Daily Times

Freelancing can play a significant role in coping with unemployment in the country, as over 500,000 educated people turned jobless only in previous couple of year, said Dr Zafar Mahmood Alvi, the Project Director at DigiSkills.pk, in an exclusive interview with Daily Times.

Dr Alvi said that this will not only boost the job market in the country but also increase our exports in service sector. He said that the digital skills is a global industry, often referred to as online outsourcing, is expected to generate gross service revenue of approximately Rs 4000 billion by 2020.

Technology plays an important role in every sphere of life but it has revolutionized the field of education.

By leveraging modern technology in education sector, he said, the learning and interactivity of students would be increased significantly, adding that with the effective use of technology, the drawbacks which are pulling back the education sector from achieving excellence can be eliminated.

While talking about the potential of the digital skills in the education sector, the director said “we are living in a digital world; technology has been integrated in our lives as the most important component”. He added that it will become impossible for a complete non-tech person to get a good job in the futures while in the perspective, he claimed, the importance of digital skills in the education sector cannot be ignored.

Dr Alvi further claimed that DigiSkills Training Program is Pakistan’s first online free of cost Training Program to empower the youth especially women with skills that are in-demand in the freelance market. It consists of multiple online skill-based training courses that included freelancing, e-commerce management, digital marketing, digital literacy, quick books, AutoCAD, Word Press, Graphics Design, Creative Writing and Search Engine Optimization.

He explained that the course content has been delivered in a mix of Urdu-English language, adding that the team of DigiSkills.pk provides full-time support and assistance throughout and even after the completion of the batch through email IVR and MDBs.

According to the director the offering courses are the most demanded and highly paid skills in the freelance marketplaces. He added that DigiSkills.pk is a program with a mission to teach the marketable digital skills to the youth and women and empower them to become successful freelancer, entrepreneurs and employees.

Dr Zafar Alvi is served as Senior General Manager (IT/MIS) at Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited and also been a faculty member of various prestigious educational institutes across the country. He holds over 30 years of experience in the field of IT. Currently, he is also Member of Steering Committee of Sultan Qaboos IT Chair University of Engineering Technology.

He holds BSc and MSc Electrical Engineering degrees from UET Lahore, and a PhD from the University of Bradford, UK. His area of research is artificial intelligence.