Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: It has become imperative to reformulate the national Information Technology (IT) policy to take into account the transformative fundamentals of technology and its eco-system centered on digitisation, given the growing trends of IT.

The Ministry of IT and Telecom (MoIT) endeavoured to draft this policy document in consultation with relevant stakeholders. The initial draft was prepared with the support and coordination of IT industry, PASHA, academia, civil society, relevant government departments in 2015. The draft document was further deliberated in multiple focused group sessions with researchers from prime academic institutions, high ranking IT experts, civil society, experienced government decision makers, digital and internet service providers as well as other associated stakeholders.

The MoIT is conducting a final stakeholders’ consultation event to review the draft of national IT policy to be held on October, 27 in Islamabad.

The ministry formulated multi-stakeholder-based working groups in August this year and the draft policy was shared with the nominated members of the working groups for their valuable feedback at that time. The objective of the event is to finalise the national IT policy to create a holistic digital ecosystem. The working groups will focus on key topics such as promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, infrastructure development, increase in IT exports, legislative measures to safeguard software industry, enabling e-commerce environment, gender empowerment of persons with disabilities (PWDs) for IT accessibility. The draft policy document is also available on the MoIT’s official website for public consultation, comments and feedback.