‘COVID-19 crisis acting as catalyst to digital transformation’

Islamabad : Information Technology Consultant, COMSATS, Bilal Zaka has pointed out that today we are experiencing the true social, political, financial and cultural effects of what is termed as globalization, deregulation, liberalization and convergence in the wake of coronavirus crisis.

In a statement issued here Monday, he said some major factors influencing this change are proliferation of mobile devices, ubiquitous wireless access to internet and increasing interventions of online or internet-driven technologies. “The COVID-19 crisis is acting as a catalyst to this transformation, with every individual and organization trying to adapt to digital means of running social and business affairs,” he added.

Zaka said that more recently, government of Pakistan started many ambitious digitization and ICT enabling programmes where modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, block chain etc. will be used for enhancing production and efficiencies in major GDP composition sectors of agriculture, industry and services.

Furthermore, national telecom organizations in public and private sectors have reasonable datacenters, rolling out infrastructure and platform cloud services. While these programmes are a much-needed move towards the reforms, next step will be to roll out indigenous software services solutions to cater for the local needs. Having this capability provides the nation with next level of sovereignty in modern digital age.

“Among the organizations that can be pivotal towards making this transformation goal a reality, COMSATS is the one that can provide a practical and solid platform to deliberate on matters related to national and international data regulations. Being a pioneer Internet Service Provider of Pakistan operating since 1996, operational footprint in 19 cities, and a long history of promoting indigenous ICT solutions and provision of secure data services to public and private sectors, COMSATS has the requisite mix of competence, international influence and infrastructure to lead such an initiative at a national scale,” he added.