P@SHA PULSE Vol 1. Oct 2022 Edition

Newly elected CEC during the oath-taking ceremony

GITEX GLOBAL (10th Nov - 14th Nov, DWTC - Dubai)

This year's GITEX GLOBAL was a great success for Pakistan. A total of 55 companies represented Pakistan in 4 different conclaves. These included 29 companies in the Pakistan Pavilion by PSEB, 10 startups by Ignite, and 16 other companies.

Tech Destination Pakistan sponsored the Connexion Lounge, where people from all over the world gathered and met with IT industry leaders from Pakistan.

Pakistan's participation at GITEX Dubai 2022 was heard loud and clear across the globe. IT companies from Pakistan left a clear message to their global counterparts that we have evolved significantly and are ready to scale business in IT.

Pakistan had 3 key locations this year, including a Pavilion for established enterprises, a well-constructed Pavilion for young innovative startups by IGNITE, and a Connexion Lounge for matchmaking & networking with booths and meeting rooms.

An official invitation has been shared with all the active members of P@SHA to join the existing and new committees for the year 2022-2023. However committee chair & TOR's will be announced by next week. Committee chairs will be looking after the criteria of shortlisting candidates for each committee.

Members can choose to be part of any of the committees below for the tenure 2022-2023.

Core Committees

1. Membership & Member Services (Chair: Mudassir Malik)

2. Government Relations Committee (Chair: M. Zohaib Khan)

3. Brand and Global Outreach (Chair: M. Jamil Anwar Goheer)

4. Skills Development & Training (Chair: Ali Ihsan)

5. Special Technology Zones (Chair: Bilal Hashmat)

Industry Sector/ Sub Sector Committees

1. E-Commerce (Chair: Khuram Rahat)

2. Animation, Graphics and Games (Chair: Ali Ihsan)

3. Cyber Security (Chair: M. Azam Mughal)

4. Fintech (Chair: Shahzad Shahid)

5. Web 3.0/Blockchain (Chair: Ali Ihsan)

6. Cloud (Chair: Mohsin Ali)

7. ICT (Chair: Mohsin Ali)

Special Initiative Committee

1. MakeinPakistan/Product Innovation (Chair: M. Jamil Anwar Goheer)

2. Startup (Chair: Mudassir Malik)

3. Diversity and Inclusion (Chair: Ali Ihsan)

Ministry of Finance

A meeting was co-chaired by the Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue and Federal Minister for IT & Telecom to discuss proposals by the IT & Telecom advisory committee for growth initiatives, held at the Ministry of Finance.

Prime Minister Office

A follow-up meeting was convened under the leadership of SAPM Shaza Fatima Khawaja with FBR and State Bank. The meeting was attended by Chairman P@SHA Muhammad Zohaib Khan, CEC member Mohsin Ali, and Policy Lead P@SHA Kashoon Leeza. FBR assured to resolve the challenges faced by the industry and assured that the companies won't be exposed to unnecessary audits, enhancing the ease of doing business.

State Bank of Pakistan

The State Bank of Pakistan convened a meeting with the Heads of Commercial Banks to resolve the issues faced by the IT & ITeS industry. State Bank assured the following:

i. Commercial banks will ensure the facilitation of opening FCY accounts for IT/ITES companies throughout their branches across the country.

ii. Retention limit of 35% USD amount in such accounts will be facilitated

iii. Easy / document-less outward remittances out of this retained amount will be allowed without any hassle.

iv. SBP assured it will issue a letter/instructions after resolution of these outstanding issues within 4-5 days.

Ministry of Commerce

An inter-ministerial meeting convened under the Ministry of Commerce under the chairmanship of the Joint Secretary (FT-II) to discuss the draft chapter of the Pak-GCC Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The meeting was attended by the P@SHA Vice Chairman, Khuram Rahat.

Sindh Secretariat | Skills Development Projects

The P@SHA Learning & Development team, as part of the advisory committee, attended the pre-bid meeting for the Sindh chapters of two major Skills Development projects: the Accademia-Bridge Program and the IT Industry-Readiness Bootcamps. The team helped answer questions from potential bidders around the RFPs circulated by the government.

Chairman P@SHA Mr. Zohaib Khan was invited to the Open house ceremony of NASTP in Karachi.

Good things can sometimes come in packages of two! The year's most awaited reports launched simultaneously, providing a complete info kit to understand and compare salary benchmarks & employee benefits. These reports featured data from 14,000+ employees across Pakistan.

We are thankful to our amazing Outreach Partners and Sponsors for enabling this event.

APICTA AWARDS ARE COMING TO PAKISTAN! In April 2022, Pakistan won the bid to host Asia Pacific ICT Awards 2022 in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan. In August 2022, APICTA Executive Council visited Pakistan and finalized it as the next destination.
For the first time in 20+ years, over 200 foreign delegates from 16 member economies including Australia, China, Japan, and Singapore, will visit Islamabad for 5 days of pitching, networking and competing in one of the region's longest-running and most prestigious ICT awards.

In March 2022, we at P@SHA set ourselves a challenge: to put Pakistan's IT & ITeS industry on the map like never before. With your participation, bringing the APICTA Awards to Pakistan will be the first milestone of many more to come. So this year, let's paint APICTA green! 💚

Watch our P@SHA social media for details of APICTA events!

TechLift is a first-of-its-kind, industry-driven initiative being led by a Joint Venture of 16 companies o build capacity for the IT Industry of Pakistan. The program aims to train 4,000 students in 3 cities in 5 top-in-demand technologies and prepare them for immediate industry integration.

After months of framework setting and preparatory activities, the TechLift boot camps are live in three cities: Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad.

P@SHA serves as a strategic partner involved in the facilitation and oversight of the program.

Pakistan Tech Destination is the main sponsor of the program.

A Glimpse into TechLift Bootcamps