KPITB’s brainchild “Early Age Programming” generates commendable results
A momentous occasion as the visionary excellence and pragmatic planning invested in KPITB’s brainchild “Early Age Programming” generates commendable results. Students from government schools of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa make history at COMPPEC (Comppec - Computer Project Exhibition and Competition), the ultimate computers and a technological event of Pakistan, annually hosted by the Dept. of Computer Engineering NUST, Islamabad by grabbing all the top slots.
An ideal platform to explore young talent and experience their creative exploits in the World of Computers, COMPPEC invited students from around Pakistan to take part in their Early Age Programming Category.
Competing with top-notch private schools, 11 teams from KPITB’s “Early Age Program” qualified for the first round while secured first Three positions in the final round which amazed everyone with their exceptional talent and thorough understanding of modern technology. It was unprecedented that students hailing from government schools, notorious for their substandard educational framework could compete at such a level and then turn the tables by winning the whole thing.
An applaudable effort, their win is a testament of KPITB’s genuine commitment and stern resolve to raise the quality of education in government schools by introducing STEAM learning and create a unified system that allows equal opportunities devoid of nonsensical categories. This success is another milestone added to their EAP program, executed to impart the basics of computer programming to young learners in a fun and interactive manner. Designed by CODE.org and MIT Scratch, the curriculum engages an international standard training mechanism allowing children studying at government schools to experience empirical learning and exploit their skills to reap the benefits of technology and compete for future jobs.
Translated in their vision and expressed through such success stories, KPITB is changing the course of learning for good and its efforts to impart modern concepts to students at government schools and allow them an equal exposure at the national level is bearing fruitful results.
Agreement signed between KPITB and Sybrid Pvt Ltd - A Lakson Group Company
Agreement signed between KPITB and Sybrid Pvt Ltd - A Lakson Group Company for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Ready Spaces in Peshawar. 500 IT jobs will be created in the first phase and 1700 in the next phase.
Representatives from the ICT Industry, KPITB's officials and members from Prime Minister task force on IT visited the proposed site for first Digital City of Pakistan at Haripur
KPITB invites representatives of the IT industry to the proposed site of Pakistan Digital City.
Representatives from the ICT Industry, KPITB's officials and members from Prime Minister task force on IT visited the proposed site for first Digital City of Pakistan at Haripur on April 6, 2019.
A serene site covered in the mountains of Haripur is being proposed for Digital City, in the same vicinity of Pak-Austria Fachhochschule: Institute of Applied Sciences & Technology.
The plan for establishing Pakistan Digital City at Haripur has been initiated by KPITB which will serve as an industrial state for the ICT industry to encourage existing and potential entrants to the emerging technology landscape of Pakistan in general and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in specific. Haripur site is proposed for its strategic location being closely located to the Motorway and Islamabad. the site is centrally located on the CPEC route and is surrounded by the Universities and Educational Institutes.
During the visit Dr. Shahbaz Khan, MD KPITB briefed the guests and informed them about the expected outcomes of the project. The response from the industry was overwhelming in the establishment of Pakistan Digital City and anticipated that it will act as a catalyst for the development of IT sector in Pakistan."
Durshal: A key player in providing a growth-conducive environment for startups
Computer science and related fields are now among the fastest-growing areas of study at colleges and universities across Pakistan—over a 100,000 students graduate each year with technical degrees. Increasingly, these students, like their peers studying political science or journalism, care about making a difference.
For too long, however, organizations have failed to provide job opportunities in order to capitalize fully on the talents of this latest generation of students, resulting in a pool of brilliant and capable graduates wasting their talents than progressing professionally.
Given this context, the past three years have seen an exciting growth of “Start-up Ecosystem.” Organizations are now devoted to bridging the divide between graduates and work opportunities, KPITB is at the lead in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it comes to providing a conducive environment to startups through its chain of incubation centers all across the province better known as “Durshal.”
At its root, the Durshal is a program very intentionally designed to maximize the individual startup experience in all aspects — professional and business development, mentorship, and inclusion in a welcoming, cohort-based community.
The first cohort of the Durshal project was launched in August 2018 aiming to contribute towards the digital transformation of the province by establishing a network of community spaces with the goal of enabling the youth to collaborate, innovate, and launch new businesses in the province. Durshal has also played a crucial role in creating linkages between the government, tech industry, IT entrepreneurs and investors.
The consistent progression of the startups incubated at Durshal is evident from their steady growth both in terms of HR and revenue. These early stage tech startups have successfully created hundreds of new job opportunities for the ICT graduates in the province and have enhanced their sales numbers dramatically, thus fulfilling the objective of the Durshal project, which is to promote job creators rather than job seekers.
In Peshawar alone the project has created 47 new jobs in the IT sector, the startup companies have successfully generated more than PKR 37 Million in a period of six months only.
Start-ups in Peshawar have generated PKR 16.8 million in revenue along with creating business links with 25 local and two international clients. Whereas, in Mardan the start-ups developed linkages with 215 local companies and generated PKR 19 million as revenue.
ERISP (Engineering Research and IT Services Provider) was incubated at Durshal Peshawar in its first cohort. During the six months incubation period ERISP successfully signed 5 agreements with customers, recruited 13 employees for different positions, and purchased Digital Ocean cloud for cloud services.
The co-founder of ERISP Zahid Ali told that their mission is to achieve the reputation of quality, high standard, reliable solution & service Provider Company in IT sector. Ali and his colleagues priced Durshal project of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They added that Durshal is a fruitful opportunity for the growth of tech based startups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Executive committee meeting set up for the KPITB, chaired by Deputy Special Kamran Bangash
Executive committee meeting set up for the PIT Board, chaired by Deputy Special Kamran Bangash
Crash Course on Cyber Security at KPCERC
Series of "Crash Course on Cyber Security" concluded at KPCERC. Around 69 participants from 43 different Government departments / functional units attended the training in four different sessions.
The contents covered were Website Defacement Incident Response, Email phishing attacks and Web Threat Modeling. A hands-on practice session on System Hardening was also part of the course.
Holding a training program under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information and Technology Board (KPITB)
Holding a training program under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information and Technology Board (KPITB)
Awareness session for applications for the 2nd cohort in Jehanzeb College Mingora Swat
Awareness session for applications for the 2nd cohort in Jehanzeb College Mingora Swat. Last date for the application process to close is 12th March.
Crash Course on Cyber Security for Government Employees end today at KP CERC (KPITB)
Capacity building of IT staff is critical in safeguarding the government digital assets and citizen's data. "Crash Course on Cyber Security" for Government Employees end today at KP CERC. Same training track will repeat on Wednesday-Thursday (this week) and Monday-Tuesday (Coming week).
Crash course contents were divided into
- End User Awareness Session
- Website Defacement Incident Response
- Web Threat Modeling
- System Hardening
KPITB Invitation for to be a part of Durshal Community Innovation Labs Peshawar, Mardan, Swat and Swabi
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board - KPITB invites potential startups to become a part of Durshal Community Innovation Labs at Peshawar, Mardan, Swat & Swabi for the upcoming cohort.
Forms for gender inclusive spaces are also open for women-owned tech startups.
Last date to apply: March 12, 2019
Inauguration Ceremony of KP-CERC Lab.
As Khyber Pakhtunkhwa advances in to the digital era, there is a need for a provincial Cyber Security framework which can help KP government in capacity building by leveraging technology & technical support, ensuring the confidentiality, availability and integrity of the digital assets of KP government. In 2018, KPITB established KP Cyber Emergency Response Center (KPCERC) to address the provisional and national Cyber Security challenges to build capacity by leveraging expertise and skills in domains of cyber security. It is a state of art project to enable and empower Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Cyber Security and its affiliated domains through awareness, trainings and technical assistance for mitigating the risks associated with digital transformation in order to ensure a safe cyber space for the citizens.
KPCERC is mandated to ensure the health and quality of digital application, services & digital assets used, managed or deployed by the government departments across KP. KPCERC is accomplishing these by designing & deploying a Cybersecurity framework which aims to train skilled human resources, contribute towards empowering the government departments across KP along with industry by providing advisory in the cyber and information security area.
Team KPITB participation in the networking event held at KP House
Team KPITB participated in the networking event held at KP House, Islamabad. The event was joined by Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for DFID UK, Chief Minister KP and other parliamentarians.
The foreign delegation and other participants were highly inspired by the projects of KPITB after they met the young government school kids from KP who were given digital skills training under Early Age Programming. They were also briefed on other initiatives of KPITB including KP Youth Employment Program - KPYEP, Durshal and the scale of the impact creating in Pakistan through these projects. Thank you all for the encouragements and we look forward to working with all national and international stakeholders for bringing more developmental opportunities for KP.
Digital Policy Dialogue Series - Session #1
KPDigitalPolicyDialogue is a dialogue series started by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board - KPITB. In the first session, we are discussing #CyberSecurity, #Policy, and #Democracy.
The panelists for today's session are Sher Ali Arbab (MNA) Rafi Us Shaan (Chief KP CERC) Rafay Baloch (Cybersecurity advisor PTA) Sidra Jalil (Director Operations Code for Pakistan and Mehzad Sahar (Director Business Security Telenor Pakistan).
MoU signed between City District Government and KPITB for making Peshawar a Smart City
With the common goal of making Peshawar a Smart City, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board (KPITB) plans to partner with other stakeholders to achieve the objectives under the Sustainable
Development Goals focusing on urban governance, greening of the city of Peshawar and improving prosperity and innovation.
In this regard, the first MoU has been signed with City District Government.
Special Assistant to CM KP of Information Technology Kamran Bangash meeting with Chief Minister
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to extend the Early Programming project to more schools in order to promote science and technology education in government schools. In this way, more computer labs will also be set up in schools, while online training programs of teaching staff will be further promoted.
In this context, a meeting of the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Special for Science and Technology and Information Technology Kamran Bangash was attended by Chief Minister for Initial and Secondary Education Zia Lala Khan Bangash, in the state's educational institutions. Various issues were discussed in relation to the plans and expansion of this. The meeting also agreed on the digitalization of district offices of the Department of Education, while the schools were decided to extend the Early H programming project to further schools in order to illuminate children from IT.
High Commissioner of the Prosecutor Kamran Banghan said that the state government's educational institutions will also increase the ATT labs and will be introduced to the children through education and science. He said that science and technology in every field in the modern era is a remarkable fact and it is very inevitable to bring a new generation to the level of school.