P@SHA Annual ICT Awards ‘Universities essential for further growth of IT industry in the country’
The Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA) organized its 13th annual ICT Awards Ceremony at a gala dinner on October 14, 2016, at a local hotel Karachi.
The Awards ceremony lauded innovation and excellence in the Pakistan ICT industry and recognized the efforts of outstanding achievers who have been making waves locally and internationally.
The event was attended by leading players from the tech industry as well as representatives from the government, the business sector, professionals, academia, and students.
“The idea behind organizing the P@SHA ICT Awards 2016 every year is to celebrate homegrown Pakistani innovators,Akhtar stated” ,said Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA.
“The Pakistan IT industry has been growing steadily over the years, and it is essential for us to tell the world that Pakistan is a country where young innovators transform their ideas and dreams into products and IT service companies that have been solving business and community problems locally and globally for over two decades.”
Tech innovators and companies received awards in 17 product and 15 services categories.
In his keynote address, Chairman Pakistan Software Houses’ Association for IT & ITES (P@SAkhtar stated that the country required a larger number of IT companies which employed up to 10,000 people to undertake large scale projects so as to compete with countries in the region.
Mr. Akhtar also said that there are insufficient number of top notch universities in the country for producing required number of well qualified graduates in the disciplines of Computer Science, Information Technology and Software development.
The P@SHA chairman conceded that percentage growth of IT and software services revenue had declined in recent years but official statistics didn’t take into account remittances which came to the country as payment from foreign buyers against products and services provided by individuals, freelance software developers and IT specialists.
He said that P@SHA would soon undertake a comprehensive survey to determine the accurate and thorough size of the country’s IT industry so as to proper plan for the growth of the sector.
Mr. Akhtar said that the IT industry had facilitated incubation, creation, and training, of many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and now these SMEs need to be converted into large enterprises as had happened in other countries.
In her welcome remarks at the ceremony, the P@SHA President Jehan Ara pointed out that high ratio of taxes and lack of adoption of technology by mainstream domestic businesses could be two main reasons behind the slower growth of the country’s IT industry.
P@SHA will soon appoint a Secretary General who will maintain a constant engagement with policymakers in Islamabad to ensure that regulation was consistent with the needs of the sector.
P@SHA ICT Awards 2016 – Complete List of Winners
Runner Ups:
Abacus Consulting, Aitchison College, AutoSoft Dynamics (Pvt.) Limitedm Avanza Solutions, DATALOG, LMKT (Pvt) Ltd, NUST College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Ovex Technologies Limited, Paimona, Simobo, Sukoon.com.pk, TPS Pvt. Ltd., Transparent Hands, UBL Fund Managers, Wukla.
Winners:
Arbisoft, Blockchain Tech, Bramerz Private Limited, Cedar College, Code Informatics, Elixir Technologies, FetchSky, Ice Animations, Infotech (Pvt.) Limited, Institute: National University of Science & Technology (NUST), Invest2Innovate, Morango Films, NetSol Technologies, NUST College of EME, Pakistan Data Management Services, RAR MultiBiz Services (Pvt.) Ltd, Sheops, Simobo, Strategic Alliancez, Sybrid Pvt. Ltd., Systems Limitedm Telenor Pakistanm Teresol Pvt. Ltd, Trillium Information Security Systems, WeRPlay, WonderTree.
