During agriculture revolution, we were not on the map of the world. During the industrial revolution, we were fighting for our freedom and West was busy in innovations to make life easier. After the agricultural and industrial revolution, it’s time for information technology revolution. Information technology doesn’t require any fancy machinery like Industrial revolution.
So, Are we Prepared for IT revolution? How it can help us to recover from economic crisis.
According to records of Pakistan Software Export Board, revenue of Pakistan’s IT sector is around $1.6 billion dollars, its global share is approximately US$2. 8 billion dollars.
Pakistan’s IT industry growth is clearly visible even in this challenging situation. 40% growth is a massive success. The sector’s annual revenues are more than of US$ 1 billion dollars, and growth is crossing 40% per annum, Pakistan’s IT business sector is definitely contributing to the economic system.
Growth of IT Sector:
In Pakistan we have around 1500 small, medium and large-scale IT companies operating. There are nine software technology parks, situated in prime locations in different cities which offer almost 700,000 square foot area for offices to local IT companies, these software technology parks are fully IT-equipped offering the best environment to run an IT company. There are an estimated 110,000 IT professionals in Pakistan as per the figures shared by Pakistan Software Export Board, more than 23 thousand IT professionals are engaged in exports of different commodities and goods to other countries. Two IT companies are also listed in the Karachi Stock Exchange index. Hundred and ten IT-companies in Pakistan have qualified for ISO 9001. Nineteen IT companies have got CMMi certifications also five IT companies are ISO 27001 certified too.
With these statistics we can conclude that IT sector in Pakistan is getting mature and even with limited resources and the current economic crisis IT sector is trying to perform better than other sectors.
IT sector, as compared with all other business sectors in Pakistan, it’s also the only business sector that is constantly in upgrading phase.
IT sector and Government Initiatives:
When Dr. Ata-ur-Rehman was Science and Technology Minister, IT sector was at its peak. It was the golden period in history of the Pakistani IT sector as a number of initiatives were taken in this period and we saw a real growth of several IT companies and online firms with the help of tax free business environment offered by the government.
Digital library of Pakistan was sponsored by Higher Education Commission, special task force was created to ensure its uninterrupted support and services in most part of the country, foreign IT teachers were hired in universities and colleges in order to provide quality IT education and many IT universities were established to expand the information technology sector.
Because of these steps many global software companies relocated their business operations in Pakistan. Because of our talented Human resource and quality IT education institutes Pakistani IT professionals and firms are outsourcing their services.
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