AIT holds 103rd Graduation
AIT held the 103rd Graduation Ceremony on 27 May 2005, marking the 103rd commencement to 573 students from 28 countries at the AIT Conference Center Auditorium. Prof. Mario T. Tabucanon (below), Acting AIT President and Provost presided over the ceremony.
Among the 573 graduates, 180 from the School of Environment, Resources and Development, 116 from the School of Civil Engineering, 167 are from the School of Advanced Technologies and 110 from the School of Management.
There were 27 doctoral graduates, 543 master's graduates and 3 diploma.
The total number of AIT alumni now stands at 13,841, with the largest number of 4,054 coming from Thailand.
To mark the 103rd graduation day, Dr. Shamsuddin M. Qureshi, Chairman of the Charter Inspection and Evaluation Committee, Education Department of the Government of Sindh, Karachi, Pakistan and Dr. Srisook Chandrangsu, Chairman of the Board of the Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited, and the New Bangkok International Airport Company Limited were invited as distinguished speakers.
Commemmorative Speech of
Dr. S. M. Qureshi,
Chairman of the Charter Inspection and Evaluation Committee
Education Department of the Government of Sindh, Karachi, Pakistan
Mr. President, Your Excellencies, AIT Trustees, Faculty Members, Graduates, Alumni, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am greatly pleased and feel rather privileged to have been invited to address this distinguished gathering on the occasion of 103rd Graduation Ceremony of this great institution, AIT.
After I graduated from here in 1965, I was closely associated with AIT in the late 80s as a member of its Board of Trustees. I also came earlier in 1979 to speak on here on AIT, Asia, and the next decade. This was in the 20th anniversary of establishment of AIT and I visited later in 1995 to seek cooperation between AIT and government of Pakistan for establishing a similar center of advanced technologies in Pakistan. Now it is after nearly a decade again that I feel honored to be with you this morning and I am grateful to you Mr. President and all others concerned for doing me this honor.
Ladies and Gentlemen, while I have been wearing different hats during my career as a teacher, as an academic administrator and as well as a bureaucrat for quite long time, but the education and science and technology has been all this following me and therefore I wish to speak to you on the subject in general of science and technology for development and the specifically on building of endogenous science and technology capacity of developing countries for their development. This has been an area of a great concern of mine during my career. It touches upon some possible reasons of failure of many developing countries to achieve it and some important layers that are needed for it. This is based on my own experiences and number of studies carried out at some international centers of research in this regard.
I have chosen this topic in particular for you, young men and women, who are graduating today from AIT, specifically that I'll mention at the end of my speech. However, before I do so, I wish to extend my warmest and sincere congratulations to those who are graduating today and are awaiting the conferment of their degrees. I also wish to congratulate their parents and faculty who must be feeling proud of them today. I know, Mr. President, how joyful and valuable it must be for these graduating fellows and hard it must have been for them to achieve it if the traditions have remained the same through which we passed and Prof. Jones knows.
To tell you briefly, in my batch, we were 20 Pakistani students who were admitted in 1963 and only five of us could graduate in 1965. I was 65 kilograms when I came here and when I left from here I was only 50. But I know how much I gained in return for every pound of flesh that I lost. And so my dear graduating fellows, you too have received in return and are well equipped with advanced knowledge and the skills to provide outstanding leadership in the development of your individual country and the world at large. You may feel so proud what you have achieved about. But you must not forget your obligation to your Alma Mater return to what you have received from it today. May I also remind you of our common values and missions that we inherit from AIT and which is to learn and return to help our countries for the well being and prosperity of our people. But to achieve all this, only hard work and continuous learning shall be your guide and your strong tools for your success. So, I wish you God speed and great success.
Ladies and gentlemen, as I said earlier, education in science and technology have been following me like shadow. For the belief that we got to have, the science and technology have been recognized as strong tools of development and the difference in this capability has been considered to have paralleled in the different of living standard of the people in the developed and developing countries. During the middle of last century, it was very well realized that north had scientific or developed countries, had scientific in technologically strength and the south did not. And the south are developing countries has noted were to catch up. It too much acquired all developed these missing ingredients. But unfortunately, the developing countries, with some exceptions, lack the capacity and had little experience to build upon and it is different apart from what already have existed in the developed societies. The advanced countries and bilateral and multilateral agencies, in their own sincere effort of collaboration, had their own view on what where their essential scientific and technological ingredients from their own societies where they could best contribute by helping to replicate in their developing countries. In a process however, the international scientific collaboration was also found to be not all in the interest for developing countries, nor it was fully utilized by the developing countries to their advantage. It also led to increase brain drain which without desired contributions to the building of local scientific capability. The issue was quite realized by the developing countries and this led further to drafting of guidelines for international scientific collaborations for developing. In the present scenario, although the underlying issues are still of concern, the potential advantages of collaboration are now realized by most developing countries to outlay any disadvantages and some of them have actually engaged themselves in collaboration and developed short and long-term linkages.
In the process however, most developing countries have invested huge sums and developed institutions which are mix of different models of developed countries, sometimes unrelated to one another and not forming holistic entity. Many have also over invested in one activity of science and technology at the expense of others. This has resulted in an unbalance system with many unconnected parts and missing links, affecting badly their official functioning. These systems are also prone to and absorbs lots sums of money with little noticeable impact on the development of these countries and any more investment on adult basis only would be only further vested. These countries have relied upon simple indicators, like percentage of GNP is spent on or numbers of scientists engaged in research and development etc. in isolation. According to a report of World Bank in1994, the enrolment ratio in higher education had raised 51 percent in OECD countries, compared with 21 percent in middle income countries and only six percent in low income countries. There are many developing countries which still have much lower ratio of enrolment in higher education.
Pakistan, for example, is struggling to go over three percent enrolment in the higher education. However, it is reported as well that in advanced countries, only about 10% of qualified scientists and engineers are enrolled in research while the other 90 percent are engaged in all those other activities which ensure that the work of this 10% is useful and is used. Likewise, if one dollar is spent on research, 100 dollars are spent on utilization of results. Higher education and research alone, therefore, are not sufficient to guarantee their development. Closed links must to be enforced between the higher education, research and the production system and profitable innovations to occur. And hence it is important that all necessary ingredients are very carefully identified and placed together in the holistic entity to work and contribute effectively to development desire. The most useful guidance in this regard was provided by the former UN Advisory Committee on Science and Technology for Development which identified the essential ingredients and increasing order of endogenous scientific and technological capacity required by the countries at different stages of their development. According to them, the very first scientific and technological capacity required in any country was identified to be their capacity for knowledge based informed the judgment and decision. To understand and choose as to what type science and technology was needed to meet the countries' development. Other capabilities required in the increasing order of building endogenous capacity were identified gradually to absorb transfer and create technologies. But only at a more advanced stage it was recommended like in advanced countries to create new knowledge and to do basic research.
For each capability and this essential element, there is also need for appropriate institutions. This appropriate range of capability and institutions and balance in activities are needed if science and technology are to lead to innovation and contribute to required development. It is therefore considered, ladies and gentlemen, to be necessary that in the stage of altogether transfer of what are seen in appropriate strategies in institutions and systems from different world, there should be an effort to design this according to local needs and a stage of development of each country. This is what I have observed the advanced countries did in general when they were making the transformation from being developing societies to developing countries. The developing countries may therefore assess their own scientific and technological infrastructures and systems. Those parts of their systems which do not contribute to innovation and development may have to be disbanded and the missing link fitted between the remaining and new institutions developed. It is advised that only when these reviews have been carried out as the development progresses and developing countries have thereby clear vision of science and technology needs and have strategy of acquiring them more investments should be made.
The UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development, in its meeting in 1995 in Geneva in which I had the privilege to have been elected as Vice Chairman of the Commission for Asian Pacific Region for its third time 1995-1997,. Therefore, along with other important teams like information technology, adopted the science and technology policy review and the important team for developing countries to pursue. They proposed to build an effective institutional structure for their continued policy review. Live decisions and adjustment as the problems seem to be acute in the policy domain where decision makers made their decisions on the basis of very small
proportion of the total body of knowledge relevant to those decisions. It is hence noted to be an important priority, this is the finding of my own as well, that we have such over hundred institutions in the world which conducted science and technology research. Eighty percent of them existed their developed world at their own country and only about 20 percent of this number are functioning in the developing world but they are functioning in those developing countries which are now known even in this region as fast developing countries.
Ladies and gentlemen in this 1950s when water resource development and irrigation were high on this region's priority list of engineering, AIT was founded in 1959 as SEATO Graduate School of Engineering with the single discipline of hydraulic engineering. And only 18 students from Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand were enrolled at Masters level and SEATO were also enrolled advanced countries besides these founding members the U.S.A. and the Britain. And today, we witness such a great turnout of graduates at Masters as well as Ph.D. level and in similarly multiple number of disciplines with their students enroll from equally large number of countries. AIT has further outreached to assist more directly some regional countries for the rapid economic development. And recently when this region, including Thailand was hit by tsunami and suffered unprecedented devastation, AIT responded quickly. Most significantly it has counted on its alumni who enjoy distinguished positions in this region in the world in discharging their obligation. In this scenario, ladies and gentlemen, I may mention that the establishment of AIT is an example of what have been saying about knowledge based, informed judgment and decision and has proved to be a successful model, for example, of north-south and south-south cooperation for the last 45 years. Again, for your kind information, all the social and economic problems facing the development countries cannot be solved to scientific and technological research alone. While the sufficient number of them would be responsive to this. Only a couple of weeks ago, the Prime Minister of Pakistan visited this great and friendly country and this great institutions. The two Prime Ministers and two friends, upon their bilateral cooperation, advised need for greater regional and world cooperation in the social, cultural, and economic fields of trade and commerce and security. Hence, investment and building endogenous scientific and technological capability needs to be further coupled with other equally important layers such as those to make significant difference in the social and economic well being of the developing world. The developing countries may therefore seek suitable alternate strategy and models to build a prepared scientific and technological structure and achieve self-reliance. The advanced countries and their international agencies on the other hand may intensify their more positive collaboration to assist their developing countries and their institutions in bridging their ever widening gap and ending this stagnation of economic and social inequality to create a fair world for lasting peace and security.
The adventures in ICT have already revolutionized and globalized us. We may try to forge unity and take advantage of such developments among the developing and developed countries to achieve this goal.
I have chosen to mention all this to you, young men and women, as I know how our developing countries lack good managers of science and technology, besides, the appropriate institutional structures and adequate and proper use of human and financial resources. Because our work that we desire ourselves are not achieved, the gap between the developed and developing has increased. Therefore, a great challenge for us and for you in particular. The growing new leaders and managers of the affairs of your countries to create the new world and make full use of what AIT has inculcated in you. In this attempt Mr. President, AIT too may further strengthen its role of technology transfer and development of innovation and management skills in the region as it was proposed by the 33rd General Board Meeting of the AIT Alumni Association held in Pakistan in December 2004 which was a great experience and where we missed you very much Mr. President.
Lastly, but not least, I on behalf of myself, the Alumni, wish to congratulate you Mr. President for the progress of AIT under your leadership and acknowledge the wide cooperation achieved between AIT and Pakistan and its several institutions which personal efforts and those of a very distinguished Ambassador, His Excellency Mir Bangulzai. These are highly commendable and greatly valued and we look forward to more of it presently and in the future. I must commend your special and unprecedented efforts for cooperation of the alumni to help build AIT and take its mission forward. Ladies and gentlemen, concluding I thank you for bearing with me with patience and seeks forgiveness for any lapses on my part. Thank you very much.
Commemmorative Speech of
Dr. Srisook Chandrangsu,
Chairman of the Board of Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited and the New Bangkok International Airport Company Limited
Mr. President, Your Excellencies, AIT Trustees Faculty Members, Graduands, Alumni, Ladies and Gentlemen
I have the honour to be here to deliver a speech on your Graduation Day and I am so delighted to visit my school AIT and my Professor John Hugh Jones once again after my Graduation Day at this school 36 years ago. I am sure you will see a lot of changes in your life after the graduation. There would be rise and fall in your working career but you would gain more and more experience. Particularly, among your good and memorable experience it always realizes through your wisdom and knowledge learned from this school which would be beneficial to your own country. AIT has a good record of graduation. As I remember about 90% of AIT graduates go back to their homelands and exercise their knowledge to develop their own countries. Many countries in our region are now developing infrastructures in order to boost economy and tourism, especially, building a new international airport. Speaking of building the new airport, it is rarely that one would see it during our working career. You and I are lucky to see one. Thailand is now building Suvarnabhumi Airport and I was called by the Government to manage the construction of this airport. It is a 5 billion dollar project and requires multi-disciplinary team of qualified personnel. It will be the biggest airport in the World in terms of floor space area in a terminal building complex and it is equipped with high technology systems. Suvarnabhumi Airport will be open for commercial use next year. The Passenger Terminal Complex is built through international bidding with three main materials namely steel, glass and fabric membrane. The first bid is over the budget by 400 millions dollars. The Government decided to have a rebid without reduction in any content of the building such as floor space, size and shape. The rebid was successful by using more local products and applying the fundamental structural engineering principle to the steel work. That is, we use thinner steel plate but bigger cross-section of a member to replace the original steel member of trusses which resulted in the reduction of the weight of steel and in turn reducing the price to be under the budget.
Another example of the application of knowledge and experience in transportation management in aviation. Thai Airways International is our national carrier. We have a certain number of aircraft not enough to serve cities in every continent of the World. Therefore, we have the idea that we can put flight code of Thai International on to the flight of the other airline who fly their aircraft to a certain destination. In otherwords , Thai International can have its flight or can fly to that destination with the aircraft of the other airline. It means that one airline can expand its route network without using its aircraft. Through this idea, we have set the arrangement by negotiation with the German Aeronautical Authorities in the field of traffic rights and Thai International with Lufthansa in the fields of sale, marketing, reservation, operation and services. Then, we put this idea in to practice 10 years ago on the sector Bangkok - Frankfurt vice versa and call this arrangement 'Code Share Arrangement'. This is the first Code Share arrangement in the World. With this arrangement, the airlines become partnership in their operation and subsequently form the alliance called 'Star Alliance.'
Flying an aircraft from one place to another, the airline has to fly along the route in the sky called 'airway'. Therefore, each country has to provide airways above its own territory for the airline to offer air services from one place to another. We would like to bring the American Continent closer to the Asian Continent and let the airline offer non stop services linking the cities in the United States to Thailand. Since the airway traversing over the North Pole in order to be the shortest distance on the Great Circle, then, my colleges at the Aeronautical Radio of Thailand, Department of Civil Aviation and I work out this idea with the Competent Authorities of China, Mongolia, Russia and Canada to set a new airway over their respective countries by marking coordination of latitude and longitude of the airway, arranging Satellite Global Positioning System and communication to track the aircraft flying along this airway and settling some international political issues. Then, International Civil Aviation Organization approved our proposal 7 years ago. At that time no aircraft has that range. It takes 16 hour and a half from Bangkok to New York non stop. And Thai International has begun to fly along this route since the first of May this year by A340 - 500 aircraft.
These are few of my experience after my graduation from AIT 36 years ago. As a graduate of AIT, I am proud of my school.
Thank you