The institution, that has been named the best business school in Asia for five consecutive years by Business Week and the best MBA school for two years by Asia Week, has campuses in Karachi, Larkana and Dubai and has been functioning for 11 years.
The institute conferred 25 BBA degrees, 24 BS and BCS degrees, 178 MBA degrees, 48 MCS degrees and 51 MS degrees.
Dr Javaid Leghari, SZABIST vice president, introduced the institution, which is the only Pakistani institution to be a member of international organisations such as the Commonwealth Institutions Union and the SAARC Educational Institutions Union, New Delhi. "Each year, our students receive prestigious awards such as the Fullbright, Rhodes, Cambridge, Chevening and the World Bank scholarships," he told the audience members, who included the graduates and their parents as well as heads of corporate organisations that had sponsored the event. Leghari also mentioned that the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) had ranked SZABIST in the top three business and information technology schools in Pakistan. He said that the vision of SZABIST was to prepare its students for the challenges that they could face as citizens of the world. "You have been part of an elite institution," he said to the graduates, "and we hope that you address the educational disparities that exist in this country as where a large number of students are able to get world-class education, there are many others who cannot even sign their names."
The chief guest and keynote speaker of the occasion was Rt Sir Gerald Kaufman who spoke on "The responsibility of being Pakistan". He said that he was delighted to be part of the ceremony of the institute as he had admired Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his achievements and was appalled and horrified at his end. He said that there were 800,000 Pakistani-origin people in Britain and Islam was among the largest religions in the country, second only to Christianity. He said that Pakistanis had made a significant contribution to the fields of medicine, law, sports, law and order and the arts in the UK and were the best liked when it came to food. "However, Pakistan has enormous problems of pollution and poverty," he lamented, "and it is essential that they must solve these because it might not be the richest Islamic nation but it is the most significant as it has huge responsibilities." He said that Pakistan had taken up the mission to prove that just because it was a Muslim country did not mean that it was not liberal. After all, he said, Pakistan was the first Asian country to have a woman prime minister. "The biggest responsibility that Pakistan has to shoulder is that it has to prove that a developing country can counter poverty and disease and can do much more industrially and commercially than a call centre." He said that he hoped that President Musharraf would establish true democracy in Pakistan, as democracy was a part of the country's constitution and, "a Pakistan that is not democratic is not the Pakistan established by Mohammad Ali Jinnah." He urged the students to stay back in Pakistan, as their country needed their contribution to enlighten it and help it prosper and grow to its full potential.
SZABIST awarded gold medals to Munira Mansuri and Sanam Pathan of BBA, Mehjabeen Sultan and Muhammad Tahauddin Ahmed of MCS and Muhammad Umair Naqvi of MS for their outstanding performance. Five surprise gold medals were also awarded by corporate organisations to Farah Ali Nawaz of MBA for brand management, Jyoti Balani of MBA for treasury and funds management, Beenish Nida Afaq of MBA for pharmaceutical management, and Zara Rehman and Muffadal of MBA for sales management.
Gold medallist Sanam Pathan spoke on behalf of the medallists and said that SZABIST was much more to her than just an institution where she had achieved a degree. "SZABIST is an inspiration for everyone who believes that the purpose of life is a life of purpose. It is a corridor of opportunities and it has taught us to dream, dare and achieve." She thanked the faculty for their support who, she said, always went an extra mile to help the students. The institution also recongnised two of it's employees, Asif Qazi and Natasha Lobo, for having successfully completed ten years with SZABIST.
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