President Dr Arif Alvi Friday said compared to the natural resources, Pakistan could take a jump faster into the new era by exploiting the immense potential of youth bulge, using minds and intellectual talent.
In his keynote virtual addresses to the ‘Digital Youth Summit’ being held in Peshawar, the president said benefiting from the huge youth population and their skills, Pakistan needed to jump the bandwagon of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
“We have to get on board as soon as possible,” he remarked.
Explaining the flood of data, the president said human mind was unable to analyze the already available data, so it required artificial intelligence.
He said, according to scientists, human memory was no more than 5GB but the currently available data was far beyond the human mind’s capacity.
The analysis of the data would require IT specialists which would ultimately enhance the importance of the IT talent.
The president said the value of the App developers had also increased as the businesses needed to outreach their clients across the globe.
He said comparing TV advertisement, social media publicity was free and that was why it was claiming space from print and electronic media.
The president told the gathering that some 15-16 years ago, the oil and gas exploration companies used to be among the top ten corporate firms but now they had been replaced by tech giants called GAFAM – Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft – with far more outreach and impact.
He said the application developers could serve their clients even while being at home and that the tech industry had yet the minimum impact of government control.
President Alvi said comparing the past, communication broadband had enabled people to directly sell their products to clients anywhere in the world without physically moving anywhere.
He told the audience that Ignite had launched a Digiskill program enrolled by around 2 million people.
Similarly, the country was heading towards the digital payment system including the transfer of Ehsaas payments, which would bring in financial transparency, besides significantly impacting the GDP.
He said Pakistan had recorded 47pc increase in software exports last year and that the country was ranked fourth in the world in the field of freelancing.
