Daily Times

Sometimes, the faintest of sunshine is enough to pierce through the doom and gloom and remind the people living in the dark tunnel that a bright future awaits them, sooner or later.

That the world’s largest search engine and video-sharing platform Google has decided to open a liaison office in Pakistan might not sound that revolutionary considering our next-door neighbour became a campus 15 years ago with an unbelievable 1000 crore investment.

However, the unrelenting reservations from Twitter and Facebook regarding similar initiatives despite a thriving user network in the country make the buzzing excitement all the more plausible. Here, we are talking about a country with one of the largest youth populations with over 82.90 million internet users.

Even a pandemic could not stop our freelancers from walking the extra mile and clinching their slot in the digital market as they earned $150 million last year. But Pakistan is still lifetimes away from becoming the next Silicone Valley because the government has yet to identify the potential in software exports. The inconsistent policies continue to undermine all assurances of a business-friendly environment and many a multinational corporations seem intent on establishing their footprint elsewhere in the region.

Although Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s giddy announcement of monetisation of Facebook content for Pakistani users from Meta’s Asia Pacific headquarters was a revolutionary breakthrough so that “more people can start earning” through their passions, much, much more is needed to help us compete with the international giants.

The youth of Pakistan is desperately waiting for an opportunity to fully explore their potential and get noticed by people around the globe. Access to secure data and means of compensation can help them be a part of a very promising country. Pakistanis have repeatedly shown they can easily match–if not surpass–the marvels of programmers in India, Bangladesh and other technological hubs. All they need is a helping hand and compassion from their country. *