ICT R&D Fund, which has rebranded itself to Ignite, today announced the bid winners of incubation centers in all provinces of Pakistan, except Balochistan. Company said that RFP for Incubation Center in Balochistan will be issued again.
Winners will now be given the the approved and allocated funds to setup incubation center in Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar.
It must be mentioned that ICT R&D Fund already has an incubation center up and running in Islamabad.
Winners for the incubation centers in Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar are as following:
- TPL for Karachi
- LMKT for Peshawar
- LUMS for Lahore
Minister of State for IT & Telecom Ms Anusha Rehman said that establishment of new technology Incubation centers across all four provinces will help youngsters in becoming successful entrepreneurs and earn reasonable livelihood.
In a board meeting today, CEO ICT R&d fund apprised the members that the company had received very encouraging feedback from the industry for the advertised incubation center projects and also informed the board that sealed bids submitted by more than thirty consortia comprising of dozens of companies for establishment of 4 new Incubation centers had been reviewed on technical and financial basis and board granted the approval for awarding contract to the successful bidders after due deliberation except Balochistan.
The board directed CEO “Ignite” to initiate a bidding process afresh for Incubation center to be built in Quetta, Balochistan.
The board agreed that to keep the momentum and industry interest going, RFPs will be floated for IOT, Robotics and fin- tech specialty innovation centers at the earliest.
The Minister further said that these Incubation centers will play a pivotal role in development of ICT skills ,required for employability in the sector.
The board also reviewed the status and pace of different ongoing projects of ICT R&D Fund Company .
Anusha Rehman said that the government attaches highest priority to ICTs development to materialize Prime Minister’s vision of “Accelerated Digitization”.She directed the Company to gear up their efforts to meet given timelines for all 7 incubation centers.
Federal secretary IT Mr.Rizwan Bashir Khan, Member Telecom Mudasar Hussain, Member HR, CEO ICT R&D Mr Yossaf Hassan and other board members were also present in the meeting
What about the capital?
There is a National Incubation Center in Islamabad already :)
Its been operational since March, 2017
What about students of other universities? Why a national level fund and national money is given to a private university? Being a technology entrepreneur, I dont see LUMS will decide anything on merit. Most likely will steal ideas and its professors will run evening companies or their friends and family will run companies from this ICTRnD national money. Anyone remember hundreds of ICTRnD projects wastes by university professors with ZERO National impact ZERO companies ZERO jobs created. Professors favored their friends and just distributed RnD fund money on useless projects.