The National ICT Research and Development (R&D) Fund (Ignite) Company's Board on Wednesday approved contracts for establishment of three incubation centres to be built in Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar. The decision was taken in the 52nd Board of Directors meeting of National ICT R&D Fund Company which was chaired by Minister of State for Information Technology & Telecom Anusha Rehman.
Talking to Business Recorder, the IT Ministry spokesperson said that CEO ICT R&D Fund Co apprised the board that the company has received encouraging feedback from the industry for the advertised incubation centre projects. Sealed bids submitted by more than 30 consortia comprising dozens of companies for establishment of 04 new incubation centres have been reviewed on technical and financial basis.
The board granted the approval for awarding contract to the successful bidders after due deliberation except for Balochistan. The board directed CEO Ignite to initiate a bidding process afresh for incubation centre to be built in Quetta, Balochistan. The successful bidders included TPL Trakker Limited for Karachi, LMKT for Peshawar and LUMS for Lahore Incubation centre. According to the official statement, Anusha Rehman said that establishment of new technology incubation centres across the four provinces will help youngsters become successful entrepreneurs and earn reasonable livelihood.
The minister said that main policy focus is to provide quality digital and skill development training to youth of the country and MoIT is committed for providing them all appropriate forum and tools through which they can get quality training to succeed in the growing global freelancing market.
The board agreed that to keep the momentum and industry interest going, RFPs will be floated for IOT, Robotics and fin-tech specialty innovation centres at the earliest. The minister further said that these incubation centres will play a pivotal role in development of ICT skills, required for employability in the sector.
The board also reviewed the status and pace of different ongoing projects of ICT R&D Fund Company. Anusha Rehman said that the government attaches highest priority to ICTs development to materialise the Prime Minister's vision of "Accelerated Digitisation". She directed the company to gear up their efforts to meet given timelines for all 7 incubation centres. Federal secretary IT Rizwan Bashir Khan, Member Telecom Mudasar Hussain, Member HR, CEO ICT R&D Yossuf Hassan and other Board members were also present in the meeting.