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Marketing
PSEB promotes the image of the Pakistan IT industry in key
markets abroad, enables trade interaction with international
parties, and facilitates the entry of multi-national development
and support centres in Pakistan
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In the fiscal year 07-08, PSEB sponsored participation of
sixty five member companies in seven international
tradeshows and delegations, one domestic conferences,
participated in forty two TV interviews, seven radio
interviews, ninety-one magazine interviews and articles and
has issued over forty two press releases, which resulted in
several hundred articles. In addition PSEB events were
covered in several dozen TV news clippings.
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In addition,
four international promotional campaigns were run. Almost
two hundred and eighty two leads were passed on to member
companies in addition to over a thousand indirect leads. |
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To date in
the current fiscal year 08-09, PSEB sponsored participation
of thirteen member companies in two domestic conferences,
participated in seventeen TV interviews, fifteen magazine
interviews and articles and has issued over six press
releases, which resulted in several hundred articles. In
addition PSEB events were covered in several dozen TV news
clippings.
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Thirty nine leads were passed on to member companies in
addition to several indirect leads. Most potential customers
and investors contact PSEB member companies directly after
getting information from the PSEB website which receives
around one million hits each month with seventy percent of
the hits received from overseas.
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PSEB participated along
with thirteen IT companies in 8th ITCN Asia 2008 Exhibition
from 11-13 August, 2008 at Expo Center Karachi. These
participating companies include 110 Solutions, A2Z Creators,
DaleelTeq (Pvt) Ltd., iNVATERRA, Kraysis, Lumensoft
Technologies (Pvt) Ltd., Ovex Technologies (Pvt) Ltd., PIBAS
Pakistan Ltd., Server4Sale, Sidat Hyder Morshed Associates (Pvt)
Ltd., Softech Microsystems, Super Technologies Inc.& Webiz
Media; who showcased their products & services at the event
and attracted business leads.
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Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) co-organized two high
level International Conferences on “IT & Outsourcing” and
“Information Security and E- banking” on the second day of
ITCN Asia 2008. The sessions were well attended by corporate
executives and experts from leading IT companies. Mr. Hifz Ur
Rehman, Secretary, Ministry of IT and Telecom was the
honorable chief guest for both the sessions.
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Mr. Herman Wimmer, President Middle East and Africa,
Teradata held a meeting with the Prime Minister of Pakistan
Mr. Yousaf Gilani at the Prime Minister House along with
senior officials of Ministry of Information Technology and
PSEB. Mr. Wimmer discussed Teradata’s investment prospects and
expansion plans with the Prime Minister bringing in investment
of more than USD 10 Million in Pakistan. He was encouraged by
the Government of Pakistan friendly investment policies and
MOIT/PSEB’s various programs for promotion of this sector. In
addition to expanding its Global Consulting Center in the
country, Teradata will use Pakistan as a regional HUB for
servicing the Middle East and other markets.
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Mr. Rishi S. Jaitly, Government Affairs Manager, Google Inc.
USA visited Pakistan, met Federal Secretary IT and MD PSEB and
showed his willingness to extend mutual collaborations in the
areas of internet literacy, industry research, promotion of
technology and innovation in Pakistan, bringing in investment
in Pakistan. Mr. Jaitly leads public policy and government
affairs and works with governments across South Asia. His
strategic focus is to ensure growth of the Internet medium and
internet literacy. Mr. Jaitly appraised the vibrant state of
ICT sector in Pakistan and the progress it has made in the
country for the last five years. Google foresees Pakistan as
the most happening and upcoming destination for global
outsourcing. Mr. Badar Khushnood, Country Consultant, Google
Pakistan was also present in the meeting.
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Strategy
In conjunction with stakeholders like PASHA, the industry
association, PSEB has developed a vision and strategic roadmap
to fast track IT industry growth.
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PSEB has contracted Gartner
to conduct a study on "Strategic Review of the Pakistani IT
Industry". The final report sent by Gartner has been
approved by acceptance committee members from MoIT, PASHA
and PSEB with minor suggestions. The feedback has been sent
to the consultant for incorporation.
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Apart
from conducting SWOT analysis of Pakistan IT industry and
providing recommendatory measures, Gartner has ranked
Pakistan among Leaders and Challengers in the study report.
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Office Space Provision
PSEB plans to build IT Parks in different cities and
currently operates over 750,000 square feet of Software Technology
Parks (STP) in eleven buildings across the country.
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In the last fiscal year 2007-08, PSEB launched its first state
of the art National IT / Knowledge Park Project through
international tender process for providing affordable and
quality IT enabled work space to local and international ICT
companies. Around 15 acres of land at prime location in
Islamabad has been acquired by PSEB for this IT Park to nourish
the rapidly growing Pakistani IT Sector. An International
Consortium has been selected as “Preferred Bidder / Developer”
after the evaluation of their proposal.
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Payment of land measuring 33.3 acres at Chak Shahzad Islamabad
and 6 acres at Karachi International Airport, for the
establishment of state of the art IT Parks has been released and
process of acquisition of land is at final stages. Partial
payment for the land measuring 6 acres at Lahore International
Airport for the development of IT park has also been released
and possession of the land will be made available shortly.
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PSEB has issued ‘Letter of Intent’ (LoI) to the above mentioned
International Consortium for the establishment of first
state-of-the-art National IT Park, at Chak Shahzad, Islamabad
on 14th July 2008. The IT Park will be developed on Built
Operate and Transfer (BOT) model. After the successful
negotiations with the international consortium latest by 15th
October 2008, the construction will commence in January 2009 and
the project is expected to be completed latest by January 2011.
With an expected development cost of more than 9 billion rupees,
the IT Park will provide 1.5 million sq ft. of contemporary
state-of-the-art office space to the local and international ICT
companies and service provider.
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Industry HC
PSEB works with
the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to increase the influx
of quality graduates into the industry, facilitates matching
of graduates with IT companies, provides on-going trainings
and certifications to professionals, and undertakes research
to benchmark IT professionals and graduates in the country.
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In fiscal year 07-08, 312 professionals participated in
PSEB-sponsored trainings, 572 interns were placed in the IT
Industry and approval of Apprenticeship Program was granted
to 07 companies for the induction of 738 apprentices.
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To date, in the current fiscal year, One hundred and Sixty
Five interns have been placed in the IT industry.
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To date, in the current
fiscal year, proposals of 17 companies have been received for
PSEB’s Specialized Training Grant under its Capacity Building
Program.
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To date, in the current
fiscal year, Apprenticeship Proposals of 5 more companies have
been sent to the National ICT R&D Fund for approval of 544
apprentices.
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In addition to the 51
received proposals, over 60 IT companies are being pursued for
participation in the IT Industry Apprenticeship Program. |
Public Policy
PSEB
facilitates the creation of a public policy
environment including taxes, tariffs, trade, and
intellectual property protection to enable the
growth of the IT industry.
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MoIT/PSEB has taken serious
note on the vacation notices served by the Evacuee Trust
Property Board (ETB) to all the tenants IT companies of the
building for immediate vacation of the premises. This
serious issue has been taken up with the Secretary-Ministry
of Minorities, Chairman-ETB for an amicable solution. MoIT
and PSEB are aggressively following the matter for immediate
remedial measures.
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Industry Finance
PSEB is working with stakeholders to
create a financing and funding ecosystem
for the IT industry.
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PSEB is awaiting direction from
the Prime Minister's Secretariat on the proposal for the
promotion of venture capital in the country.
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Company
Capability Development
PSEB sponsors quality and
information security certification
of IT companies in order to
enhance their international
competitiveness.
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In the last fiscal year, 07-08, under PSEB-sponsored
programs, fifteen CMMi L2 rating and five ISO 27001
certifications were obtained. Two companies became SEI
transition partner and three individuals became SCAMPI
appraisers. Pakistan now has over 110 ISO-certified IT
companies, over 200 ISO 9001 IT lead auditors and will have
over 25 CMMi rated companies by the end of the current year
making it a world leader in this category.
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Currently, there is one CMMi L5
company, one CMM L5 company, three
CMMi L3 companies, sixteen CMMi L2
companies, five ISO 27001 certified
companies, four SEI Transition Partner
companies and three SCAMPI appraisers.
In the current fiscal year, 08-09,
four companies for CMMi L2 ratings,
two companies for CMMi L5 ratings and
seven companies for ISO 27001
certifications are in process.
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CARE (Center for Advanced Research in
Engineering) Private Limited, a
Islamabad based company deals in
Software Development and
Electrical/Electronics/Computer
Engineering with focus on
Communication Systems and Information
Technology has achieved CMMI level 2
in PSEB CMMI program.
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Facilitation
PSEB facilitates IT companies
in their interaction with
various Government agencies
and also launches programs in
areas of strategic importance
where the private sector is
shy of investing. In the last
year, the Open Source Centre
has conducted twenty six
workshops, training over four
hundred and fifty people,
facilitated one migration, and
published internationally
recognizing training
toolkits..
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In the last fiscal year 07-08, visa processing was
facilitated for one hundred and fourteen individuals.
Foreign currency remittance NOCs for purchase of software
were processed and issued to seven companies, and corporate
advisory services have been provided to numerous companies
and individuals
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To date, in the current fiscal year, visa processing was
facilitated for ten individuals.
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Nineteen new IT companies were registered with PSEB in
this reporting period with sixteen new call centres. Forty
five IT companies and five call centres have renewed their
registrations.
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In the last fiscal year 07-08, the Open Source Resource
Center (OSRC) conducted forty training workshops and
awareness-raising seminars, trained over eight hundred and
sixty people, facilitated four computer network migrations,
and published a new, downloadable training toolkit on
Asterisk Open Source PBX. It also sponsored and presented at
two national conferences on open source technologies, and
published two articles on open source.
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In addition, it successfully launched three specialized
training programs i.e. a vendors' training program in
collaboration with the Pakistan Computer Association;
Asterisk Open Source PBX for the VoIP and the call center
industry; and a Red Hat (RHCE) training and certification
program. The OSRC is also developing an open source
curriculum along with the Virtual University (VU), and has
started working with the Intellectual Property
Organization-Pakistan in order to promote open source as an
effective means of combating software piracy in the country.
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In the current fiscal year
08 -09, Teletimes International magazine has published the
OSRC's latest article in its July/August 2008 print edition.
Entitled "Pakistan's First Open Source Resource Center", it
summarizes the OSRC's achievements from 2003 till date,
contains nine stakeholders' quoted statements, and a
statistically-rich sub-article entitled "Open Source
Software Adoption in Pakistan: An Online Organizational
Survey", with a high percentage favoring Linux. The entire
magazine and article's current link is
http://www.teletimesinternational.com/doc/TeletimesAug08.pdf.
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The OSRC collaborated with
Red Hat International's recommended partner, Techno-Ed (Pvt.)
Limited, to launch its Red Hat Linux (RHCE) Training Program
from 18th-27th August 2008 simultaneously in Islamabad,
Karachi and Lahore. This workshop and subsequent exam prior
to certification aims to enrich the skills-set of, and
provide quality human resources to Pakistan's IT industry.
It also aims to convince companies, public/private
organizations, institutes and SMEs to migrate their computer
networks to a more cost-effective open source working
environment.
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In FY 07-08, under PSEB’s
Industry Automation project, 55 SME units across 5 verticals
were automated using ERP software developed under the
project; AutoPlus, the ERP for automotive parts and
accessories vertical was launched; Microsoft formed
partnership with the IT companies for the marketing and
sales of the products developed under the project.
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AutoPlus; a comprehensive
Enterprise Resource Planning solution for units of Pakistan
Association of Automotive Parts and Accessories
Manufacturers (PAAPAM) developed by Acrologix (Pvt.) Ltd,
under PSEB’s Industry Automation program is now in the
process of implementation at Master Engineering (Pvt.) Ltd.,
a leading manufacturer of motorcycles, rickshaws, bicycles
and tractor components. Master Engineering is an ISO
Certified company which has been in operation since 1979 and
has an annual sales volume of about US $2 Million.
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Tel: 051-9211124 |
Fax: 051 9204075 | Email:
info@pseb.org.pk | URL:
www.pseb.org.pk
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