News Analysis |
Pakistan’s IT Industry is continually on an upward trajectory. Having won several international awards and recognition at global forums, the Pakistani IT industry has become the world’s fastest growing IT industry with IT exports worth $5 billion in the current fiscal year, which is a 40% boost in a year on year analysis with 2016-2017, the former being $3.3 billion.
Pakistan has won GSMA Awards, Spectrum for Mobile Broadband (2015) and the Government Leadership Award (2017) for IT. Pakistani IT firms have also been ranked one of the most reputable entities amongst their regular clients.
Like Novaira Masood, Laraib Atta is another emerging visual artist from Pakistan who has worked on visual effects for popular Hollywood flicks such as X-men, Godzilla, and Gravity to name a few.
Co-Founder of 10XC, a technology start-up accelerator and seed fund, Saif Akhtar, while speaking to the press on Momentum 18, a two-day tech start-up conference to be held on February 19 and 20 at the Karachi Expo Centre, said that an amalgam of energetic youth and their passion about technology has jacked up the IT exports to $5 billion. “We are hoping that it will be $6 billion by next year”, Mr. Akhtar said.
Regarding the event, Syed Amir Jafri, the founder of ‘Momentum’ briefed the press that around 50 practicing professionals and entrepreneurs would conduct relevant workshops and seminars on successful start-ups and survival as an entrepreneur. Participating start-ups will be able to pitch their proposals to more than 20 investors and various representatives from 20 incubators during the two-day event. The event is expected to attract north of 300 startups.
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Minister of State for IT, Anusha Rahman, won the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union’s Gender Equality and Mainstreaming (GEM-TECH) Award in December 2015. Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT) has also secured a seat in the Governing Council of Asia Pacific Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development under the UNESCAP.
Novaira Masood, a Pakistani animator, has added effects in some of the most popular Hollywood movies including Maleficient, A Christmas Carol, Thor, Transformers 3 and Jack the Giant Slayer.
Managing director Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) Iftikhar Shah said, at yearly APICTA Awards, Pakistani IT companies had consistently won top awards and several Pakistani IT companies were ranked among the fastest growing companies in the country.
Pakistan’s IT industry is on a rapid incline in all of its various categories: Enterprise software has grown by 17%, marketing tech 15%, financial services 13%, consumer goods 9%, retail/e-commerce 8%, professional services 8%, internet of things/hardware 7%, health care 4%, media 4% and non-profit 3%. Pakistan is ranked as the 4th most popular country for freelancing in the Online Labor Index published in 2017 by Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and is consistently ranked among the top destinations for ICT outsourcing as a result of strong government efforts and stellar commitment to the growth of the IT sector in Pakistan.
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The Pakistan government has also started promoting start-ups, for example, it has given a three-year exemption from taxes to start-ups and set up national incubation centres in Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar, and is now going to set up one in Karachi. The presence of international IT companies in Pakistan like IBM, Intel, Huawei is a vote of confidence in Pakistan’s potential as an IT destination.
Pakistan has produced some great gaming studios. The title animation sequence of Game of Thrones, the world’s most-watched TV series in recent times, has been produced by Hameed Shaukat, a US-born Pakistani.
There are various Pakistani IT companies working in the international arena including, ‘Mindstorm Studios’, ‘GameView Studios’, ’Pepper PK’ and ‘TkXeL’ etc. From these companies, ‘TkXel’ has created mobile applications and gaming companies from a university lab in Lahore while Pepper PK made history by developing paid BlackBerry applications, which reached top rankings on BlackBerry’s App World store.
Tintashhas designed many innovative casual games for iPhone, iPad, and Android platforms. Games are not the only avenue on the mobile platform that Pakistani companies are focusing on, but a number of companies have looked at broader educational and infotainment markets as well.
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Folio3 judged as one of the Harvard Business School’s All-World Fast Growth 500 companies in 2010 has interesting products in its portfolio. Folio3 has been instrumental in creating an online educational platform for Secret Builders, a company that boasts a virtual world for children 5 to 14 years old powered by a Web 2.0 community of children, parents, educators, writers, artists and game developers.
Participating start-ups will be able to pitch their proposals to more than 20 investors and various representatives from 20 incubators during the two-day event. The event is expected to attract north of 300 startups.
Pakistan has produced some great gaming studios. The title animation sequence of Game of Thrones, the world’s most-watched TV series in recent times, has been produced by Hameed Shaukat, a US-born Pakistani. The Cricket Companion application, which received worldwide recognition, was also developed by TricastMedia, a Pakistani startup. Pakistani Visual Effects Artist, Mir Zafar Ali has received three Oscar awards for his work in The Golden Compass, Life of Pi and Frozen.
Novaira Masood, a Pakistani animator, has added effects in some of the most popular Hollywood movies including Maleficient, A Christmas Carol, Thor, Transformers 3 and Jack the Giant Slayer. Like Novaira Masood, Laraib Atta is another emerging visual artist from Pakistan who has worked on visual effects for popular Hollywood flicks such as X-men, Godzilla, and Gravity to name a few.