The tenth annual P@SHA ICT Awards 2013 took place at a gala event in the capital Islamabad on Saturday. This is the first year that this event has been held in Islamabad having originally been held in Karachi and Lahore during previous years.
The who’s who of the Pakistani ICT sector hob-nobbed with representatives from embassies, government, business sector and from academia at a star-studded event that buzzed with energy showing once again that the Pakistan ICT sector was alive with innovation.
The P@SHA ICT Awards aim to recognize the best innovative technology products and solutions being developed in Pakistan and to acknowledge creativity, innovation and excellence in Pakistan’s Information and Communications Technologies sector.
The theme of the 10th P@SHA ICT Awards was “Innovation is the Catalyst for Growth”.
This year we received an overwhelming number of entries, said Jehan Ara President of P@SHA. Panels of judges from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad spent long hours listening to innovators present their software products and service offerings in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Every year it becomes more and more difficult to identify the best in each category, she said. There are so many great entries.
There are a few innovators that we expect to see in the winning circle every year simply because they keep creating great products, said one of the 21 judges who adjudicated this year’s Awards. However, each year we are surprised at the number of new faces and new companies that somehow emerge to the surface.
Innovation is taking place in every nook and corner of this country, said P@SHA Chairman Naseer Akhtar. This year 40 amazing entries were declared as the best innovators in the17 product and 15 services categories of the P@SHA ICT Awards.
The winners from the product categories of the P@SHA ICT Awards 2013 will be part of the P@SHA delegation that will compete at the APICTA (Asia Pacific ICT Awards) in Hong Kong, against 15 IT economies, namely, Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam.
APICTA is scheduled to be held on November 24 – 27, 2013 where top innovators from the region will go head to head to benchmark their products against the best in the region.
Next year Pakistan will play host to the Asia Pacific ICT Awards when 250 – 300 delegates from a wide number of economies will fly into Lahore and Islamabad.