P@SHA CXO Meetup Islamabad was held on the 29th of January in Islamabad Club in the presence of Chief Guest, Chairman HEC, Dr. Tariq Banuri. The meetup was attended by CXO level positions of notable P@SHA member companies as well as startups and government officials.
The opening address was given by Vice-Chairman P@SHA, Mujeeb Zahur who shed light on the upcoming initiatives of P@SHA. Mujeeb emphasized on the priorities of P@SHA Central Executive Committee (CEC), which include an increase in IT exports through the 5% cash incentive, ease of doing business by erecting STZs, the “MakeInPakistan” campaign focusing on domestic capacity building/public-private partnerships and skills development of the educational & training institutes in accordance with the market needs to bridge the Industry-Academia gap.
The Vice-Chairman also talked about the outcomes of the meeting of P@SHA CEC members with the Governor State Bank of Pakistan and encouraged the members to provide feedback and discuss pain-points of the industry. P@SHA’s lead role in the creation of the e-commerce policy in close engagement with the Ministry of Commerce and Minister Abdul Razzak Daud was highlighted as well.
Chief Guest for the evening, Chairman HEC, Dr. Tariq Banuri mentioned the 3 goals HEC is working on; access to education for people, quality of education and relevance to the socio-economic needs of the country. Dr. Tariq Banuri shared his intent of increasing export promotion rather than previously adopted Import substitution approach to make the IT industry become internationally competitive. Furthermore, Dr. Tariq also talked about his plans subsidizing Research & Development at 50% for the IT companies.
Currently, HEC is working on a total of 48 different initiatives a few of which are mentioned below:
- Opportunity for a grant up to Rs. 1.5 Million for “Problem-solving oriented research” with local or international partnerships
- Revamping Undergrad and Postgrad including Ph.D. programs with special focus on the undergrad programs keeping in consideration three major points; disciplinary competency, practical competency, and general competency
- Updated technology transfer support program
- Faculty success facilitated by training and promotion opportunities
- Education Testing Council
- Requiring Universities for Solarization of campuses
- Student Support, Career Counselling, and Placement services
- Systems for auditing, monitoring, and reporting
The meetup was sponsored by Zigron, a P@SHA member company headed by Wahid Khan who provided insight on their smart home application, ‘Abode’ which is completely made in Pakistan. Abode is an integrated home security and home automation solution which offers an easy to use software with no-contract plans to keep you connected and protected every day of the year.
