Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology

The Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (commonly referred as GIKI) is a private research university located in Topi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. The institute has a 400 acre campus that is located in the vicinity of Swabi District.

It was founded by the former President of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, in 1993.

GIK is one of the top institutions ranked by the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

History
The GIK Institute is a private educational institution, named after former bureaucrat and former President of Pakistan Ghulam Ishaq Khan. The project was delegated to Pakistani scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who was one of the founding members of the institute and was once registered as an associate professor of physics.

The genesis of the Institute can be traced back to the early 1950s when Ghulam Ishaq Khan became acutely aware of Pakistan's dependence on foreign expertise and imported technology. Out of his frequent interaction with the foreign and local experts emerged the idea that a centre of excellence in engineering sciences and production technology ought to be established in the country, whose standards of education are comparable to those of its counterparts in the advanced countries. The transformation of this idea into a practical proposition took place in December 1985 when the Benevolent Community Care and Infaq Foundation donated Rs. 50 million for setting up an institute in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for promotion of science and technology.

Major founding donors include Nouman Benevolent Community Care, Infaq Foundation, Chiniot Anjuman-e-Islamia, Dawood Group of Industries, and the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa which has donated land at Topi.

In June, 1988 its parent body, Society for the Promotion of Engineering Sciences and Technology in Pakistan (SOPREST) was established with Ghulam Ishaq Khan, then the President of the country being elected the President of the Society for life.

The task of conceiving and formulating the basic form and features of the institute was entrusted to a group of eminent scientists and engineers. The civil works at the campus site were started in early 1990. An interim office of the institute was set up in August 1992 where senior professionals with notable backgrounds worked in a cohesive group to evolve the educational aims and philosophy of the institute, its curricula and details of the equipment for its laboratories and workshops.

In March 1993, the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa established the institute under the umbrella of SOPREST, and the first batch of students was inducted the same year in October.

The Institute is the first privately funded institute of its kind in the country. The tuition fee has to be in consonance with the high cost of education. However, what the students are charged hardly covers the annual expenditure. Total capital outlay of the institute to-date on historical cost basis works out to more than Rs. 2.5 billion for which funds were mobilised from diverse sources including a major donation of Rs. 750 million from Infaq Foundation and land measuring 216 acre donated by the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In 1998, the Clinton Administration sanctioned the GIKI for alleged unspecified involvement in nuclear or missile activities.



Campus
The institute has a 400 acre campus that is located in the vicinity of Swabi District.

Location
The university is situated beside the river Indus in the mountains of Tarbela and Gadoon-Amazai, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa near the town of Topi and in proximity to the lakes of Tarbela Dam and Ghazi.

Clock tower
Clock Tower is a landmark of Ghulam Ishaq Khan, aka LoGIK in short. The clock tower can be seen from almost everywhere in the institute and has clocks on all four of its sides. It is the tallest structure in the area visible for many miles, and it provides a view of Tarbela Dam and the surrounding areas of Topi. It unites the institute on one time, and the student community is particularly fond of it.

Central Library
Initially, the library was housed in the Faculty of Metallurgy and Material Engineering (now Faculty of Material Science and Engineering). The construction of the main library building was started and completed in 1996. It is a stately three-story building, situated at the foothill of hills near Tarbela Dam.

Agha Hasan Abedi Auditorium
The Agha Hasan Abedi (AHA) Auditorium is named after Agha Hasan Abedi. It occupies the central place in the campus. It has a seating capacity of 535, and is a venue of conferences, seminars, debates, declamation contests, concerts, and other such functions.

Rankings
The institute has been ranked number one in Pakistan and 30th internationally in Quality Education and has an overall ranking of 601-800th by The Times Higher Education in the World University Impact Rankings 2021.

The Institute has been ranked third in the province of KPK, 22nd in Pakistan, 532nd Globally by UI Green Metric Rankings 2021.

The university was given a "Reporter" status on The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022 and Young University Rankings 2022.

Faculty of Engineering Sciences
The Faculty offers a 4-year Bachelor's in Engineering Sciences which encompasses some of the modern fields of engineering such as:


 * Lasers and Electro-Optics
 * Semiconductors and Superconducting Devices
 * Modelling and Simulations

The faculty also offers MS and PhD degree programs in applied mathematics and applied physics.

Faculty of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering share the same department building.

Faculty of Electrical Engineering
It offers four year BS degree program in Electrical Engineering with following specializations: Faculty Thrust Areas:
 * Electronic Engineering
 * Power Engineering
 * Communication and Digital Signal Processing
 * Microelectronics and ASIC Design
 * Electric Power and Control Systems

Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering
The Faculty offers courses leading to Bachelor's (BS) in Computer Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Computer Science. It also offers a Master's and a Ph.D. in Computer Systems Engineering.

On 6 July 2020, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, in collaboration with Huawei, launched its Bachelor of Science program in Artificial Intelligence.

Ths institute introduced its programs of Data Science in 2021 and Cyber Security in 2022.

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
The Centre for Manufacturing Productivity and Technology Transfer (CMPT) is a multidisciplinary research / R&D Centre.

Faculty of Materials and Chemical Engineering
The Faculty offers two 4-year bachelor's degree programs:


 * Materials Engineering
 * Chemical Engineering

Materials Engineering program offers following specialization streams:


 * Specialization in Manufacturing
 * Specialization in Nanotechnology

Faculty of Civil Engineering
Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute introduced its program of Civil Engineering in 2018. The department offers a four years BS Civil Engineering program.

Faculty of Management Sciences and Humanities
Degree program at undergraduate level had started from 2013. This Faculty offers 4 year BS Management Science degree with specialization in:
 * Marketing & Entrepreneurship
 * Accounting & Finance
 * Supply Chain Management
 * Project Management

International Advisory Board
The advisory board consists of scientists, engineers and academicians who are monitoring the institute's standard of education and research. It comprises faculty members from Kansas State University, Kyoto University, McGill University, University of Florida, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and other institutions.

High Performance Computing Cluster
HPC platform has been donated to GIK Institute by the Directorate of Science and Technology (DoST) KPK Pakistan. It is a compute-intensive platform and has the following hardware components:


 * Front Node: Dell R815 with 64 CPU cores, 256 GB RAM, 1.8 TB Secondary Memory
 * 3 Compute Nodes: Dell R175 each with 32 CPU cores/ compute node (96 in total), 128 GB RAM/ compute node (384 GB in total), 600 GB Secondary Memory/ compute node (1.8 TB in total).
 * NVIDIA Tesla M2090 Graphical.
 * Dell Power Connect 8024F layer-3 manageable switch: Front Node and the Compute Nodes are connected to each other using this switch.

Catalyst Incubator
GIK Institute established its own startup Incubator in 2014 with the aim to motivate entrepreneurial skills among the students. The incubator will provide facilities and technical assistance, working space, and other services to incubate the startup initiatives by the participants. It will also help them get venture capitalists to convert their fledgling startups into mature ones.

In 2015, GIK incubator received funding of 100 million PKR from the Directorate of Science and Technology, Ministry of ST & IT, Govt of Khyber Pakhtunkhuwa. The grant was given in order to develop entrepreneurship through the establishment and strengthening of Technology Incubation center.

Notable alumni

 * Yarjan Abdul Samad, First Pakistani space scientist to work at University of Cambridge.
 * Taimur Khan Jhagra, Provincial Minister of Finance for Khyber Pakhtunkhuwa and former Mckinsey Partner.
 * Muhammad Hamza Shafqaat, Former Deputy Commissioner Islamabad.
 * Wardah Inam, Cofounder and CEO of Overjet.

Societies and clubs
The institute offers opportunities for students to participate in technical and professional societies. Study trips to industries and organizations are arranged, guest speakers from institutes and industries are invited and seminars and workshops are held. Sports facilities are available on the campus. Each faculty in the institute supports professional organizations, devoted to advancing the theory and practice of their fields. There are also societies that have been created for non-technical purposes and do not represent any particular faculty.

Sports
The campus has its own sports facilities. Courts for indoor games and activities such as table tennis, badminton, and squash are available on the campus. Tennis, basketball and volleyball courts, football and cricket grounds are also present. The sports complex also features a swimming pool and gymnasium.