Dear BRAIA members and friends,

National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan invites students of BRAIA member universities to participate in “Finding Innovative and Creative Solutions for Society (FICS)”–a flagship programme of NUST, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

NUST is Pakistan’s premier Science & Technology University and serves as BRAIA Regional Development Center-South Asia, ranking at 358 in the World by QS Ranking. Being a strong proponent of innovation and entrepreneurship, NUST launched FICS programme in the year 2013 to encourage students in actively getting involved with social problem identification, and to think innovatively and devise technology-based solutions.

FICS programme is a remarkable example of Academia-Industry collaboration, where the university creates an enabling environment to foster creativity and innovation equipping the students with necessary skills, and the industry members bring in a wealth of expertise and experience that is critical to take the students’ innovative ideas to the next level. In addition to providing guidance and mentorship, the Industry partners provide generous funding to sponsor the cash awards presented to the winners, and the Prototype Development Fund. Moreover, winners are offered free incubation space at NUST and seed money from industrial sponsors.

NUST is accepting applications from across-border during Jan 2022. FICS 2022 Global was launched officially on 31st Dec 2021, and students at all levels are encouraged to register their ideas through https://fics.nust.edu.pk/international/registrations/. Deadline to submit project ideas is 23rd Jan 2022. Please note, these ideas will compete with other national and international teams in the subsequent stages planned Feb-March 2022 onwards.

Soon after the deadline, next steps for further preparation and evaluation process will also be shared. Since the ideas/projects will be judged against this criterion at next stage, therefore, students and faculty supervisors can also refer to the evaluation criteria before filling the online form.

Please feel free to contact the FICS coordination team if you have any questions about the competition. Contact info is as following:

Email: am.cac@ric.nust.edu.pk

Tel. 051-90856247-8

Website: www.fics.nust.edu.pk

Looking forward to your response and participation.

Best regards,

Permanent Secretariat

Belt and Road Aerospace Innovation Alliance