Awantipora: As a part of its flagship Community and Industrial Outreach initiatives, the Islamic University of Science and Technology(IUST) held two extensive programsto continue its efforts of bridging the gap between academia, industry, and community. Two such events organized this week that include a Workshop on Modern Learning & Arabic Speaking skills for Oriental Islamic Centres and, a special session on ‘Insights on Novel Product Development’ under Industry-Outreach.
The main speaker on Novel Product Development was Manoj Pareek, Head R&D (Health Food Drink Category) and R&D Lead site, Hindustan Unilever Limited, Gurugram. During this session, he focussed on the Global trends for food in 2023, which include health and well-being, nutrition quality, eco-friendly, and sustainability of food.While emphasizing on the need forinnovative research, Pareek noted that the quality of food and nutritional value must be kept in consideration. As an expert food technologist, he said, one should look for consumer needs and then create a possible nutritious innovative solution without compromising on environmental sustainability.
Addressing the participants, Prof Lily Want (Dean Outreach IUST) said, “CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) holds economic as well as ethical values. IUST has made “CSR” an integral part of academics with a focus on Community connect, Alumni connect, Career Counselling and Industrial connect, and has ushered a new ecosystem of learning, opportunities, and inspiration”. She applauded the varsity for its ground-breaking initiatives in facilitating placements of its students and exposing them to in-demand technical and professional skills for various industries and helping them to identify employment options that match their career options.
“IUST organized joint events, workshops, seminars, conferences, and interactive sessions on a regular basisto share the information about the focus on active research-basedsolutions to community problems,”, said Dr. Amir Hussain Dar (Coordinate, Industry Connect, IUST).
The Department of Arabic Language and Literature, IUST organized a workshop for Oriental Islamic Centres, with the aim to expose them to modern language learning and equip them with basic Arabic speaking skills.
“Besides, Arabic language skills, our focus was also to enhance skills of participants related to English language, personality development and time management”, said Dr. Inayat Rasool, Head Department of Arabic Language and Literature, IUST. The program was coordinated by Dr. Irshad A Mir, Department’s Community Outreach Coordinator.
Speaking on this occasion, Shazana Andrabi (IUST Coordinator, Community Connect) encouraged participants to explore more opportunities to improve their language competence and other communication skills as it can help them to communicate more efficiently.

KR Desk