Daily Times

The capability of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to make promises and falling short has been witnessed several times. The Digital Pakistan initiative by the PTI must not take a U-turn. Perhaps to ensure that they stand true to their words, the government – upon the request of the Prime Minister – decided to bring in an experienced technology leader, Tania Aidrus. Her recent job was at Google as head of Payments and Next Billion Users. She joined Google in 2008 as the Country Manager, South Asia Emerging Markets. Completing her MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tania brings with her a vast experience of digital media.

While the advancements of technology are being used by countries in all continents, they have not yet anchored in Pakistan. Digital technology has created opportunities for businesses in sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, in Ghana, digital technologies have impacted the agriculture sector. Farmerline and Farmable are agri-techs that have pursued the development of new farming businesses while renewing the existing ones. In Nigeria, Prime Wave supplies equipment to rice processing firms while Al-Wabel Trading Company Ltd is inventing new technological solutions. When Africa is capable to transform their agriculture through technology, Pakistan should have done so at least five years ago. Even then we would have been way off our schedule towards progress. One reason could be a lack of vision, which is a limitation facing all sectors. The gatekeepers and leaders of the many sectors are themselves naïve and unable to foresee the change that must come.

In Pakistan, however, slow internet bandwidth and speed with a limited broadband penetration has been hampering such growth. While the metropolitan cities including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Multan and even Hyderabad has internet connections, broadband connectivity has yet to reach the rural areas. The government did pursue digitization but could not make headways. The Digital Pakistan Initiative, however, has given some optimism in this regard. Pakistan is surely capable to apply digitization in all sectors. It will enhance and assist in education, health, justice, economy among other sectors. While such an initiative will bring good results, the government – under the leadership of Tania Aidrus – must follow protocols, practices and procedures to remain on track. They must also minimize all loopholes that might emerge as valuable data can be breached, manipulated and misused.

While the Digital Pakistan Initiative will assist the growth of all sectors, it will help two areas in particular. They are Pakistan’s freelance industry and the e-commerce sector. Pakistan’s young entrepreneurs will avail opportunities under this initiative to build their businesses and make an impact in their respective fields

While the Digital Pakistan Initiative will assist the growth of all sectors, it will help two areas in particular. They are Pakistan’s freelance industry and the e-commerce sector. Pakistan’s young entrepreneurs will avail opportunities under this initiative to build their businesses and make an impact in their respective fields. While talking at the inaugural ceremony, Tania mentioned the five pillars of the Digital Pakistan Initiative. They are Access and Connectivity, Digital Infrastructure, E-Government, Digital Skilling and Literacy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The first pillar, Access and Connectivity, will ensure that the internet is made available for all. Here, the challenge will be to penetrate internet services in rural areas. Digital Infrastructure is the second pillar. It will facilitate in completing all daily tasks using a smartphone. The development of applications will be an integral part of this phase. Moreover, the upgrading of smartphones can become a challenge. Because of rapid advancements in technology, users must keep themselves up-to-date or the mobile applications developed must be compatible with higher, current and lower Android/iOS versions. The third pillar is E-government. One can wonder how we will shift to a paperless environment that will ease away most of our troubles of managing data. Although there must a backup of data in some form, a paperless environment will save and access data through cloud computing. How will the government tackle corruption in a paperless environment and what loopholes must be minimized is yet to be seen.

Digital Skilling and Literacy, the fourth pillar, will guarantee that graduates having degrees in technology and computer-related fields will secure jobs. The curriculum taught at universities must be updated by including courses that are more practical rather than teaching through textbooks. The fifth and last pillar is Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The startup industry of Pakistan is evolving and it must be guided to enable aspiring entrepreneurs to launch their businesses. While these five pillars will require multiple phases to be completed in each, the change for a Digital Pakistan will not come overnight. It will be a gradual process allowing us to shift our activities from manual to digital. However, the concerned authorities must keep all processes leading to this digital transformation simple. The content used for marketing and promotion on social media must be both in English and Urdu to cater to the two main spoken and written languages. Furthermore, targeted content in regional languages must be made to facilitate people from all areas of Pakistan. We hope that Pakistan enters the digital era and that this time there are no U-turns. Otherwise, ‘ctrl-alt-delete’ will not be effective.

The writer is an independent researcher, author and columnist