Microsoft and HEC Partnership Announce Free Office 365 Plan for Students

Microsoft Pakistan and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan, as part of their Educational Alliance Agreement have announced at the ‘Launch of Student Advantage Program’ that the Office 365 services are available for free for students who are enrolled at Higher Education Institutions in Pakistan.

The Educational Alliance Agreement between HEC and Microsoft has been a remarkable initiative which has delivered promising values and advantages to students, faculty and staff at universities across Pakistan for the past five years. The objective of this alliance is to deliver programs that provide access to the latest Microsoft software products, trainings & workshops given by trained Microsoft staff and community, opportunities to participate in global technology competitions, content for curriculum design, staff technical training, faculty connection & other global Microsoft programs as well as material for developing teaching content.  

Taking this collaboration one step further, Higher Education Commission, Pakistan and Microsoft are partnering with Techaccess Pakistan to introduce ‘Office 365 Services’ to Pakistan’s educational system. Office 365 will allow students to install the latest Genuine Microsoft Office products on up to 5 PC’s or Mac’s and 5 Windows tablets including Office Apps on mobile devices. The services also include 1TB of OneDrive storage; in addition, they will also have access to state-of-the-art social networking services which include Skype for Business, Exchange, Yammer and SharePoint.

At the announcement Nadeem Malik, Country Manager, Microsoft Pakistan, opined, “As part of our continuing efforts, the Office 365 services will be available for free to students who are attending academic institutions within Pakistan. The aim of this initiative is to provide Office 365 solutions to 156 Pakistani universities and other educational institutes. Soon, every faculty member, working with any HEC-recognized educational institute, will be using the latest Office 365 technology. This will not only help us promote effectiveness, but will also encourage transparency, a much-needed factor for Pakistan's education sector to imprint a strong academic foothold on the globe and help us revolutionize our nation's education sector.”

Further Abid Zaidi, Country Enterprise & Partner Group Director Microsoft Pakistan added, “Students and teachers will be able to work together securely in new and exciting ways to accomplish more in the cloud. Office 365 will give them the flexibility to work in online versions of the familiar Office applications that we have all come to depend on.” he added.

Anwar Amjad, Director General (IT) of the HEC said, “Providing an enabling environment to the academic community of the country has been at the forefront of HEC’s vision since inception. At HEC our goal is to provide an encouraging environment for quality education. We are very pleased to see that the Educational Alliance Agreement between HEC and Microsoft is empowering young people by providing access to technology and helping in skills development and training, improving education and also giving young people tools to support their learning.”

Among the numerous guests and notable personalities were Prof. Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, Chairman HEC, Prof. Dr. Mansoor Akbar Kundi, Executive Director HEC along-with Mr. Jibran Jamshad, Enterprise Technology Strategist, Microsoft Pakistan and Mr. Malik Imran, VP of Tachaccess Pakistan.