Islamabad: First-ever Digital Pakistan Internship Portal launched here in a ceremony held at a local hotel on Wednesday to accelerate the growth of Information Technology sector through creating a bridge between industry and academia for problem solving and automate the hiring of interns by IT companies. The portal was inaugurated by Federal Secretary Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, Shoaib Ahmad Siddique.

The newly developed, state of the art portal would enhance collaboration and cooperation between Pakistan’s information technology industry, local universities and IT graduates. The portal will help enable Pakistani IT companies to work directly with academia to solve problems through utilizing the intellect and knowledge available at Pakistani universities, which is a major milestone in efforts to boost the growth of IT Industry in Pakistan.

The IT companies would post problems on the Digital Pakistan Portal. The university professors and graduate students would be able to study the postings and attempt to solve the problems by working directly with the relevant companies thereby improving scope and breathe of Pakistan’s IT ecosystem in the process.

The portal would also automate the hiring of interns by IT companies. Speaking on the occasion, Federal Secretary, Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui said Digital Pakistan Internship portal is a step in the right direction to recognize talent and eliminate bottlenecks that potentially slow the growth of Pakistan’s IT industry. He said that the present government is committed for the uplift of IT industry and youth of the country.

Youth are the resourceful segment of the society and has great talent to play constructive role in the development of country. He said that it is vital to engage youth with healthy activities, enabling them to come forward and play role in nation building.

He said that Pakistan’s IT sector has a promising future. On this occasion, PSEB also signed Memorandum of Understanding with HEC and E-commerce Gateway for promotion of Digital Pakistan internship portal in the academia and the industry.