‘Government to train one million youths in IT’

ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to provide training to one million youngsters in freelancing skills in area of information technology in next five years. The Minister of State for IT & Telecom Mrs Anusha Rehman has directed CEO ICT Research & Development (R&D) Fund Company to float a Request for Proposal (RFP) of the national technical training programme approved in the previous board meeting for development of ICT skills required for employability in the sector so that our youngsters could be turned in to a skillful human resource after getting an appropriate ICTs training.

She stated this while chairing 50th Board of Directors meeting of ICT R&D fund Company here at the Ministry of IT today. The Board approved training of 10 lakh youngsters in freelancing skill set in the next 5 years. The purpose of the meeting was to review the status and pace of ongoing different projects of ICT R&D Fund Company.

The Board was apprised by the CEO that 8th March was announced as cutoff date for submission of proposals for establishment of 4 more Incubation Centers and we are receiving very encouraging feedback from the industry which speaks volume of their level of interest and trust in our ICT related endeavors. The Board was also presented draft RFP for startups for IOT, FinTech, and Robotics. The minister was also informed that she has chaired 25 consecutive board meetings of ICT R&D Fund Company within last three years. Anusha Rehman said that our government attaches highest priority to ICTs development to materialise Prime Minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif vision of "Accelerated Digitization". She directed the company to gear up their efforts to meet all given timelines for all 7 incubation canters within stipulated time frame.