Ishtirak is the culminating experience in the academic curricula of Dhanani School of Science and Engineering (DSSE). By engaging in a year-long team project with for-profit or non-profit companies, startups, research labs, or government, DSSE final year students draw on their academic experience to design and develop technical solutions to real world problems under professional supervision.
An Ishtirak team comprises 3 to 5 seniors from DSSE. Depending on the nature of the project, some members hail from other programs at Habib University. The team is supervised by a dedicated liaison (Rabit or external supervisor) from the company (Shareek.) A DSSE faculty member serves as the internal supervisor.
The Rabit provides minimal supervision to the team to help it develop a project proposal to be defended to an academic panel as its final year project. Rabits who provide adequate time to their teams inevitably get their proposals approved and an internal supervisor assigned to the project. Healthy collaboration with the internal supervisor and continued supervision of the team by the Rabit ensures the success of the project over the rest of the academic year.
All Intellectual Property resulting from Ishtirak belongs to the Shareek. During the academic year, team members present their project work at academic evaluations and assessments which are open to all members of Habib University.
The Ishtirak fee* covers materials, software, subscriptions, at least 2 site visits, and DSSE overhead. Participating in Ishtirak provides the Shareek a minimum of 900 to 1500 hours spent on the design and development of a solution to one of their business problems by DSSE seniors under the supervision of a DSSE faculty member. There is the opportunity to engage with the students after they graduate, to network with DSSE faculty and other industry leaders at Ishtirak events, and to avail preferred participation in Habib University career fairs and future iterations of Ishtirak.
Co-design
In the 2020-21 academic year, DSSE will invite selected Shareeks to help us design and formalize the Ishtirak process. Participation in this program is voluntary and is independent of any concurrent Ishtirak project.
What is a suitable Ishtirak project?
Ishtirak is not intended for business crucial projects. An Ishtirak project is one that the organization believes to be eventually beneficial to its business, e.g. an experimental venture into a new domain, a proof of concept, or an optimization of one or more existing systems. See our list of previous Ishtirak projects for examples.
* – The Ishtirak fee is negotiable for and in cases may be waived for registered NGO’s, non-profits, research labs., and universities.
