Academia, industry need to work as 'Team Pakistan' to uplift IT sector: Ahsan Iqbal.

ISLAMABAD -- Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Ahsan Iqbal Wednesday called upon the IT experts from academia, industry and government organizations to jointly work for a holistic development of Pakistan's IT sector.

The minister was addressing a roundtable on 'Building Human Capital for Digital Revolution' organized by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Industry, and academic diasporas.

The brainstorming session was primarily aimed to garner views of IT experts from academia and industry to align the IT and Computer Science curricula with industry needs and come up with a pathway for growth of the country's IT sector.

The main thrust of this roundtable was to build human capital for digital revolution in Pakistan by bridging the gap between industry needs and curriculum taught, which ultimately enhance employability of IT graduates, along with help boost IT exports and reduce critical software and systems import bill.

It was attended by a large number of IT professionals, including faculty members and Project Directors of National Centers of Excellence, as well as heads and representatives of local and international IT companies.

The speakers made suggestions on how to ensure industry-readiness of the university graduates, build IT and CS faculty capacity to abreast with latest developments and knowledge, strengthen academia-industry linkages, make HEC and National Computing Education and Accreditation Council's regulations more effective, and promote applied research.

Forum also suggested to inculcate the applied aspect of IT and CS degree through industry exposure early in graduation and FYP (final year project) must be industry problem-solving oriented.

Speaking on the occasion, Ahsan Iqbal directed for constituting a joint academia-industry working group to define a future of action, assign responsibilities, and set time frames for various tasks and projects of IT sector all-inclusive development.

'We need to ensure that our digital workforce should be a problem solver,' he urged.

He also emphasized that the Pakistani youth need to be motivated to identify the problems of respective field and put in run of the mill to solve by fully exploiting the IT potential.

He underpinned the universities need to not only impart education but also inculcate skills to enable the youth to learn latest techniques, be...