Islamabad Science Festival

Thank you, Dr Nishat. Your work on what keeps girls in school shaped the argument. The Peshawar girls needed a teacher's improvisation. Education departments across the country can make it a standard - here’s the post-event feedback from a girl student from Hyderabad student who won second place at the @ISBScienceFest 🙌🏾 @MalalaFundPK @MalalaFund

A million AI professionals by 2030 means about 250,000 a year. Every one of them is a child in a classroom today. Pakistan has the policy: a youth programme (@PMsYouthProgram), a 4E framework, an AI target. What it lacks is a way to find capable children in government institutions and put their work in front of people who can use it. Our @ISBScienceFest this month brought 30 institutions, at least 117 students, 51 of them girls, from six regions. Balochistan sent no team. Two girls from Peshawar stayed for day two only because a teacher convinced their parents and put them up at her sister's home. My op-ed in The News today:
thenews.pk/print/1445068-a-m…

A girl from a government school in Hyderabad told the Chairman of the Prime Minister's Youth Programme Rana Mashhood sb that she wants to be Education Minister. She was one of the students at the @ISBScienceFest, where 9,000 people came over two days to see government-school students from across Pakistan, including AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan, on one stage for the first time. Girls from Shangla won the school category with a safety model for the coal miners of their own district. Three of the four government schools Sindh sent placed on the podium, among them the Hyderabad girls' school named a global top-10 finalist for the World's Best School Prizes 2026. A student from the University of Narowal won the university category with AI that generates contrast MRI from non-contrast scans. A boy from Korangi built a rain-sound instrument from nails, rice and beans from his father's refrigerator workshop. Each project began with a problem close to home: the danger facing coal miners in Shangla, the cost of a contrast injection in Narowal, a father's workshop in Korangi. PMYP will now partner with @Campaignistan to take ISF international, and Balochistan is next. Thank you to Federal Information Minister @TararAttaullah sb, Chairman @PMsYouthProgram @ranamashhood sb, @EduMinistryPK, the provincial education departments, @TharEduAlliance, @ImaratPK, and @MalalaFundPK 🙌🏾

We have built @ISBScienceFest to a nationwide platform showcasing Pakistan’s STEAM talent. These government school students have enormous talent and potential - @Campaignistan only provides that platform for them to rise and shine. Super proud of each one of them 💚💚🇵🇰

These students from government schools are my motivation for organising the Islamabad Science Festival. This year they came from Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad Capital Territory. The video of the students from Korangi, Karachi will give you goosebumps. If it doesn't, visit tomorrow at the Pak-China Friendship Centre. I felt it every time I stopped at their stall. @ISBScienceFest #ISF2026 #MadeInPakistan #Pakistan

They are, and that's exactly why the tehsil-level breakdown matters - it shows where. We're trying to answer the "so what now" part with the Islamabad Science Festival @ISBScienceFest, our national STEM platform reaching all four provinces, AJK and GB for the first time this October, specifically to give visibility to talent from the places the census is describing.

In some tehsils across Pakistan, more than 8 in 10 girls aged 5–16 have never set foot in a classroom. Not dropped out, they were never enrolled. I wrote about what the census found, and why the gap follows girls straight into the workforce and out of STEM. @LetsBuildPK @ISBScienceFest @Campaignistan thenews.pk/print/1439967-the…

This is why @isbsciencefest exists. Science is not optional for developing countries - it is the core of long-term progress. Atif Mian’s thread on China’s rise after it took science seriously, and Abdus Salam’s lifelong call for the developing world to invest in it, should be required reading. We are now preparing the 4th Islamabad Science Festival this September under @Campaignistan. Our mission remains the same: put science, curiosity, and evidence at the centre of the national conversation. Pakistan cannot afford to keep treating science as an afterthought.

We celebrate Pakistan’s STEM talent every year at the @ISBScienceFest. Today, we’re using our voice for one student who earned her place on the world stage - and is being stopped by a visa queue. Jeena Ali. ICS Part 1. Punjab College, Lahore. 1 of only 12 finalists worldwide at the International Research Olympiad at Harvard. The only Pakistani in that group. Her college is covering her ticket and visa costs. Her parents are ready. Her invitation letter from Harvard is in hand. Her visa interview? Scheduled for next year. The competition is June 19–21. We ask the relevant authorities to fast-track her appointment. Pakistan cannot afford to let bureaucracy bury its brightest. 📎 Letters attached. @usembislamabad @ForeignOfficePk @MIshaqDar50 @alimdar82 @WajihaQmr