The
Board of Directors of Ignite - National Technology Fund (formerly National ICT
R&D Fund) under the chairmanship of Mrs. Anusha Rahman, Minister of State
for IT & Telecom approved the award of contract of DigiSkills Training
Project and National Incubation Center Karachi.
Minister
of State for Information Technology and Telecommunication, Mrs. Anusha Rahman,
while expressing her satisfaction over the on target launch of the Peshawar
NIC, stated, “National Incubation Center, Peshawar will usher a vibrant new era
of entrepreneurship and innovation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, enabling many
aspiring tech entrepreneurs and startups in creating game-changing solutions.”
The Board also accorded approval for the of the award of contract for the
flagship 1 Million DigiSkills program. Anusha Rahman stated that the
“DigiSkills Program” is being initiated to fill Industry-Academia gap through
appropriate training and mentorship. Moreover, she added that the objective was
to have more skilled people who could earn their livelihood working from home
by equipping them with modern technical knowledge and e-lancing techniques.
The
Board was told that initially 12 training modules were being introduced in
DigiSkills program which will be scaled up in the subsequent phases. Initial
modules being launched touch upon the areas of Digital Literacy, marketing,
freelancing, graphics design, creative writing and e-commerce management etc.
The key differentiating factor of the program would be that it will utilize
artificial intelligence and data driven decision making for matching content
with trainees and to fine tune the quality of content and coach to trainee
ratio.
Subsequent
phases would include deeper areas of IT focus like data sciences, cyber
security and others. While discussing the target number of trainees, the board
expressed the view that “one million is a national target and program will be
available free of cost to much larger number of the population to make people
self-employable” While establishing the linkage of the program to the other
major programs being under taken by MoITT the Minister elaborated that the
DigiSkills program is a scaled version of the ICT for Girls program being
implemented by the USF Co. which started with the establishment of some 150
labs complete with Microsoft 4Cs training program for around 35000
disadvantaged girls per year. The program was then scaled to 226 girls’ schools
with training and teachers included to benefit more than 110,000 girl students
of Islamabad region annually. To further scale the efforts the Ignite board
gave target to ignite Co. about a year ago to initiate planning for the 1
Million program which finally attained current shape and form after various
deliberations and consultative sessions with the industry and several meetings
of the Board.
The
board appreciated the efforts that have gone into the design and planning of the
program and the ultimate launch and transparent conclusion of the RFP process.
The Board also congratulated the Ignite team on successful launching of NIC
Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar and asked CEO Ignite to gear up his team for
next endeavors, launching of National Incubation Center Quetta and Karachi
respectively.
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