Govt to set up Venture Capital Fund to boost IT sector: Awais
By Ali Imran

ISLAMABAD—Government has decided to set up a venture capital fund at an initial outlay of $5 million to finance projects aimed at manufacturing commercially-oriented IT and telecom products needed by the industry.
This was stated by Minister for Information Technology, Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari in a keynote address at the 2nd Pak-US international symposium on High Capacity Optical Networks and Enabling Technologies here Monday.
The three-day symposium has brought together some 250 experts and professionals from the public and private sectors who would deliberate on various topics and issues ranging from optical communication, optical networks, wireless communication, wireless networks, network security, grid commuting and enabling technologies.
Speaking on the occasion, he said, “We are willing to fund any proposal or project of applied nature, whether coming from public sector or private sector research organizations, which ensure short and medium-term benefits for the industry. Awais Leghari said, the government has also established a well-structured R&D funding set up in the area of ICTs with main emphasis on building of skills, HRD and research capacity within our academia and institutions.
About program, he said, We expect to bridge the skill gap not just within our country but also expect to be able to export skilled workforce to countries and regions where demand exists. He said, his ministry would also consider funding the Global Lambda Integrated Facility being set up at NUST Institute of Information Technology to provide high-speed internet connectivity in the country.
The minister said, the country had witnessed an exponential growth in the telecom sector which had been fuelled by a huge unmet demand and a flourishing middle class keen to jump the telecom bandwagon given its potential in enhancing thesocio-economic conditions of the people. He said, We had taken yet another initiative in the form of a multi-billion Universal Service Fund to expand the telecom coverage and access to far off areas.
“The repertoire of services and projects that could befunded, will be kept broad to take as diverse a package of ICT services to such areas as possible for inclusion of all in the information society”, he said. He said the promotion of broadband internet was going to be the main focus of the government in the next couple of years and they foresaw wireless internet as the solution to business processes.
The government was also willing to invest in such roll-outs since the market as yet to embrace this concept wholeheartedly. To a question, he said, two submarine cables were also being laid to connect Pakistan to UAE, while efforts were on to link up with Iran and India as well. “This is in addition to three domestic alternate backbones being built by the private sector in the country”, he added.
He said, Pakistan had already laid the optic fibre up to the Indian border near Wagah but the Indian companies were yet to respond as they were facing some bottlenecks from their government.