The ISIF Asia award was given to Zartash Afzal Uzmi and his colleagues for their work on improving internet efficiency in Pakistan. Zartash Afzal Uzmi is a professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). The prize was given out at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) event that took place in Japan.
An international honour has been given to a professor at Pakistan’s Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) for his efforts to improve internet productivity there.
At the Internet Governance Forum in Japan, Zartash Afzal Uzmi accepted an ISIF Asia award on behalf of his group. Zartash Afzal accepted the prize on behalf of his colleagues at LUMS for their work on Internet Exchange Points (IXPs).
It is important to keep in mind that IXPs are essential for driving traffic to websites and social media platforms. Additionally, it facilitates faster communication.
There are now three IXPs in Pakistan. Utilising infrastructure located in the Higher Education Commission and Punjab Information Technology Board, the LUMS team played a significant role in assisting the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in establishing these IXPs.
The LUMS team received recognition for their continued efforts in developing software-defined networking, a sophisticated networking technology, to improve these IXPs.
Along with them, Mr. Mubasher Gondal, an economic specialist at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Dr. Sahibzada Ali Mahmud, managing director of KPITB, and Sajid Latif, director general of e-Governance at PITB, attended the occasion.
Surprisingly, researchers have successfully integrated SDN technology into an IXP in a lab setting without these features. Without starting the IXP from scratch, it was previously believed that this was not possible.
Dr. Uzmi and his associates will provide this cutting-edge technology to the IXPs in Pakistan. Additionally, he is certain that his research would persuade content goliaths like Facebook and Google to increase their presence within the Pakistan IXP, ultimately contributing to an increase in internet speed in the country.
Large content distribution networks and providers based locally would significantly improve the availability of fair web access, according to Dr. Uzmi.
He reiterated his commitment to doing so in order to provide Pakistani users with “better and faster experiences on par with services elsewhere in the world.”
It should be noted that the Information Society Innovation Fund (ISIF Asia) awards, administered by the APNIC Foundation, are open to projects that use cutting-edge technology and research to further Internet development in the Asia-Pacific region.