[August 9, 2008 Karachi, Pakistan] KalSoft organized the grand finale of PinnaKal at KalAcademy. Candidates from several universities participated along with their teachers. President and CEO of KalSoft, Khurram H. Kalia was the Guest of Honor, Muhammad Raza Haroon, Sindh IT Minister was the Chief Guest at the event, which was presided over by Abdul Ghani Saeed, Chief Executive, EDC Network.

PinnaKal is a nationwide product ideas & concept competition program that was launched in 46 I.T Universities with more than 500 undergraduate students participating in stage one. According to Khurram Kalia, President and CEO of KalSoft, “The purpose behind ‘PinnaKal’ is to motivate IT students to address real-life business problems and allow them to explore their hidden talents by developing ingenious solutions and product ideas. The other aspiration was to inject the industry specific knowledge and make them think out of the box beside their daily academic activities in order to enhance their technical and professional competitive skills.”

In the Grand Finale, 5 projects were to be presented by NED University, GC Lahore University, Sir Syed University and NUST. Several senior faculty members from these universities were present at the event. NED’s student won the competition, while Sir Syed University and GC University attained 2nd and 3rd position respectively.

IT Minister, Raza Haroon, distributed prizes amongst the winners and said, “It’s very pleasing to see that KalSoft is providing such marvelous opportunities to the students. I am very grateful to know about the projects of these students and I welcome all those students to share their innovative projects with Ministry of Sindh. We are eager to finance their projects.” He further added, “Such competitions play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between students and industry.”

Khurram H. Kalia, CEO of KalSoft said, “The aim behind Pinna Kal is to provide students a platform where they can get a chance to convert their ideas into practically applicable business solutions. We have plans to fund a few among these projects, which will really be helpful in promoting local IT sector.”