Message From the Chairwoman

Message from Dr. Ayeesha Mujeeb

Distinguished Professor Dr Atta-ur-Rahaman Saab,

I am delighted to connect with you on LinkedIn and would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself as a young Materials Scientist who is working towards building International Cooperation and bridging gaps between Industry and Academia within the UK, China and Pakistan.

It was an absolute pleasure meeting you in person; as part of the NUST delegation from Atta-ur-Rahman School of Applied Biosciences that visited HEJ Karachi back in 2012. I was extremely overwhelmed by your warm hospitality and humbled by your encouraging message to the youth of Pakistan, in particular researchers and scientists.

At the time, I was given a golden opportunity of working as an Assistant Professor at NUST, a prestigious university in Pakistan. With your message engraved in my mind, I excelled in the field of Industrial Biotechnology. Today, by the Grace of Allah I am the Scientific Advisor and Shareholder of Manchester BIOGEL (UK), a Biotech company developing peptide based hydrogels for Tissue Engineering and 3D Printing Applications.

Dr Saab, you are a phenomenal leader, and I am extremely grateful to you for enabling Pakistan, as a country to excel in the arena of Research and Development.

I have been waiting for this day to message you and after 7 years I gathered my strength and courage to tell you, I held on to your message and worked very hard to achieve my goals.

Here, I would also like to celebrate the contributions made by our young Pakistani researchers to promote scientific exchanges around the globe. They are striving to excel in the arena of Science, Engineering and Technology, and continually developing innovative and effective ways to achieve professional excellence. Furthermore, I would like to emphasize on the contributions made by our female scientists that are playing an integral role in building scientific collaborations and so understanding that investing in young women’s professional development is essentially vital now and for the future of our country, ‘WEmpower Pakistan Initiative 2019 - 2020’ was established in 2019 as a training resource for and by young Pakistani women researchers.

By nurturing young minds to cultivate wisdom, this platform offers engaging and dynamic activities to motivate women in Science, Engineering and Technology to believe in their strengths and attain profound abilities to promote Scientific Research, Product Development, Innovative Design and commercialization.

The hope is that this platform will continue to grow each year as we celebrate the intellectual achievements of our young Pakistani women.

We need Pakistani women scientists who are so educated they can be humble, so passionate about research they can be rational, and so disciplined they can set examples for generations to come.

I will be in Pakistan in January 2020. Is it possible to arrange a meeting with you to exchange ideas on how we can further bridge gaps between Industry and Academia?

I look forward to your kind response.
Best wishes,
Ayeesha Mujeeb, PhD