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.
