Pakistan came into being on 14th August, 1947. Despite being a new nation and suffering many setbacks due to bad governance, it managed to have some wonderful achievements in the field of science, engineering and technology. Today we are listing some of the unique achievements of Pakistani scientists and engineers, some of them were individual but majority of them were the result of team work.
1. World’s Biggest Earth Filled Dam:
Tarbela Dam is constructed on the Indus River, at Tarbela in Pakistan. The Dam is classified as the World’s largest earth filled dam. While it is termed as the 2nd largest dam by its structural volume. The dam has an elevation of 9000 ft from the sea level while it is 485 ft high from the riverbed. The resulting water reservoir lake has a total surface area of 250 square kilometers. Since its inception, it has played a vital role in irrigation, hydroelectric power generation as well as flood control for Pakistan.
2. World’s Largest Irrigation network:
Pakistan boasts world’s largest irrigation network. The development of this irrigation system is one of the major achievement of Pakistani engineers. This irrigitaion network provides water to 90% of the agricultural land in Pakistan which amounts to an area of 14.4 million hectares. This irrigation system consists of three major reservoirs: Tarbela dam and Chashma dam are built on river Indus while Mangla Dam is built on River Jhelum. The system is composed of numerous barrages, headworks and canals. The total length of all canals serving the agricultural land exceeds 58,500 km.
3. World’s Highest Paved International Road:
The Karakoram Highway has been classified as World’s highest paved international road that serves as a terrestrial link for the trade between Pakistan and China. The road has an overall height of 4,693 meters (15,397 ft) above the sea level. The construction of this road posed numerous logistical and and technological challenges to Pakistani and Chinese Engineers. Many lost their lives during the process. No doubt it is rightly refrerred to by many as the Eight Wonder Of The World.
4. World’s Highest Density Processor:
The research and development of microprocessors has played a vital role in the computers, smart devices and telecommunication revolution that we see today. In this context, a team of Pakistani engineers from the company Avaz Networks, under the supervision of Dr Shoaib A. Khan, designed the World’s highest density media processor for Voice Over Ip applications (VOIP). This single chip processor has the unique capability to handle to 2000 simultaneous VOIP calls.
5. World’s Biggest Deep Sea Port:
Gwadar port located in Balochistan, on the shores of Arabian Sea, has been classified by experts as the world’s largest warm water deep sea port. Its location is strategic because the region surrounding it has world’s two-third oil. The port is also poised to give China, Afghanistan, as well as, the landlocked and mineral rich countries of central asia the easiest and cheapest access to the Arabian sea. The port is only 533 km away from the city of Karachi which is the economic capital of Pakistan.
6. World’s Youngest Microsoft Certified Professional
The title of the world’s youngest Microsoft certified professional from 2004-2008 was also held by a Pakistani girl named Arfa Abdul Karim Randhawa. She was only nine years old when she acquired this title. She was personally invited by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, to meet her. She also represented Pakistan at many tech and computer conferences. However, her story had a tragic end as she died of cardiac arrest aged just 16.
7. World’s Brightest A-Level Student
Ali Moeen Nawazish is a Pakistani student from the city of Rawalpindi who made history by scoring record number of A’s in a single year while studying for A levels at Trinity Hall, Cambridge university. He got 21 A’s in 2011 which is indeed a world record. Currently, he is also working as a columnist to highlight the issues faced by youth in Pakistan.
8. World’s 3rd biggest elance workforce
Elance is termed as the world’s largest online platform where recruiters as well as freelancers from around the world interact with each other. The recruiters mostly post jobs related to the Web and mobile application development, Graphic designing, creative/technical writing, scientific problem solving, marketing and administration etc. There are free lancers from 158 countries that compete to win and execute those jobs. Hence, the market is highly competitive but Pakistanis accounts for one third of free lancers work force. Currently, Pakistani work force earns 500 million dollars a year in terms of revenues from Elance.
9. Pakistan Supplies 50% of World’s Footballs:
Pakistan is famous for the quality of its sports equipment, especially, the one that is made in Sialkot. The most notable product of Pakistani sports industry is the hand stitched football. Around 60 million such footballs were produced this year alone. Out of that 40 million were officially supplied for the Football world cup held in Brazil.
10. World’s First Muslim Nuclear State:
The design of the nuclear bomb is a complex challenge requiring expertise in multiple theoretical and experimental sciences. On top of that, this technology and related equipments are highly classified. That is why, only 7 nations in the world declare to have this technology. Pakistan on 28th May 1998 became the first and the only muslim country to possess this technology by successfully exploding six nuclear devices.
