At the present time, communication and information technology industry is booming worldwide. Its resonant impact has captured a great many parts of the world. As of the entire world, IT industry of Pakistan is also catching fire and getting recognition all around the globe. IT industry of Pakistan is the only sector that is a sign of secured future of Pakistan’s drowning economy. Pakistan has now become a country that produces some best developers, programmers, IT experts and computer scientists. Also, Pakistan IT industry is sufficient in number of some best software houses.
Introduction to P@SHA
Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and ITES (P@SHA) is a renowned name in this regard. This registered association is the genuine trade body with prime objective to take Pakistan’s web and IT services to height of success. It was founded in 1992 and at that time it was responsible to promote and develop software services and to take care of the rights of such bodies involved in the development tasks. It is P@SHA behind the recognition and fame of Pakistan IT services all over the world. It is a nonprofit organization by type and works with government of Pakistan. The companies being member of this organization wok for generating funds for it.
President of P@SHA
IT is yet another male-dominated field and it is assumed to be influenced by a good number of male icons belonging to this field. But there are exceptions everywhere. The organizations like P@SHA born when exceptions like JEHAN ARA put their efforts in any field. The unchallenging Jehan Ara is the president of P@SHA and has got a phenomenal experience of 30 years in marketing, communication and interactive media in UAE, Hong Kong, Far East and in Pakistan. Nowadays, she is working on a most amazing startup of its kind, P@SHA’s Technology Incubator. It aims to provide a launching forum to world’s big companies.
Amazing acquaintances with P@SHA and its ventures
P@sha with the assistance of Government is taking outstanding measures and is successful in developing some extraordinary programs. At the time of P@sha’s inception, there were 9 software houses under its banner which exceeded to a count of 1100 within next 15 years provided with great opportunities for citizens specially youth. IT industry generates an annual revenue of $2 billion monitored by P@SHA. It has got a seriously significant position in the prospering IT industry of Pakistan.
- P@SHA and ICT Awards
p@sha is the only IT body in Pakistan responsible for conducting ICT awards here. It has also succeeded many Asia Pacific ICT awards in its department. The smart idea behind this action is to give recognition to the deserving ones. Secondly it gives exposure to investment opportunities and venture capitalists.
- P@sha unplugged
[vimeo 86397309 w=500 h=281]
P@SHA Chairman Salim Ghauri from P@SHA on Vimeo.
P@sha unplugged is an event or a venture that is a very productive initiative taken by the management in order to make improvements in the ongoing development processes. It is a team work which involves the interviews of the chief members, debates on special issues and events.
- P@SHA fund
P@sha has come up with a social innovation fund which has been founded in collaboration with Google. Its sole purpose is to raise fund for technological innovation in Pakistan.
- P@SHA’s Technology Incubator
P@sha doesn’t seem to stop at all! The technology incubator launched in 2015 is an amazing startup by P@sha named as “The Nest i/o “. It is going to be a blessing for the present and upcoming entrepreneurs. It facilitates the amateurs with knowledge sessions, space and infrastructure and a network of mentors and market investors.
P@SHA – leading and lagging at the same time?
With all the amazing and incredible achievements as the IT representative of a country, P@sha makes its followers and critics raise finger on some dark aspects of the organization too. P@sha being the leading one in the market is still lacking a great number of services that stops it to meet the world standards of IT industry.
- The irony- Pakistani officials still use yahoo and Hotmail
With over a $2 Billion size of the IT industry today and those 370 members that feeds P@SHA, these so called IT industries did really succeed in offering the public with a Local High Tech Email Delivery service like Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail. The only rolled they ever played is to only offer services abroad without investing 5% of their shills at domestic level to let Pakistani people use an Email Delivery service that containing the label “Developed by Pakistan For Pakistan“
The officials in Pakistan from Police officials, Academic institutes, lawyers and even developers like us are forced to rely on western tools like Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail which lack privacy.
We have always played the role of serving others and never bothered doing out of profit for the motherland.
- Incubator but no search engine of their own?
There are countries like China and Russia which offer their own search engines named as “Baidu” and “Yandex” respectively. It is a point to ponder for P@sha to take action to compete in world market. The incubator would be seen as a marketing tantrum sooner or later. Its achievements in the market now compel it to fulfill such a huge hole in regard with the development of its own search engine.
The developers in Pakistan are extremely talented and only with some investment they can surely built up a Search engine of their own that could help Pakistan provide better search experience to its people as well as bring back revenue to the State, benefiting both people and the state at the same time. At least it will be a big sigh of relief who are fed up of the strict laws of Google and there day to day penalties like Penguin and Panda.
All search revenue today goes straight in the pockets of Google/Bing/Yahoo or any other SE but rarely does state benefits from its public online activity.
The leading Chinese language search engine Baidu, provides “simple and reliable” search expexperience, strong in Chinese language and multi-media content including MP3 music and movies, the first to offer WAP and PDA-based mobile search in China. People in China rarely use Google same is the case for People in Russia where yandex is used. They contribute greatly to online search market of the countries.
Pity P@SHA ever conducted a conferences to motivate developers to bring up something of their own with their Pakistani Tag though they are often busy showing people day-dreams with several baseless motivational workshops across the country.
Lacking their own Web or Mobile Apps– a large vacuum
Looking for a list of applications by P@SHA members? Yes you will find a tonne of them but rarely a single that could be called a state owned or privately owned service of the Pakistani people, they are only for the service of foreign companies that eats up all the credits. Companies in silicon outsource projects to P@SHA registered memebers and they act as slaves delivering the service back. P@SHA has not yet developed a single website service of their own in the world market. This is shocking since it claims to be responsible behind all the activities behind IT in Pakistan. People are still forced to use US based or foreign apps and services like whatsapp, wikipedia, viber, skype, stackoverflow, youtube etc. where the privacy of entire public is in someonelse hands!
Absence of their social media representation
Having plenty of resources for raising social funds for innovations in technology, then what stops P@SHA to make a social media website? This is a simple and genuine question by people in high anticipation with such a big and representative IT firm.
Do we have a single Facebook like, twitter like or YouTube like web service of our own? Yes our developers are contributing to these services but rarely given a chance by a so-called great company like P@sha to produce something of their own and reserve all its copyrights and contribute to the Country’s economy rather of someone else.
Verdict
P@SHA being the sole stakeholder and true representative body of the IT firms and software houses of Pakistan, has been struggling to take their services’ standard upto the mark with respect to world IT market. It has covered a distance long enough in this regard but there is still a longer way to go. Whether it’s the lack of resources or mismanagement, the situation is kind of alarming for the highly reputed organization of Pakistan.
Share your views about it. The purpose of this post is to only let P@SHA realize their duties towards the public and let them know that they can surely perform better than this.