The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) has launched entrepreneurship project 'Herself' for female freelancers that aims at empowering females to learn and earn through a series of IT based trainings and workshops. Addressing the launching ceremony, PITB Chairman Dr Umar Saif said "we envision 'Herself' as a platform that will increase the participation of women in leadership roles and the workforce. As part of our initiatives, we believe there was never a greater need for women to explore how technology can enable them.
"Being a part of the Tech Industry ourselves, we have explored ways and realised how technology can help women in so many ways, especially in a place like Pakistan where women empowerment is one of the lowest around the world. All across the globe, greater female participation has gone hand in hand with economic transformation. The more women work, economies grow," he added.
Dr Saif said "In Pakistan, this potential is not fully realized. According to world economic forum, it is estimated that Asia as a whole loses $40 billion each year as a result of gender gaps in education and employment, with women 70 percent less likely than men to be in employment. I hope our state of the art programmes like Plan9, PlanX and TechHub Connect will fill this gap through 'Herself' effectively." He said PITB would start e-Rozgar Programme to train large number of youth across the Punjab during next fiscal year.
The launch ceremony "Herself" was held at Arfa Software Technology Park on Thursday. Mussarrat Misbah of Depilex Smileagain Foundation, Seema Aziz of Care Foundation, Nadia Jamil of The Empty Space and Sara Gilani of Tech Hub Connect were among the speakers.