The three-day annual Digital Youth Summit (DYS) 2017 jointly organized by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board (KPITB), the World Bank and other partner organizations and powered by Jazz successfully concluded here on Sunday. This year the summit was larger than ever with over 80 speakers, 4,000 participants including investors, students, academia, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts form across the globe, representatives of international IT companies and government officials.
The DYS brought together the next generation of digital innovators to announce the KP Digital Strategy (the first ever in Pakistan) in order to help map out Pakistan’s digital future and to transform Khyber Pakhtunkhwa into an emerging ICT hub which is expected to create 75,000 new digital jobs.
The summit had top local and international digital entrepreneurs, technologists, ICT companies and investors to share knowledge and experiences while training and investing in the 4,000 youth attendees from the province. To build on the summit’s momentum, the first ever KP Digital Strategy was unveiled at the summit to provide a roadmap for KP to equip young people with the skills, access, and market they need to secure and create jobs in the knowledge based digital economy.
It also featured a Start-up Cup in which local start-ups pitched their businesses for a chance to win $2,500 prize to grow their ventures. During the three-day event, KPITB unveiled the KP Cyber Emergency Response Centre to identify and timely respond to cybercrimes. The KPITB also signed a memorandum of Understating with Jazz telecom company to work together on p[promoting digital development initiatives in the province.
Besides KP chief minister Pervez Khattak and Senior minister for Information Technology, Shahram, Tarakai, Chairman Pakistan Tahreek-e- Insaf, Imran Khan also graced the event. Addressing an enthusiastic crowd Imran Khan said that youth were the real asset, and through the effective use of ICT they could play a leading role in shifting the economy to a digital and knowledge based one.
Addressing the concluding session of the summit as chief guest, KP senior minister for Information Technology Shahram Tarakai felicitated the high ups of KPITB and the world Bank for successfully organizing such an innovative event in order to bring together entrepreneurs, investors, academia, experts and students under one roof and announced that next year the event would be organized in a much larger scale.
He said that the successful holding of DYS in Peshawar for consecutive four years has helped a great deal to empower the youth of the province by showcasing their innovative skills globally and the same would ultimately lead to digital and knowledge based economy of the province.
The senior minister expressed his gratitude for all the partner organizations including the World Bank, UNDP, USAID, Jazz, Peshawar 2.0 and others for their cooperation in making the DYS 2017 a real success and assured that his government would continue to extend all out support for promoting digital development initiatives in the province.
Source: http://pakobserver.net/dys-transform-kp-emerging-ict-hub/