Former Google Executive Aims to Unlock the Potential of Pakistan’s Digital Future

The former Google executive and MIT professional, Tania Aidrus, who is currently heading the ‘Digital Pakistan’ initiative has described it as having ‘an overarching vision which aims to unlock the potential of Pakistan’s digital future. She shared her views on the initiative and her plans for it in an exclusive interview.

According to Tania, Pakistan must work towards a future in which technology touches and enriches the life of every citizen, thereby driving higher productivity and giving the people greater control by unleashing their entrepreneurial potential and propelling Pakistan forward towards a secure economic future.

Former Google Executive Aims to Unlock the Potential of Pakistan’s Digital Future

Sharing her views about the start-up environment in Pakistan, Tania said she strongly believes that Pakistan’s startup ecosystem is poised for take-off as ‘the middle class is growing and is driving growth in consumer spending’. She further said that there are 70 million broadband internet users in the country besides a mostly young and dynamic population and incredible talent. She said, it is only a matter of time when a few big successes in Pakistan will suddenly bring regional and global attention to the massive opportunity that exists in the country.

In the answer of the question that how can this be a more structured, coherent and measurable pathway, she said that like most other ambitious transformations, what Pakistan needs is a clear, comprehensive and articulate strategy to determine where it wants to go in the long term.

Tania said that the Digital Pakistan initiative will make a marked contribution to the job market as the next billion dollar companies will come from IT and hundreds of thousands of new jobs will be created. She assures that these jobs will be in multiple sectors and functions and will offer the single biggest opportunity to Pakistan to help it bridge the unemployment gap.

She opens up her views about the the blocks in the way of entrepreneurial evolution in the IT sector in Pakistan known, she says things should be made easier for tech startups to operate easily in the country. In Pakistan’s future tech development, Tania pins her hopes on the private sector and adds that the government could contribute by creating an enabling environment for the new entrants.

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