Blockchain is the future of technology. Globally the blockchain market is forecasted to reach the size of US$23.3 Billion by 2023 representing a CAGR of 81%. Pakistan’s IT industry is growing rapidly as well. Each year, 20,000 IT graduates on average join the tech sector. Our IT exports have hit the mark of US $2 Billion in the first quarter of the FY 2021 alone.
That’s a significant indicator of what the future holds for the tech sector of Pakistan but we need to strengthen our economy further. That can only be done when our youth is actively involved in the emerging trends of the world. With a soaring youth bulge and 64% of the population falling below the age of 30, this is the right time that we accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology across industries.
Enabling our youth to equip themselves with the trends in blockchain technology and bring themselves at par with the world, Stacks Pakistan is holding the first edition of its annual blockchain conference, XPLORE 1.0, on the 15th of August at COLABS, Lahore. The conference is being held to celebrate and discuss the latest developments in Blockchain technology in Pakistan and around the globe.
The main objective is to push the agenda of the rapid adoption of blockchain. With topics ranging from Clarity to Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs), XPLORE aims at keeping you abreast with the emerging trends in Blockchain technology. Driven with the vision to see the world where you own your internet, Stacks Pakistan is the local chapter of ‘Stacks’ (an international blockchain company based out of the U.S. co-founded by Dr. Muneeb Ali) and was launched in November 2020 to revolutionize the internet.
“One thing we have thought for so long is that Bitcoin cannot have smart contracts and it cannot be general-purpose. This is what Stacks has disproved. What the Stacks developer community has been mind-blown over these last few weeks is that if you do transactions on Bitcoin you can interact directly with smart contracts and that is extremely powerful,” shares Dr. Muneeb Ali, Co-founder and CEO Hiro Systems PBC.
Right now not a lot of people don’t know about this and the general Bitcoin community does not understand this either, but this is where the opportunity lies. It’s exciting times for all of us and we have just begun exploring,” he adds.
Stacks is an ecosystem of decentralized computing networks that makes Bitcoin programmable where developers build applications, protocols, and tools on blockchain technology. Standing for Pakistan’s technological progression, with Stacks Pakistan Dr. Muneeb Ali has brought his brainchild to his homeland to make blockchain and cryptocurrency mainstream in the country, creating awareness about and educating the young developers on Clarity.
Clarity is Stacks’ proprietary smart contract language powered by Bitcoin. One of the fastest-growing smart contract languages in the world, Clarity is designed to better protect developers and end-users.
With COLABS as its Exclusive Partner, the conference will be having sessions and panel discussions featuring speakers from Stacks’ global community and Pakistani tech industry such as Trevor Owen (Managing Partner, Stacks Accelerator), Yusuf Hussain (Head Venture Capital, Habib Bank Ltd.), Mohammad Raafi Hossain (CEO, Fasset), Sulmaan Hanif (Chief Revenue Officer, Fasset), and Marvin Janssen (Lead Engineer, Hiro Systems PBC).
Other salient speakers will include Faisal Aftab (Co-Founder & Managing Partner, BitRate Venture Capital), Nighat Dad (Founder Digital Rights Foundation), Ali Farid Khwaja (Chairman, KASB Securities), Jenny Mith (Ecosystem Development Lead, Stacks Foundation), Misbah Naqvi (General Partner & Co-founder i2i Ventures), Ayub Ghauri (Founder HospitAll), Omar Shah (Co-founder & CEO, COLABS), Shoaib Zahid Malik (Director, Kausar Group of Companies) and Faisal Sherjan (Strategic Advisor, COLABS), to name a few.
Other than insightful discussions on blockchain, XPLORE 1.0 will be giving an opportunity to the youth to showcase their talent through the Smart Contract exhibition. Sponsored by Fasset, the achievements of Pakistan’s Clarity developers, Stacks Summer School graduates, community leads and Stacks Hack for Impact hackathon champions will be recognized with an award ceremony.
Nabeel Qadeer, Country Consultant, Stacks Pakistan, says, “At Stacks Pakistan our bigger goal is to serve Pakistan, to enable our youth, by giving them equal opportunities at par with other fast-emerging economies of the world. It is for this that we are holding Stacks Pakistan’s first annual blockchain conference – XPLORE. I would urge the young developers to make the best of this opportunity.”
Celebrating the changemakers in the field of blockchain, XPLORE 1.0 will be held on the 15th of August at COLABS, Lahore. To become a part of the conference, register yourself at pakistan.stacks.co/xplore.
