Swedish
Ambassador Ms. Ingrid Johnson called on Minister of state for IT & Telecom
Mrs Anusha Rehman here at Islamabad today. Various issues of mutual
interest and promotion of bilateral cooperation in the arena of ICT and
innovation were discussed in the meeting. Minister apprised the ambassador
regarding key initiatives being taken by the Ministry of IT for ubiquitous sectoral
development. She stated that we have laid down a telecommunication highway
and and enterprenuership ecosystem and are continuously working to widen
it throughout the country.
Anusha Rehman said that we believe,
ICT is the lever of economic progress and we are using this lever to empower
all classes of citizens and particularly women and girls from the marginalized
sections of society. Therefore, we have established around 150 state of
the art computer labs including the Baitulmal Women Empowerment Centers where
Microsoft is imparting latest technical training of coding and computing to
empower the girls of marginalized background by equipping them with modern IT
knowledge . Moreover we are establishing state of the art computer labs
together with Microsoft training at 226 girls schools in Islamabad Capital
territory and this project will improve the lives of more than 100,000 young
girls by equipping them with ICT skills. Through this initiative we aim to help
girls student by making them computer literate.
Minister further said that we have
recently approved a "Digiskill" program to train one million
freelancers through Ignite platform and Sweden can collaborate with Pakistan in
terms of training start ups and SMEs and we can learn from the experiences of
each other which will be mutually beneficial for both the countries.
The Swedish Ambassador, while
appreciating the forward looking steps being taken by the government of
Pakistan and Ministry of IT for the development of IT& Telecom sector, assured
her utmost cooperation for enhancing bilateral engagement in IT & Telecom
spheres.
*****
PREVIOUS NEXT