Daily Times

KARACHI: Congratulating UIT and its team for designing Pakistan’s First Open Source RISC – V Microprocessor, President Dr. Arif Alvi said that Pakistan needs more graduates in IT sector in number and quality as well because world needs more number of these graduates in this sector.

He expressed such views while addressing the ceremony “Celebrating Pakistan’s First Open Source RISC –V Microprocessor designed at UIT University” held here at UIT University on Saturday. The chip manufacturing will be a 1.3 trillion industry by 2030 and the IT sector would be a multi-billion dollar industry in the near future which requires more than 80 million graduates in IT sector, the president articulated.

So, we should produce more graduates, and government and private institutions should focus on this sector as more graduates can be produced in the country, he said, adding that Pakistan is considering setting up a quantum lab. Appreciating some government universities, he said that the Virtual University and Quaid-e-Azam University were doing excellent job by producing graduates in the sector, and in addition, they were conducting online classes for short courses to meet rising demand in the sector.

The knowledge should be open source all over the world and I always said that for the promotion of education, it is necessary to make it open-source, he stressed. In addition, the government has reduced the taxes on this sector to encourage the institutions and we would continue all kinds of such support for IT sector, he added. Talking on the recent visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan to China, he said that the Prime Minister did not ask for any other support but asked for extending collaboration in the different sectors like textile, IT and other sector on basis of win-win position.

Pakistan has huge cheaper human resources as compared to other countries as it is country of 22 crore population, President uttered. People should not leave the Pakistan because the country is in need of each person to make it prosper but the government should also create some opportunities for them, he informed. UIT University has done a great job by developing Pakistan’s first open source risk-based microprocessor and they have done a tremendous job in filling the huge gap in IT industry, he said while appreciating performance of UIT University.

On the occasion, Chairman Silicon Federation, Naveed Sherwani said that the forty chips and design labs would be set up all over Pakistan and UIT is the only university in Pakistan which started manufacturing a chip in a small room two years ago. Vice-Chancellor Dr. Shoib Zaidi also spoke on the occasion.