Industry Pledges Support to Dr. Ismail Shah for Enhancing ICT Activities in the Country

A consultation session was called by Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Dr. Syed Ismail Shah who also holds the additional charge of the National ICT R&D Fund Company CEO, to discuss the various challenges being faced by the ICT R&D fund and how the industry can support in enhancing ICT R&D environment in the country.

Industry Pledges Support to Dr. Ismail Shah for Enhancing ICT Activities in the Country

The event was attended by more than 80 leading professionals from the industry. The participants included Mobile & Fixed Line Operators, the LDI and experts coming from the Academia and ICT companies who were in the Incubation and Service business.

Dr. Syed Ismail Shah gave a brief presentation at the start in which he explained various challenges faced by the National ICT R&D Fund, explaining the thematic areas of development such as Health, Education, Agriculture and Social Services where ICT R&D needs to be focused. He also invited the industry to come forward and give valuable suggestions.

The participants gave detailed inputs on how to improve the ICT R&D Fund current working. They suggested that the existing process should be streamlined and made easy for the projects to be executed which included the selection and monitoring of projects. The experts said that current monitoring mechanism is very cumbersome and hectic that has really effected the ICT R&D functioning and for good ideas to be nurtured therefore entire process need to be revamped to be made easy and faster. Once the processes is revamped and made more easy and friendly for the ICT community to execute then projects can be commercialized.

The participants also suggested to grant the intellectual property rights to the researchers so they could market their products better as there is no reason for National ICT R&D fund to retain its ownership.

In the end the participants were asked if they would like to come forward and be part of the consultative process in a more formalized manner and to give their suggestions through emails. It was also decided that industry working groups will be formed to help the ICT R&D fund make their working more efficient.