Ignite, National Technology Fund, a company established under Ministry of IT & Telecom for funding tech innovation and tech startup ecosystem of Pakistan is pleased to announce the joining of Mr. Asim Shahryar Husain as its new Chief Executive Officer. Asim has served in both private and public sectors with a unique blend of more than 25 years of experience in corporate strategy, business planning, product management, project management, financial management, marketing planning and sales of technology products/services in USA and Pakistan.
Before joining Ignite, he headed organizations such as Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) and COMSATS Internet Services for 7 years, utilizing his expertise in different technology sectors including IT/software, telecom, broadband, and fintech. During his tenure as MD PSEB, Pakistan’s IT remittances as reported by State Bank grew by 78% in three years. He also worked as Project Director for World Bank’s Financial Inclusion & Infrastructure Project (FIIP) with Finance Division for more than 2.5 years. Asim holds a Bachelors in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University (1992) and an MBA from Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, USA. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) also.
Commenting on the occasion, he said: “I am very excited about joining Ignite so that I can make a contribution to Pakistan’s tech startup ecosystem even more than what I had done at PSEB. A lot of good work has been done by Ignite on the supply side. It is time to focus on the demand side also to accelerate our incubated startups to bring local and foreign investment in them. Also, Ignite will be offering new courses under its flagship Digiskills program which has conducted more than a million trainings so far. My vision would be to ignite Pakistan’s tech ecosystem to connect our high growth startups with local and foreign investors to bring investment in them so that they can scale up to become mid-sized and large tech companies. This will create new jobs, bring local and foreign investment, and increase exports in the tech sector of Pakistan.”