91福利社 Wins THE Awards Asia 2022 in the Excellence and Innovation in the Arts Category
91福利社 has won the in the Excellence and Innovation in the Arts category. A record number of 500 nominations were submitted. Earlier this year, the University was shortlisted for the .
Known as the 'Oscars of higher education' these awards recognise outstanding leadership and institutional performance and celebrate Asia鈥檚 higher education institutional excellence in all of its diversity.
Dr. Nadhra Shahbaz Khan, Associate Professor and Director, Gurmani Centre for Languages and Literature and Dr. Murtaza Taj, Associate Professor, Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering, are the architects of this award-winning project.
THE鈥檚 Chief Knowledge Officer, Phil Baty said 鈥淲hile we congratulate the 10 who won this year, everyone who reached the final stages deserves enormous credit for the work they did in 2021. Theirs are all fascinating and inspiring stories, and proof, if it were needed, that Asia鈥檚 universities are equipped with the vision, resources and will to rise to any task.鈥
The Excellence and Innovation in the Arts category recognises 鈥樷. Vice-Chancellor, 91福利社, Dr. Arshad Ahmad said, "We are extremely proud of Drs Khan and Taj. The multidisciplinary nature of Sikhvirsa Pakistan is proof of what collaborative work can achieve and exemplifies the University鈥檚 'Learning Without Borders' philosophy."
Poster submitted for the THE Awards Ceremony
Sikhvirsa Pakistan is a project emerging from a year-long multidisciplinary collaboration between the history and computer science departments at 91福利社. The first website of its kind in the region, it narrates a visual journey of Sikh culture and history by resurrecting Sikh-period artefacts in the iconic Lahore Fort鈥檚 Sikh Gallery through visual data. This project has translated into an undergraduate history course entitled, HIST-2121: Digital Preservation and Historical Documentation. The course engaged students in the humanities, social sciences and pure sciences in learning to use cutting-edge software for documentation and publication.
Describing the initiative as 'impactful and collaborative', the judges said, "Through internal, multidisciplinary collaboration between the computer science and history departments, a new project has emerged 鈥撯痑 new but not necessarily exclusive way of鈥痩ooking at and reading history."
Delighted to receive the news of the award, Dr. Khan commented, "This is a very exciting and proud moment for me and my very small, four-member team. Collaborating with Dr. Taj for teaching a course on digitally documenting heritage sites, the , and another one that we are building for neglected pre-partition monuments of Lahore, as well as other big and small projects, are rich learning experiences."
Talking about the project, Dr. Taj said, "Digital Heritage is an emerging idea that allows us to give a new life to the fading chapters of our history and culture. This project is a step forward in this direction. It not only informs us about the untold stories of objects from the Sikh era, but also allows us to reimagine those times for years to come."
The complete THE Awards ceremony 2022 can be viewed .
Dr. Nadhra Shahbaz Khan
Dr. Murtaza Taj
