LAHORE: President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday stressed the importance of information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI) to meet future challenges facing the country and the world.
Addressing the faculty members and students of the Virtual University (VU) here on Thursday, the president said he wished to introduce virtual education system across the country like the VU.
He said the world needed about 80 million IT, AI and cyber security (CS) experts per annum whereas Pakistan was just producing 27,000 IT experts, adding that the world was not meeting the demand of experts as IT was being used in every field of life.
The president said Pakistan had a great population of youth and the world was looking towards it. “If we train our youth in IT, AI and CS then our youth can get jobs across the world,” he said and added that Islamic World alone was a big market for Pakistani trained youth.
Dr Alvi said the country had acknowledged the importance of IT only after the coronavirus, adding that: “We should give great importance to IT for development and progress of the country in future,” he added.
Dr Alvi said that hybrid training should be introduced in the country and stressed the VU staff to recognize their potential and follow exponential approach.
He expressed his satisfaction with the work of the university and appreciated the faculty.
Earlier, the president visited different parts, including computer labs, and various departments of the university.
He was also given a briefing about the procedure and working of the VU.
