President Dr. Arif Alvi, on Monday, stressing on development of intellectual resources for the progress and prosperity of Pakistan on sustainable grounds said that there was enormous potential for promoting innovation in the country. Promoting innovative ideas, focusing on health and education sectors, timely adoption of and adaptation to newly emerging technologies as well as setting up the right priorities and prudent political decision-making were key to steering the nation on the path of development, the president noted while addressing National Idea Bank Grand Finale ceremony held here at the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology Karachi to distribute prizes to winners of the national contest of innovative ideas.
Dr. Arif Alvi said that new ideas and innovation played an important role in human evolution and paved the way to the destination of advancement and progress. He added that the development of intellectual resources was vital for the sustainable advancement of the country besides the development of natural resources.
Information technology was the fastest growing sector across the world which encompasses all other sectors of fundamental importance like finance, manufacturing, agriculture, education and health, he said adding that Pakistan could jump in the fastest moving development vehicle of IT by promoting ideas of our youth in the IT sector and creating an intellectual advantage in IT.
The president said that over 22 million children in Pakistan were out of school while information technology platforms could be utilised to enhance the literacy ratio, particularly for promoting higher education and technical and vocational training. Currently, services of 3.4 million IT experts were required around the world while 200 billion Internet of Things (IoT) were expected to be available in the IT spectrum in the coming year, Dr Arif Alvi said and noted that Pakistan could acquire a considerable share out of the available opportunities by focusing on the IT sector.
The federal Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunication Syed Aminul Haque addressing the ceremony said that the core objective of ‘Ideas Bank’ was to collect innovative ideas. He said that 60 per cent of the 220 million population of the country was comprised of youth and it was an asset that has to be utilised and promoted by equipping them with modern technologies for expediting the process of national progress.
The IT ministry has started the Karachi IT Park project while an MoU has been inked to establish a centre of excellence in Gaming and Animation at NED University Karachi, he said adding that IT exports from the country have crossed $ 3 billion and the government was determined to further enhance the volume. Chancellor Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology Javed Anwar said that universities should promote entrepreneurship among their students by nurturing new ideas and concepts and National Idea Bank was a significant step forward in this regard. Chief Executive Officer Aspire, Hassan Syed in his welcome address informed that this year over 3700 ideas were submitted for NIB and out of them 30 ideas were selected by the jury for prizes from a wide range of sectors including Agriculture, Automotive and Transport, Education and Learning, Health, Information Technology, Manufacturing, Natural Resources and Services.
In the previous year, 2100 ideas were submitted and of them, 18 were selected as winners, he informed adding that 15 start-ups based on the winners’ ideas of 2022 had already begun their operations.
President Arif Alvi at the occasion also distributed prizes among the winners of the National Ideas Bank contest.
