The Third International Conference on Information & Technologies (ICICT) organized by the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) was successfully held on 15th and 16th August 2009 at the Hotel Ramada Plaza.

The conference was inaugurated by the Honorable Federal Minister of Finance & Economic Affairs and Senator Mr. Shaukat Tarin on 15th August 2009. In his speech Mr. Tarin said that due to the current situation in the country, there is a dearth of foreign visitors, however conferences such as the ICICT lead the effort to regain the trust of foreign experts and investors. He further added that Technology is the key to social development in modern world, and can be used to ensure monitoring of water levels, traffic jams, and overall law and order situation.

In his welcome address Dr. Ishrat Husain, Dean & Director IBA said that IBA has to emerge as a leading business school over the globe and such conferences like ICICT play a vital role in information and communication technologies. He also emphasized the importance of video conferencing in this area. Dr. Ishrat in his speech thanked foreign delegates specially who came to Pakistan to attend the conference in the current law and order situation in the country. He also appreciated the efforts made by Dr. Ghani, Dr. Wasim & others in organizing this conference.

ICICT is a broad-based, dynamic and fully reviewed conference that aims to capture the new researches in the field of Information and Communication Technologies. This conference, which was first held in 2005 and is arranged after every two years. It is the only forum of its kind that brings together technical and business related issues pertaining to socio-economic uplift of the country.

In the two days event a number of scholars presented their papers. Dr. Sayeed Ghani, Dr. Arshad Siddiqi, Dr. Sajjad Haider and Dr. Zaheeruddin Asif represented IBA.

At the closing session on 16th August 2009, Honorable Minister of Information Technology, Government of Sindh Mr. Mohammad Raza Haroon was the chief guest. Mr. Haroon in his speech mentioned the advancements in information and communication technologies like broad band usage, ATM, mobile computing and phones etc. He said that in spite of the current economic and financial crisis in the country, Pakistan is progressing in modern technologies. Dr. Ishrat also addressed the closing session.