Peshawar
Khyber Pakhunkhwa Minister for Science Technology and Information Technology and Food Muhammad Atif Khan has said that youths are our precious asset and to meet the market based IT trained human resources, ,KP government will spend 8 billion PKR to impart basic, medium and advanced digital IT skills to one lakh youths of the province in next one and a half years in order to boast self-employability and digital economy of the province.
He expressed these views while addressing as a chief guest to the one-day Youth Tech Festival, organized by Science Technology and Information Technology (STIT) department, at Abdul Wali Khan University Shankar Campus,Mardan.
Members provincial assembly Amir Farzand Khan, Malik Shaukat, Member National Assembly Mujahid Khan,Secretary STIT Matiullah Khan, Managing Director KPIT Board Ali Mehmood Khan, Commissioner Mardan Division Syed Abdul Jabbar Shah, Deputy Commissioner Mardan Habibullah Arif and large number of students from universities, colleges and schools attended the event .
Addressing the ceremony Atif Khan said that development in IT sector would help a lot in economic development in near future .The minister further told IT export have increased from one billion PKR to 2.5 billion PKR in the last three years and which can be reached to 25 billion in next five years.
“Pakistan has become the fourth largest freelance market in the world,” said the minister, adding that after establishment of Haripur special technology zone (STZ) Shankar campus would also be declared STZ very soon for bringing companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google to Pakistan.
Atif said that KP government is working e-governance in government departments which would be established soon for ensuring transparency and speedy service delivery. The minister extended that in next four months citizen facilitation centre would be started at divisional level in KP which would provide nineteen services of five departments in the first phase through one window.
He said that the purpose of organizing YTF is to promote modern trends in science and information technology and encourage students, teachers and entrepreneurs.
Provincial Minister Muhammad Atif Khan said that innovators should come forward and play their role in the development of the province through innovative ideas in STIT. At the end a memorandum of understanding was also signed between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa information technology board and Engineering university of Mardan and shaheed Benazir Bhutoo university Shringal, upper Dir.
