Comment by Riaz Haq on July 14, 2014 at 10:09pm

The story of history's first PC virus, The Brain, that originated in Pakistan as told by Mikko Hypponen on NPR Radio "So when you took a Brain-infected floppy and you looked at the very beginning of the floppy, at the boot sector area of the floppy disk, inside the code of the boot sector was the short text which said, Welcome to the Dungeon, 1986, Brain and Amjad. And then it has an address, an address in Pakistan - 730 Nizam Block Allama Iqbal Town, Lahore. Then it ends with the text, Beware of this virus. Contact us for vaccination." http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=2091...

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 12, 2016 at 4:17pm

#Pakistan IT industry climbing up to no 3 to grab world attention with its freelancers http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/OldNewsPage/?Id=6771&Pakista... …

Pakistan’s tiny IT sector is carving out a niche for itself -- so much so that it has been the subject of several stories in international publications such as the New York Times, the Global Post, Al Jazeera, to name a few. Perhaps the interest is because of the obvious potential of the industry: There are now 1,500 registered IT companies in Pakistan, and 10,000 IT grads enter the market every year. 

Perhaps even more significantly, the democratisation of demand as facilitated by the internet-era, has enabled Pakistan to climb up market ranks to become the No. 3 country for supplying freelance programmers, behind only the United States and India, and up from No. 5 just two years ago. This is because programmers in Pakistan can easily sign up to platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr, where the person hiring them is less interested in their location and more concerned with their skill. Because the programmer in Pakistan is using a third party platform, logistical, bureaucratic and other constraints that are typically associated with Pakistan, including corruption, do not apply. 

As reported by The New York Times, Pakistan ranks in the upper 10 to 25 percent on Upwork’s listing of growth rates for top-earning countries, alongside India, Canada and Ukraine. Pakistan’s freelance programmers already account for $850 million of the country’s software exports; that number could go up to $1 billion in the next several months, says Umar Saif, who heads the Punjab IT Board and previously taught and did research work at M.I.T. 

As reported by the Global Post, Pakistan’s software export industry employs some 24,000 people, according to government figures. Most companies in Pakistan’s IT sector — including mobile game studios — are growing at more than 30 percent a year, says Pakistan’s software industry trade body, P@SHA. 

With success come challenges, and Pakistan’s nascent IT industry faced its first such challenge last May, when news broke that Axact, one of Pakistan’s largest IT companies, was operating as a fake degree mill. Authorities acted fast, arrested Axact’s chief within days, though the controversy did lead many to comment on whether the country’s IT industry stood a chance in the long-term. 

That question was answered almost immediately, when just three days after the Axact controversy, Naseeb Networks International, a Lahore-based company that runs the online job marketplace Rozee.pk, announced that it had won a third round of investments worth $6.5 million, from the European investment firms Vostok Nafta and Piton Capital. The latest round of funding brought the company’s total venture capital funding to $8.5 million. 

Or take the example of Caramel Tech Studios, a Pakistan-based mobile game startup that created the sensation “Fruit Ninja” for an Australian developer. Another such startup in Pakistan is Mindstorm Studios, maker of “Whacksy Taxi,” a racing game that topped Apple’s App Store in more than 25 countries. 

And while constraints such as bureaucracy, shortage of land/space for offices, power shortages, et cetera remain a challenge, they are offset by positives, most importantly cost. “If we have a million dollars in the bank ... in the US we might only be able to make one and a half games, whereas here we might be able to make 10 games,” Saad Zaeem of Caramel Tech Studios told The Global Post, adding that graduates here are as qualified as Western ones and cost a lot less to employ, giving software startups a competitive advantage over high-wage Western countries. 

Further, the rise of the mobile software market has been a huge gamechanger. “Prior to the iPhone …

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 17, 2016 at 9:29pm

#Korea to establish biggest advanced #IT Park in #Pakistan to promote SMEs: South Korean envoy http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/?p=490831  via @ePakistanToday

Ambassador of South Korea Dr Song Jong-Hwan said that Korea would establish one of the biggest and most advanced IT Parks in Islamabad at an area of about 1 million square feet to promote small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the facility would provide SMEs and start-ups in IT industry with office spaces equipped with advanced IT infrastructure and security facilities.

During an interaction with business community at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he said the IT Park would be set up in collaboration with the Ministry of IT of Pakistan and it would provide the most advanced business facilities to IT companies in Pakistan. He was accompanied by Embassy of South Korea Commercial Counsellor Park Bongsu and Economic Officer Jo Eunsang.

The Korean Ambassador said that bilateral trade between Pakistan and Korea had declined by almost 34 per cent during the last three years which should be a cause of serious concern for both sides. He termed non-availability of trade related information and lack of understanding about promising areas of cooperation as major reasons of low trade volume. However, he said that Pakistan and Korea have started the process of free trade agreement feasibility study which would be completed by the end of June this year and added that both sides were expecting big jump in bilateral trade once the FTA was signed.

He said Korea was cooperating with Pakistan in the energy sector and added that Korean Importers Association (KOIMA) was looking for partners to import thousands of tonnes of good quality copper ore per month from Pakistan. He said that tremendous untapped possibilities of mutual cooperation existed between Pakistan and Korea and assured that his Embassy would provide all possible cooperation to exploit such opportunities.

In his welcome address, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Atif Ikram Sheikh said that Korea had placed some stringent Sanitary and Phyto Sanitary (SPS) measures due to which many Pakistani agricultural products were facing difficulties in getting better access to the Korean market and stressed that such measures should be revised.

He said that being an advanced economy, Korea should help Pakistan in modernising its economy through technology transfer, knowledge sharing, capacity building, enhanced trade, investment and joint ventures. He said China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would create plenty of opportunities for investment and joint ventures in Pakistan and that time was ripe for Korean investors to take more interest in Pakistan for investment. He said that both countries should encourage frequent exchange of trade delegations and organize single country exhibitions on reciprocal basis in order to explore new avenues of mutual cooperation. He said ICCI would work closely with the Korean Embassy to improve bilateral and economic relations between the two countries.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 15, 2017 at 4:08pm

#Pakistan's #IT industry exports jump 19% last year hit all-time high near $1 Billion. #technology http://bit.ly/2w82sgr via @techjuicepk

Pakistan’s IT exports have hit an all-time high in the outgoing financial year of 2016-2017.

The country is witnessing a growth boom in the IT industry like never before and the government is also taking steps to support the IT infrastructure. And the numbers prove that the positive activity in the IT industry is delivering good results. According to ProPakistani, figures provided by the State Bank of Pakistan(SBP) indicate that the IT industry’s exports – which includes telecom, and computer and information services – in the outgoing financial year were of $938.640 million. The exports made in the previous financial year of 2015-2016 were worth $788.640 million. This indicates a year-on-year growth of 19%.

The Pakistan Software Exchange Board(PSEB), on the other hand, has reported figures that are three times greater than those reported by the SBP. According to the PSEB, the IT exports stand at a whopping $2.8 billion. There is a huge disparity in the numbers that have been reported by the SBP and the PSEB. However, it should be noted here that the SBP and the PSEB calculate the final figure of IT exports in a different manner. The PSEB reports in different sectors such as financial services, healthcare sector, e-commerce, e-health, but to estimate the final figure of total exports it takes into consideration all the exports done by local software houses to international clients.

If Pakistan’s IT industry keeps thriving at this rate, it certainly rings good news for the country’s economy. Could Pakistan hit the target of $6 billion software exports by 2020 or the target of $10 billion IT exports by 2025? We’ll have to wait and see. But the present certainly does look good.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 15, 2017 at 8:44pm

Pakistan’s IT exports reached an all-time high for the outgoing financial year of 2016-17 with receipts of nearly $1 billion received through the banking channel.

According to the statistics provided by the State Bank of Pakistan, exports of IT industry classified as telecommunication, computer and information services surged to the level of $938.640 million in the last financial year.

The exports earning of the IT industry registered a double digit growth of 19 percent or $ 150 million from the financial year 2015-16 which stood at $788.640 million.

Exports of IT or ICT services – in broad terms – are largely delivered to countries and regions such as USA, Middle East and South African countries.


https://propakistani.pk/2017/08/15/pakistans-exports-cross-1-billio...
PSEB Stats
Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), on the other hand, reported 3 times higher exports as compared to SBP’s numbers ($2.81 billion) through the input of companies/software houses.

PSEB’s estimation is based on the services various IT companies and software houses rendered to different countries but their reporting is done in different sectors such as financial services, healthcare sector and etc, as well as e-commerce, e-health and e-education.

Besides, the reporting of the freelance work is usually reported through overseas remittances. It should be mentioned that Pakistan is considered as the fourth largest freelance market in the world. The estimation of PSEB suggested that exports of freelancer of IT sector stands at more than $200 million per year.

Hence, the foreign exchange inflows in IT sector is not reported as its original potential.

Breakup of IT industry Exports of Services and Products


Source: State Bank of Pakistan

IT and Telecommunication is counted as a single industry in Pakistan either under one ministry, or by reporting the inflows of this sector.

SBP Is Working To Streamline IT Forex Inflows
State Bank of Pakistan has taken a series of concrete steps to streamline exports income of the IT industry through the banking sector, which could reduce the under-reporting foreign exchange earning of IT and its enabled services.

The implementation of the instructions of the central banks to commercial banks and software houses will lead to identify the nearest figure of IT exports values on monthly and annually basis, which will also help all stakeholders to realize the potential and status of IT sector in the country.

6-Year Exports at a Glance


Source: State Bank of Pakistan

IT industry has the biggest potential in Pakistan with a capacity to expand itself domestically and internationally for exports of services when it comes to support of the government through policies and tax incentives.

Government’s Incentives for IT Sector
The government realizes that it has an important role in providing a conducive environment for the growth of the IT industry through infrastructure and HR development. The government has set a vision to enhance the exports of this sector to $5 billion per annum by 2020, which is not an impossible target.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 15, 2017 at 8:44pm

Pakistan’s IT exports reached an all-time high for the outgoing financial year of 2016-17 with receipts of nearly $1 billion received through the banking channel.

According to the statistics provided by the State Bank of Pakistan, exports of IT industry classified as telecommunication, computer and information services surged to the level of $938.640 million in the last financial year.

The exports earning of the IT industry registered a double digit growth of 19 percent or $ 150 million from the financial year 2015-16 which stood at $788.640 million.

Exports of IT or ICT services – in broad terms – are largely delivered to countries and regions such as USA, Middle East and South African countries.

PSEB Stats

Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), on the other hand, reported 3 times higher exports as compared to SBP’s numbers ($2.81 billion) through the input of companies/software houses.

PSEB’s estimation is based on the services various IT companies and software houses rendered to different countries but their reporting is done in different sectors such as financial services, healthcare sector and etc, as well as e-commerce, e-health and e-education.

Besides, the reporting of the freelance work is usually reported through overseas remittances. It should be mentioned that Pakistan is considered as the fourth largest freelance market in the world. The estimation of PSEB suggested that exports of freelancer of IT sector stands at more than $200 million per year.

Hence, the foreign exchange inflows in IT sector is not reported as its original potential.

Breakup of IT industry Exports of Services and Products

Source: State Bank of Pakistan

IT and Telecommunication is counted as a single industry in Pakistan either under one ministry, or by reporting the inflows of this sector.

SBP Is Working To Streamline IT Forex Inflows

State Bank of Pakistan has taken a series of concrete steps to streamline exports income of the IT industry through the banking sector, which could reduce the under-reporting foreign exchange earning of IT and its enabled services.

The implementation of the instructions of the central banks to commercial banks and software houses will lead to identify the nearest figure of IT exports values on monthly and annually basis, which will also help all stakeholders to realize the potential and status of IT sector in the country.

6-Year Exports at a Glance

Source: State Bank of Pakistan

IT industry has the biggest potential in Pakistan with a capacity to expand itself domestically and internationally for exports of services when it comes to support of the government through policies and tax incentives.

Government’s Incentives for IT Sector

The government realizes that it has an important role in providing a conducive environment for the growth of the IT industry through infrastructure and HR development. The government has set a vision to enhance the exports of this sector to $5 billion per annum by 2020, which is not an impossible target.

The government has laid down its vision for the IT sector and proposed the following steps to aid in its growth:

• Zero income tax on IT exports till June 2019
• 100 percent equity ownership allowed to foreign investors
• 100 percent repatriation of capital and dividends allowed
• 7 year tax holiday for venture capital funds.

The measures of the central bank for streamlining forex inflows in IT sector coupled with the government policies are likely to give impetus to IT companies and software houses especially to enhance the exports of different services and products worldwide.

IT Parks and CPEC

Besides, a number of IT parks are being developed in the country along with continuous expansion of broadband services in the different cities to make the ecosystem an attractive and lucrative for IT companies, entrepreneurs and starter-ups.

Hopefully, Pakistan companies having offshore offices and those which park their revenues and investments in different countries will reap the benefits of incentives and business opportunities in Pakistan at times the foreign companies are looking for making their investments in Pakistan with the development of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

https://propakistani.pk/2017/08/15/pakistans-exports-cross-1-billio...

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 10, 2017 at 4:28pm

IT Industry has contributed 98% to Pakistan’s economy by foreign exchange earnings, Anusha Rehman

https://www.techjuice.pk/it-industry-has-contributed-98-to-pakistan...

Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecom Anusha Rehman on Monday lead the 36th meeting of the Boards of Directors of Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) to assess the work being done on various IT initiatives taken by PSEB including Prime Minister’s Internship Programme and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).

PSEB Acting Managing Director Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah updated the board with achievemts of PSB over the last four years. The board was briefed that PSEB has showcased their work at 11 international trade fairs alongside over 65 IT companies, which are making above two thousand leads. This exhibition enhanced the perception of Pakistan as an important destination in terms of outsourcing and investment. According to him, exhibiting at the trade fairs also helped improve the image of Pakistan as a viable destination for outsourcing and investment, because PSEB’s participation in the exhibitions have increased Pakistan’s exports in all the countries that hosted the exhibitions.

According to him, because of the active PSEB technical and financial assistance throughout the past four years, over 30 selected IT professionals and 28 IT companies have been given certificates in Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMi) platform. Apart from this, 134 companies have gotten certifications in ISO 9001, ISO27001 and ISO 20001 as PSEB empowered them to acquire exports from the developed markets.

The minister agreed and added that the great work done by Pakistan’s IT sector is evident from the fact that IT Industry exports have contributed 98% to Pakistan’s economy by foreign exchange earnings and job creation through growth in the past 4 years. She also said, “Due recognition must be extended to our freelancers who have catapulted Pakistan on the 4th spot on the largest freelancing website in the world.”

Anusha felt pride in the fact that Pakistan has a huge number of extremely talented youth, and the government is striving to provide them with the best resources and opportunities.

Anusha said that PSEB in partnership with National ICT R&D Fund (IGNITE) has recruited over 1,700 IT graduates as interns this year for having hands on experience with IT companies, as well as IT departments at Telcos/CMOs, banks, and also educational institutes. Among these interns, more than 60 percent received job offers after the completion of their training tenure.

According to her, the government is going to announce a national level digital skills training program to empower 1 million freelancers of the country who have an experience of over 5 years with the skills that are needed to increase their productivity.

Later, the minister also lead one more meeting and gave her approval for “DigiSkills”— an initiative to mentor 1 million youth with a focus to use technology in the best way by bringing excellence in technology, introducing innovation and respecting work ethics, alongside the vision of building a workforce for a future of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

She commented, “Our educational institutes are producing huge number of graduates every year. More than 20,000 IT graduates and engineers are being produced annually and it’s time that we prepare our workforce for new technologies in line with fast growing trends of freelancing and entrepreneurship.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 28, 2018 at 4:26pm

#Pakistan #Information #Technology #exports reached US$1,064,540, exceeding US$1 billion in Fiscal Year 2018, according to data from the State Bank of Pakistan. #Telecommunications #Software #computers http://www.sbp.org.pk/ecodata/index2.asp

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1034492236279345152

https://www.techjuice.pk/pakistans-it-export-crossed-1-billion-mark...

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 2, 2022 at 4:55pm

Montreal, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - December 2, 2022) - Virtury Cloud announces the launch of its specialized cloud services powered by its PDC-ISB01 Data-center located in Islamabad, Pakistan to offer businesses around the world a more reliable, low-latency cloud environment at a much lower cost compared to other cloud solutions.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/virtury-cloud-launches-specialized-c...

The Montreal-based cloud infrastructure provider is now offering its ultra-low latency, DDoS-protected network with a multi-homed core network that is connected to PkIX (Pakistan Internet Exchange) for high performance and reliability.

"We are committed to providing the best cloud experience for our customers and are proud to announce the launch of our cloud services in Pakistan," said Muhammad Saddique, Virtury Cloud's CEO. "We are excited to provide our clients with a reliable and secure cloud environment for their applications and other business needs."

Virtury Cloud's services include Cloud VMs, virtual private servers (VPSs), managed hosting, dedicated servers, storage, backups, and disaster recovery, all of which are monitored 24/7.

The company says its new dedicated cloud services are the perfect solution for businesses looking for an affordable and reliable hosting solution without the need for expensive hardware or dedicated resources. The company's services are also compliant with Pakistani regulations and laws, providing an added layer of security and peace of mind to users.

"We are offering a powerful, secure, and cost-effective cloud environment," said Saddique.

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