President urges industrial sectors to prepare for challenges of emerging technologies

December 17, 2019: President Dr. Arif Alvi on Tuesday said that the emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Robotics and Internet of Things (IoTs) were poised to unleash the next wave of digital disruption, and industrial sectors should prepare for it.

The President expressed these views while chairing a meeting of the Taskforce on Emerging Technologies here at the Aiwan-e-Sadr.

The meeting was also attended by Minster for Information Technology and Telecommunication Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, and various IT experts from across the country, a press release issued by the President’s Media Office here said.

Dynamically evolving Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) were playing a key role towards Digital Transformation and had crossed sectoral significance in terms of fourth industrial revolution, he added.

The President highlighted that digitally-enabled transformation had many components, one of which was to continue to invest in the development of important key digital enablers like digital identity, shared data services, shared business processes, technology centres, etc. and provide incentives for their use across the public sector.

Therefore, building an innovation ecosystem was also an essential ingredient, he added.

Moreover, the President pointed out that the government was already making efforts to enhance the environment of innovation through different start-ups in emerging technologies.

He also highlighted that they saw very significant role of technology companies in building Pakistan's digital economy. There were many low hanging fruits and with a collective effort they could yield quick and long-lasting results, he added.

The President said that the next decade in Pakistan would be the decade of ICT revolution based on a futuristic telecom infrastructure, for which Pakistan must have necessary ingredients i.e. the infrastructure, a great number of educated youth in IT & Telecom and a population willing to adapt to new technologies.

In this regard, he emphasized that digitization of government, including digital identification machines and voting technology, held special significance. Furthermore, cyber tools and apps must also be incorporated in education, health and population planning, biotechnology, security, he added.

Emerging Technologies were penetrating all sectors of modern life. Investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI) was increasing and it was estimated that tech giants spent $20-$30 billion on AI in 2016, with 90 % of this spent on R&D and deployment, and 10 % on Al acquisitions.

In terms of Blockchain, top ten cases of public sector use were:  Digital Currency Payments, Land Registration, Voting (Electronics), Identity Management, Supply chain traceability, Health Care, Voting (proxy), corporate registration, Taxation, and Entitlements Management.

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