial sector reforms on the efficiency and effectiveness of financial intermediation and in reducing financial repression. The issues of the linkages between financial sector performance and monetary policy were the focus of the third session, while capital markets, their governance and performance were discussed in the fourth session. The last session brought together a group of international academics to discuss development experiences in other growing countries and their relevance for Pakistan.

The papers presented at the conference and the discussions held shed light on the policies and practical measures that can help the country to develop an effective monetary management system and an efficient and inclusive financial sector, for supporting sustainable growth in the future. [On the side line of conference]

Read the story in Urdu here

The small mud house stands rather intelligently and provocatively against the monumental brick construction at BNU Tarogil Campus of Beacon House National University and points to a new problem area: How are the students supposed to gather their experiences, because the next catastrophes will surely come. Are we in Pakistan supposed to always wait for foreign help. Students of architecture must gather practical experience. Knowledge is Power, but knowledge comes out of practical experiences! This was amply recognized by the audience, mostly students of BNU and the Punjab University in addition to faculty members and others interested in Appropriate Technology.

Exhibition served to point out the problems very loudly. Discussion partners were available for some possible solutions. They included people like the construction contractor Iqbal from Harappa to Omar Hassan, Professor at the Beaconhouse National University.

The German architect Arne Tönissen who is currently involved in the construction of a traditional building in Sheikhupura using mud as construction material was also present. Shakeel Amir arrived with Farooq Ahmad from district Okara in order to demonstrate his Kite project, which revolves around using wind energy for charging a battery for operating a desert cooler in the health station of the village Thatta Ghulamka Dhiroka.

 

After a visit and discussion at site, a workshop was conducted in the seminar hall of the BNU, in which the architect Arne Tönissen presented an introduction of his work and another presentation by the young researcher Shakeel Amir where he explained start of work by the Institute of Experimental Construction (IEC). Both the presentations were followed by question answers session.

Taking advantage of the occasion, Environment Protection Award by Foundation for Promotion of Academic Collaboration was presented to Architect Ghayyoor Obaid to acknowledge his work. The president and secretary general as well as some founding members of the foundation were also present on the occasion.

The event was made possible through the cooperation and permission of the BNU for the experimental construction, which hopefully will allow the students of the PU, COMSAT, NCA, UET to carry out experiments not only for fun but also to gather valuable necessary experiences.

The network of organizers and support organizations (German Embassy Islamabad, Senior Expert Service Bonn, Society for the Promotion of Art and Culture, Lahore) for the event was woven by a wanderer between the worlds, who was nominated as Senior Research Fellow by the FPAC in recognition of his services. He is so to say the founding director of the Institute, which will be meaningfully active only after involvement of the local colleagues. Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch is also president of the Royal University Centre, Cameroon. He reported and discussed with students his experiences at MIT in Boston and at the University of Stuttgart, suggesting for example a transport of cartons and foils from the Tetrapak-Company, located nearby, providing interesting working material to the students for using in experimental construction.