ISLAMABAD: -- Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) is launching various initiatives to facilitate access to Venture Capital, strengthen the equity base of IT companies and promote world class entrepreneurial culture in the IT industry. The projects are aimed at raising the fast track development and robust growth of the Pakistan’s IT industry.
 
One such Program, the PSEB's Entrepreneurship Project has been initiated to provide consultancy, on due diligence, to selected IT companies with the objective of qualifying them for Initial Public Offering (IPO). Currently, out of over 1082 IT companies in Pakistan, only two companies are listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange. ‘To get more companies listed, as envisioned under the project, PSEB would subsidize the consultancy cost by 75% while the selected companies would bear the remaining 25% of the consultancy fee’, a spokesman of PSEB said in a statement.   
 
In order to facilitate access to Venture Capital, PSEB would facilitate entrepreneurs in getting Venture Capital funding through vetting business plans and establishing linkages with Angel, VC, Private Equity, Public and Multilateral funding organizations.
 
PSEB has also launched an Apprenticeship Program for creating a pool of skilled resources in the Pakistan IT industry matching the advanced and specialized international technological requirements. Under this initiative, IT companies would recruit IT graduates on apprenticeships and later hire them for a period of at least one year. This would allow the fresh graduates to follow a career path provided by the participant companies, thus strengthening the pool of IT human capital in the country. Under the program, 1058 fresh graduates will be placed as apprentices within the Pakistani IT industry, the spokesman said. The spokesman told that a multinational IT company, Bearing Point, has already expressed its willingness to recruit about 100 IT apprentices out of which 46 have already been placed.

Another major project, the IT industry Internship Program, said the official Spokesman of PSEB, intends to bridge the gap between the IT industry and the academic institutions, and would help mould fresh graduates into world-class professionals. Some 3100 internees from 205 universities/institutes were placed in the local IT/ITes industry and 235 IT departments of public and private sector organizations. The retention rate of the interns by the IT companies was more than 75%, while the remaining secured jobs in other organizations because of their internship experience.  

Under its HR Capacity Building Program, PSEB has provided training to the professional staff of 94 leading IT companies in Oracle, Siebel, Mercury, SAP, CISSP, Rational Rose and PMP programs.

PSEB’s Expert Advisory Program is in the process of being finalized. The major objective of the program is to facilitate PSEB member companies to hire foreign experts and expatriates. PSEB expects that the international corporate exposure and technical expertise of the experts will assist Pakistan IT companies in addressing gaps in the management of technical teams, and result in achieving fast track growth and capability to compete at a world level.

PSEB is a Government agency mandated to promote Pakistan's IT industry, including software, services, hardware and call centers locally and globally. It has been facilitating the IT industry through its programs in human capital, office space, marketing, company capability development, telecom bandwidth, industry finance, public policy, strategy & research, and facilitation. The IT industry of Pakistan is currently valued over USD 2.8 billion with an IT workforce of 110,000, growing at almost 20,000 a year.