Thursday, March 7, 2013

Pakistan Third Most Popular Among Online Outsource Countries

Pakistan ranks number 3, after US (#1) and India (#2), in terms of freelancers doing outsourced IT work on contract. Bangladesh ranks fourth, according to data from four biggest online outsourcing sites:  Elance.com, oDesk.com, Freelancer.com, and Guru.com.

The data also shows that US, Australia and the UK as the top hiring countries. All four websites work in a similar way: First, companies post job requirements on these sites. Next, freelancers or IT-companies offer their bids with skills and cost for the project listed on the website. Finally, the company chooses the best bid meeting its job requirements.


Recently, Freelacers.com, one of the top four online marketplaces, said there are 240,000 freelance Pakistanis registered as providers on its website.


With more than 30 million internet subscribers, five million plus broadband users and a population nearing 200 million, according to Freelancer executive Adam Byrnes, it makes sense to have a presence in Pakistan.
“Going forward, we want to provide self-employment for a billion people, a significant portion of that is going to come from Pakistan,” he told Express Tribune.

In addition to having a large population, Pakistan has seen its human capital grow significantly over the last decade.  With nearly 16% of its population in 25-34 years age group having college degrees, Pakistan is well ahead of India and Indonesia, according to Global Education Digest 2009 published by UNESCO Institute of Statistics. UNESCO data also shows that Pakistan's lead is growing with younger age groups.

Faster economic growth requires BOTH skilled manpower and investment of dollars as Pakistanis saw during Musharraf years. Regardless, the growth of human capital is a good thing to build a foundation for Pakistan's future. It'll contribute to economic growth when the security situation improves and FDI returns to Pakistan. The country's large diaspora too will be helpful in accelerating Pakistan's growth and development with money and skills. 

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan

Pakistan Among Top Outsourcing Destinations

Pakistan's IT Industry

Pakistan's Software Prodigy

Biotech and Genomics in Pakistan

India & Pakistan Comparison Update 2011

India and Pakistan Contrasted in 2010
 
Eating Grass-The Making of Pakistani Bomb
 
Educational Attainment Dataset By Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee

Quality of Higher Education in India and Pakistan

Developing Pakistan's Intellectual Capital

Intellectual Wealth of Nations

Pakistan's Story After 64 Years of Independence

Pakistan Ahead of India on Key Human Development Indices

29 comments:

Hopewins said...

Can you provide some actual numbers? For example, how much did Pakistani Freelancers earn LAST YEAR from all the portals?

Here you can see the data for elance.com given in TOTAL LIFETIME earnings (i.e. since the portal started operating in 1999 or over `13 years):

http://alturl.com/u3squ

It says US freelancers earned 170 Mil$ over 13 years. Indian freelancers earned 168 Mil$ over 13 years. Pakistani freelancers earned 40 Mil$ over 13 years.

It is like an average ANNUALIZED earnings of 13 Million$ for India and 3 Million$ for us. This is POCKET change.

This is not News. This is a Yawn.

What are your views?

Riaz Haq said...

HWJ: "This is not News. This is a Yawn."

Yes, it's a yawn to someone who doesn't understand how businesses grow.

It takes a basic critical mass of enabling technologies, processes and participants before such tech-based businesses achieve explosive growth.

In this case, Internet access, especially broadband, is a relatively new phenomenon in Pakistan. I expect to see online freelance markets' accelerated growth with increasing broadband access in Pakistan.


In addition to the Elance (founded in 1999) figures of $170 million total and $40 million to Pakistanis, Express Tribune says Freelancers (founded in 2004) has paid $150 million to its freelancers, including $13 to Pakistanis, according to Express Tribune.

https://www.elance.com/trends/talent-available/geo#GeoRanking

http://tribune.com.pk/story/516239/pakistan-3rd-highest-user-of-freelancer-as-self-employment-rises/

Anonymous said...

yeah but only in couple of fields :(
while we living in uk and studying marketing from top uni's we dont get any jobs ...

Riaz Haq said...

Anon: "yeah but only in couple of fields :(
while we living in uk and studying marketing from top uni's we dont get any jobs ... "

Freelancing is the future...it's called self-employment. But you have to have the skills the world needs and is willing to pay for.

Anonymous said...

the reason behind freelancing is to get cheap labor, I tried to bid on few projects on elance.com and I was out bid by 1000s, most probably by someone form India/PAk/DB. You living in UK wont do a .net project for 500 yet the same project will be taken by someone for $200

Riaz Haq said...

anon: "the reason behind freelancing is to get cheap labor..."

This is called cost arbitrage. That's the reason why many of these jobs go to low cost countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh where people can enjoy good standards of living with lower wages.

This is called cost arbitrage. That's the reason why many of these jobs go to low cost countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh where people can enjoy good standards of living with lower wages.

data shows average rates of $28 an hour in US, $15 an hour in India, $13 an hour in Pakistan and $8 an hour in Bangladesh.

Elance data shows average rates of $28 an hour in US, $15 an hour in India, $13 an hour in Pakistan and $8 an hour in Bangladesh.

For someone doing it full time at 40 hours a week, this translates into $56,000 a year in US, $30,000 a year in India, $26,000 a year in Pakistan and $16,000 a year in Bangladesh.

https://www.elance.com/trends/talent-available/geo#GeoRanking

Anonymous said...

by looking at average country payout you will get better sense of each country contribution including Pakistan. It will give you better idea of what level of value chain your country is placed. If you look at United states it has twice the number of registered freelancers compared to India but both the countries income is almost same. I hope you are smart enough to draw the conclusion from it.

Riaz Haq said...

Anon: "If you look at United states it has twice the number of registered freelancers compared to India but both the countries income is almost same. I hope you are smart enough to draw the conclusion from it."

The number of registered users has no meaning by itself other than to indicate that there are more browsers (not necessarily bidders) in the market place in one country versus another.

The fact is that these same browsers show up in multiple market places to choose what they like to bid on. More browsers bidding on fewer jobs in a given country means they are more picky.

The other important indicator is that the per hour rates in US are twice the rates in India while the number of US registered users is twice that in India....again showing that US contractors are more selective.

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a Daily Times report on academia promoting entrepreneurship among students:

LAHORE: Government College University Lahore’s Economics Department, in collaboration with Entrepreneurial Development and Advisory Services (EDAS), Pakistan, organised a one-day seminar, on the “Role of educational institutions in entrepreneurship ecosystems”.

The seminar was attended by academia, entrepreneurs, public sector representatives and students. Speakers included renowned academics, notable business personalities and organic entrepreneurs of Pakistan. SPEL Group CEO Almas Hyder, a founding member of EDAS, introduced the topic of the seminar and spoke succinctly about the need to bridge the gap between industry and academia to foster entrepreneurship and innovation in Pakistan. He stressed the role of government as a facilitator of knowledge-based interaction between the university and business so that research and ideas could flow seamlessly and become economic value by means of the market. He highlighted the role EDAS had played in collaboration with GC University’s Economics Department in the introduction of the Master’s programme in Entrepreneurship and SME Management. The purpose of the course of study, he shared with the audience, was to inculcate entrepreneurial spirit in students and underscore the role played by SMEs in fostering innovation in Pakistan. Fifteen percent course graduates went on to become entrepreneurs, he said, and the goal was to turn ten percent of Ravians into entrepreneurs every year.

Amer Hashmi, himself a successful entrepreneur with global experience in business creation and management and currently the Adviser to Rector National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) and President, NUST Global Think Tank Network (GTTN), delivered the keynote address. His address presented a comprehensive kaleidoscope of various successful initiatives taken by NUST to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in Pakistan. NUST’s Corporate Advisory Council (CAC), he informed the audience, was the key body in the university for consolidating the triple helix interaction and collaboration between university, business and academia.

CAC had played a key part in bridging different NUST schools with relevant industries through a unique organisational structure that ensured two-way flow of feedback and information between NUST and industry centred on industry-commissioned R&D at NUST. CAC partners included top domestic and international business and corporate entities like Indus Motors, Millat Group, Huawei Technologies, Oracle, Microsoft, Allied Bank, Interactive Group, etc.

Hashmi explained GTTN was a key initiative of NUST aimed at establishing policy research and knowledge partnerships with renowned academic and non-academic think tanks in China, US, Russia, Asia-Pacific and Middle East. The first of the planned series of think tank collaborations with Tsinghua University, Beijing, had been successfully functioning since early 2012. The vision of GTTN was to create a pool of viable policy options in critical sectors of national socio-economic development which were also regionally and globally applicable with the potential to create peace, prosperity and harmony in the region.

NUST Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) was actively helping commercialise technology produced from university research and had established an advanced business incubation centre that housed companies involved in cutting edge technology business market globally. NUST had recently completed the pre-feasibility for its National Science and Technology Park (NSTP), the first proper university-hosted science park in Pakistan ...


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2013\03\13\story_13-3-2013_pg13_6

Riaz Haq said...

Here's Express Tribune on IT contractors in Pakistan:

..From business process outsourcing to developing smartphone apps, Pakistani IT professionals are seem to be going after every opportunity, especially in the online job market, to bring home valuable foreign exchange.

In high demand, Pakistani IT professionals are growing significantly on oDesk, a Silicon valley-based online marketplace, in terms of both revenues and subscriptions to the platform.

“Pakistan is one of our largest contractor bases, and it is growing steadily,” CEO Gary Swart said in reply to queries through email. Contractors in Pakistan earned almost $1.5 million on oDesk in January 2012 alone, he said. “That figure is more than double the $700,000 they earned in January 2011, which is really an impressive growth!”

In January 2012, Swart said, more than 4,500 contractors from Pakistan signed up for oDesk, which enables businesses to hire, manage and pay a flexible online workforce, representing significant growth over previous months.

The top five categories of oDesk that work in Pakistan, according to the CEO, are web programming, web design, search engine optimisation, software development and mobile apps.

“In these five categories alone, contractors from Pakistan earned $796,000 in January 2012.” The number of Pakistani professionals that sign up for oDesk is growing steadily at a rate of 11% month over month, he added.

As seen from the top five job categories for Pakistani contractors, Swart said, there is certainly a large demand for their IT skills on the oDesk marketplace – which was the seventh fastest-growing company of Silicon Valley in 2011, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

oDesk, according to Swart, is world’s largest online marketplace – as measured by dollars earned by contractors each month – and has 1.6 million registered contractors where 120,000 new jobs are posted each month. Contractors earned more than $225 million on oDesk last year, he said.

IT services are definitely a sweet spot for the oDesk marketplace in general, Swart said. The top two job categories on oDesk overall – web development and software development – together make up more than half of the total earnings on the platform, and demand for IT skills continues to grow rapidly.

Pakistan’s IT industry, according to Pakistan Software Export Board, has seen steady growth over the last few years despite sluggish economic growth – thanks to the online job market.

IT and IT-enabled services exports stood between $560 million and $860 million last year, according to former managing director of PSEB Imran Zia. On a Y-o-Y basis, the IT sector has been growing at 15% to 20% for the last three years and the growth in 2011 was about 15%. The future outlook for Pakistani IT professionals looks promising as IT jobs are in high demand on oDesk, where subscription rate of Pakistani contractors is growing steadily.

“IT jobs are our most in-demand category – which means we have significantly more IT opportunities for contractors from all countries, Pakistan included,” Swart said. “So we believe that we have more Pakistani IT professionals than any other online work marketplace,” he added.


http://tribune.com.pk/story/338556/pakistani-it-professionals-in-high-demand/

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a Mashable.com post on Pak Internet-based business potential:

Early Days

Building Internet businesses has traditionally not come easily to Pakistan. Our first e-commerce venture began in 2001 with the establishment of Abid Beli's Beliscity.pk. Although initially started as an information website for mobiles and computers, it soon turned into an e-commerce store as a result of its growing popularity.

You might then expect this venture to have turned out a success story, with Beliscity ending up being the equivalent to Amazon in Pakistan. Unfortunately this was not the case. Owing to many complications and troubles, not only was Beliscity forced to changed its name to Gulf Dealz, but it also fell into obscurity competing with countless other players in the online retail arena.

SEE ALSO: Meet Plan9, Pakistan’s First Technology Startup Incubator

Arguably Pakistan’s greatest Internet success story is Rozee.pk. Founded in 2007 by Monis Rahman as an add-on to his main business, Rozee has grown to become Pakistan’s premier portal for jobs. This journey was also not an easy one at all. When Monis was trying to raise funds through foreign investors in the second half of 2007, Pakistan was in the news almost daily with images of the bombing due to Benazir Bhutto’s arrival and her subsequent assassination.
3 Hot E-Commerce Startups to Watch in Pakistan

Those, however, were just the early days and the environment seems much more conducive to starting e-commerce ventures now. Last year will go on record as a landmark year for Internet businesses in Pakistan as three very different and important companies launched their own e-commerce portals:

TCS Connect is the online portal of TCS Couriers, Pakistan’s most reliable and wide-reaching logistics company. In May 2012, TCS launched its online shopping portal, TCS Connect, which has products like computers, mobile phones, home and kitchen appliances and even automobile accessories.

Labels eStore is the online store for Pakistan’s largest high-end fashion outlets. With its product lines covering the biggest fashion designers in Pakistan, it targets high-end consumers in the local market and the Pakistani diaspora across the world.

Daraz.pk represents the fashion vertical of the global venture developers, Rocket Internet. The company did not enter into our local online market arena at the behest of Pakistani entrepreneurs who sought funding, but rather as a ‘top-down’ decision by Oliver Samwer to capture the developing Pakistani market in the long-term.

The establishment and subsequent success of these and other businesses have led to a greater focus on e-commerce sites. They may be other clothing brands expanding their businesses online, logistics companies either starting online stores themselves or providing tools and consultancy for brick-and-mortar retail owners to start a digital side to their existing businesses, or young entrepreneurs themselves wanting to get into this nascent business.

Whatever the case, online stores are here to stay in Pakistan and will only attain a ...


http://mashable.com/2013/04/24/pakistan-tech-entrepreneurs/

Riaz Haq said...

Here's ET on web start-ups in Pakistan:

The answer: remittances. Pakistan receives $13-14 billion annually from external sources. Compare that to the total it collects in taxes, which is around $10 billion. You can see for yourself what accounts for more in the economy.
Payments from abroad usually take two channels: they either come from Pakistanis working overseas, or they come through our relatively small, yet gigantic-in-effect, web start-up industry. This industry comprises businesses and freelancers that globally outsource their services, and includes names such as Sofizar Constellations, Naseeb Networks (Rozee.pk), TradeKey and others. Sofizar alone makes around $15 million per year, and TradeKey.com is the second biggest business-to-business sales portal in the world, following alibaba.com. One of the world’s best online affiliate marketer, Faisalabad’s Pasban IT Group, is doing so well, it owns the only Lamborghini Aventador and Ferrari F430 in Pakistan.
How are these companies doing so well, and how big are these Pakistani startups on the international scene? If the ownership of one of the world’s most expensive cars doesn’t sound impressive enough, let me take you back a few years. Back in the day, when Digg.com was alive, one of the world’s greatest Digg-ers, Waseem, was from Pakistan. He, along with a group of fellow marketers, was hitting the front page of Digg.com on a daily basis, which meant looping in hundreds of thousands of visitors in no time. That is equal to popping your article on Reddit.com’s front page these days. One of the clients of these champion Digg-ers was the Chicago Tribune. You can figure the rest yourself.
This is how the online marketing industry works. Most of what goes viral online is not what people naturally promote and share, but a result of gaming that system to perfection and with skill. This is what good internet marketers do: you can only judge on the basis of what content channel it comes to you from. What if I told you that T-Series, one of India’s biggest music record labels, has a prime internet marketing affiliate based in Karachi? They are just a bunch of boys who do it underground! The bidders for tenders for this job span the entire Earth. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, then, that a company based in Karachi makes apps for the National Aerospace and Space administration (that’s NASA, mind you), for the space giant’s mobile platform.


http://tribune.com.pk/story/541693/how-big-is-pakistans-internet-start-up-industry/

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a report about Effective Measures eyeing Pakistan market:

KARACHI, PAKISTAN: Effective Measure, a rapidly expanding leader in digital audience profiling and measurement in emerging markets, has marked its official entry into the booming online media market of Pakistan.
Founded in Australia and operational in some of the world's most dynamic digital growth markets, Effective Measure has made a further commitment to assisting in the development of the Pakistan online media industry.

Effective Measure has been on the ground in the Pakistan market for over a year and has now formalised its presence following a series of key client wins and the coveted official industry endorsement by the Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS) to facilitate digital audience measurement for the Pakistan digital media industry.

Effective Measure marked its official entry to the Pakistan market by supporting the PAS Awards on the 26th of April and hosting a series of high level briefings with key clients over the last week with visiting Effective Measure CEO Richard Webb and Effective Measure Regional Managing Director MEA, Brendon Ogilvy.

"The vibrant, emerging Pakistan market represents a great opportunity for Effective Measure to help transform a nascent digital media industry into a booming digital economy. We are delighted with the support and collaboration that we have experienced with local media and industry over the last year as we solidified our position in the market. The year ahead will be an extremely exciting time to be part of the local digital market and we will endeavour to share our international expertise to assist in expediting that growth potential and providing world class metrics and data that serve this diverse audience," Webb.

The Effective Measure solution benefits advertisers and media owners by offering superior access to audience reach and demographic data.

And heading up the Pakistan expansion is...

Leading Effective Measure's expansion in Pakistan is Effective Measure Country Manager-Pakistan, Imtiaz N. Mohammad, who has been developing market alliances and relationships over the last year. He joined the Effective Measure team with a rich background in both entrepreneurial digital projects, with technology consultancy Inspire-X and Crosby Asset Management and fixed and mobile content expertise with companies including SmartPhonz Wireless.

"As the Pakistan media market embraces digital it also faces regulatory, technology centric and economic challenges. Effective Measure's global experiences at the grass roots of emerging markets can help ease those challenges and turn them into electric opportunities. The potential in the Pakistan digital media market is huge and armed with the right tools we will assist in fostering the collective goal of turning Pakistan into a knowledge based economy," said Mohammad.

Under the PAS alliance Effective Measure has been working in collaboration with PAS to establish a market leading digital audience measurement service for the Pakistan industry. The breakthrough recognition of the Effective Measure platform, which was announced in March, has given Pakistan's advertising, publishing and digital media sectors a new level playing field to accurately assess measure and develop their valuable digital assets.

"The MEA region continues to exceed expectations across the digital media industry. The diversity of content and enthusiasm for digital engagement across all technology platforms is forcing advertising agencies and publishers to lift their game on all fronts. Insight, audience depth and accountability are no longer luxuries but mandatory tools of the trade and Effective Measure relishes bringing these opportunities for world-class digital development to the Pakistan market," said Effective Measure Regional Managing Director MEA, Brendon Ogilvy.


http://m.bizcommunity.com/Article.aspx?l=163&c=16&i=92755

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a Wired.com report on Karachi Hackathon:

Sabeen Mahmud has short-cropped hair and rectangular glasses; she’d fit right in hunched over a laptop at Philz or behind the counter at one of Apple’s Genius Bars. Her resume matches her style. She’s founded a small tech company, opened a hip coffee shop and organized a successful hackathon. But Mahmud doesn’t hail from the Bay – she lives in Karachi, a city more closely associated with extreme violence then entrepreneurs.

“Fear is just a line in your head,” Mahmud says. “You can choose what side of that line you want to be on.”

Mahmud represents something new in this ancient city. Mahmud “fell in passionately in love” with the first Mac she saw, teaching herself MacPaint and MacDraw in college in 1992, and devoting countless hours to Tetris. In 2006, Mahmud decided Karachi was sorely missing a space where people could gather around shared interests, an interdisciplinary space for collaboration and brainstorming. Despite the fact that in Pakistan, many women are not allowed to finish primary school, much less graduate from college and start their own company, she decided to start The Second Floor café, not letting the fact that she didn’t have any money or experience faze her. “I was living with my mother and my grandmother at the time,” she says, laughing. “I had done zero market research. I just hoped people would show up.”

People slowly have. The Second Floor now hosts four events a week, from poetry writings to live theater performances to forums on critical issues. Last month,the café hosted Pakistan’s first hackathon, a weekend-long event with nine teams focusing on solutions to civic problems in Pakistan ahead of last Saturday’s national election. “People are very disillusioned with mainstream politics right now,” Mahmud says. “We wanted to come up with a way to put that energy to use.”
-------
Starting with 30 high-level problem areas, they whittled it down to nine specific issues that could be solved with concrete apps. “Not a single soul questioned that these problems could not be solved,” Ahmed says. “It was all a matter of selecting the right approach.”..


http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/pakistans-first-hackathon/

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a story of a Pakistani woman entrepreneur:

.. Before becoming an entrepreneur, (Maria) Umar was a full-time teacher. She quit after her job refused her maternity leave and subsequently began writing for a woman she found through Rozee.pk, Pakistan's premiere job portal. The money was good — almost double what she made as a teacher — but when Umar discovered her employer's oDesk profile, she realized she could make even more money by contracting with clients directly.

She set up her own oDesk account and began taking on extra jobs and outsourcing them. At first she gave the jobs to her nieces, then to their friends, and eventually to their classmates, until she realized that she had developed a small content-creation business.

Today, this company is called The Women's Digital League, an IT-solution company that trains rural Pakistani women in micro online tasks, from ghost-writing to social media management.

Ovidiu Bujorean is the Senior Manager of the GIST Initiative, which supports entrepreneurship in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. He met Umar after she won a GIST business plan competition, and recognized her ability immediately. "She is extremely passionate and persistent," he says of Umar. "She’s also very committed to her mission of helping female entrepreneurs find job opportunities...


http://mashable.com/2013/06/29/pakistan-woman-entrepreneur-2/

AliXher said...

Ali Sher: I need information about IT Outsourcing can you Please give me

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a Tech-in-Asia piece on Start-up activity in Pakistan:

Until recently, the only incubators in Pakistan were found in hospitals or poultry farms. But now startup incubators are proliferating. This phenomenon is part of the global wave of shared office spaces, accelerators, incubator programs, and university labs that cultivate entrepreneurship and innovation in the hope of kickstarting their local tech ecosystems and becoming their region’s Silicon Valley.

Like all trends in Pakistan, entrepreneurship is a hot buzzword that’s thrown around too often and hyped beyond what the market fundamentals can support. It’s encouraging to see people get excited about running their own companies, but it’s critical to provide them the tools and most importantly the mindset to achieve extraordinary success on a global scale, rather than ending up as an ordinary local company.

Before looking at the 27 incubators that now exist in the country (embedded below), first we need to understand the environment in which these wannabe entrepreneurs are dreaming about making their first million dollars. Or, inspired by the Zuckerberg story, a billion dollars. Maybe we need a reality check first.

Ground realities
Most tech grads swept away in entrepreneurship fever follow the familiar path of two or three friends moonlighting on freelance work and then finishing their computer science degree to start a “company”, which basically means the three of them sitting at someone’s home and making websites for random clients on Odesk, Elance, or their cousin in Toronto. Once the money starts flowing in, they get a small office and hire three more people to start app development services for iOS and Android. There might be Macbooks and iPhones on the table and a Steve Jobs poster on the wall but it’s a slow, linear slog of adding “seats” and scrabbling around between between rock-bottom hourly rates, Pakistan’s image problem, and offshore client’s expectations.

This service model offers the low hanging fruit that helps get a foothold in the market but it also sucks away the time and energy needed to work on your own products. If services do well, you get more work and more money and the option of risking all that for a fantasy product with no guarantee of success is a difficult decision, one that seems harder with every passing year. It’s a bit like painting walls on daily wages and wishing that one day you’ll create the next Mona Lisa.

Even the largest tech companies in Pakistan are primarily providing services or earning from consulting focused on the typical ERP, CRM, HR, business outsourcing (BPO) solutions that a thousand other providers are vying for. Only a handful have been able to make standalone products that are profitable, let alone become leaders in their segments or globally known brands.


http://www.techinasia.com/27-startup-incubator-programs-funds-in-pakistan-2014/

Riaz Haq said...

The web has played a huge role in finding new employment opportunities for freelancers. The website oDesk is the world’s largest online marketplace where buyers post information about projects so that they can be outsourced for development through freelancers from around the globe. Clients and freelancers publicly rate each other on every project, and businesses can hire on demand talent regardless of location.
As of July 2013, Pakistan ranks fifth in the website’s top freelancer countries list, working 2.6 million hours out of a total 35 million hours on oDesk in 2012. Approximately 0.214 million Pakistani freelancers are registered with oDesk out of 4 million freelancers around the world.

Matt Cooper, vice president of international enterprise for oDesk said: “The quality of projects delivered by Pakistani freelancers is at par with our top freelancer countries from around the globe. Pakistan ranks fifth on that list because Pakistani freelancers are regularly delivering quality work in a timely fashion on projects ranging from web design to blog and art jobs.”
oDesk freelancers include software developer Ovais Ahmed, who started his career as a freelance coder, developing webpages for clients around the world through websites like RentACoder.com and Guru.com. “However, if you’re searching for home-based jobs through lesser known websites, then you should thoroughly inspect their credibility first,” Ahmed advises.
Another freelancer is Tayyab Tariq from Islamabad who specializes in software development, C++, SQL, and .Net. The Fulbright scholar landed his first job on oDesk while still in school and transitioned to full-time because it was closer to what he wanted to do. He helped one of his oDesk clients in Switzerland setup and manage a satellite office in Pakistan, used his oDesk earnings to invest in a software development business in Islamabad, and volunteers with an NGO that teaches data and software skills to people in villages so they can work on oDesk.

According to Tariq, associations representing the Pakistani IT industry should convey a positive image of the Pakistan IT industry abroad. If associations could positively pitch the potential of local professionals, that would create greater opportunities for them to work independently.
Ian Ippolito, entrepreneur and founder of Planet Source Code and vWorker, said that most Pakistani coders gravitate towards software development and graphic design. “However, some Pakistani coders need to enhance their communication skills, as English is not their native language. Presentation is an important factor to winning jobs and if a coder can develop rapport with a buyer, he/she will be awarded the project.”
Considering the meagre profit margin attained from freelance work for local clients, people in Pakistan largely opt for foreign clientele. An experienced term paper writer and freelancer, who requested anonymity, said that many local clients offering home-based content development jobs actually acquire projects from abroad and get them accomplished by local writers. “It has become a good business these days and the middleman takes the biggest chunk of the deal. Since we are already doing the work for foreign buyers, why not interact with them directly [through online freelancing]?” she explained.
Online freelancing offer virtually limitless possibilities. Until the local industry proves itself to be more beneficial to local freelancers, people will continue using global employment markets to find home-based jobs in Pakistan.
Top 10 Freelancer countries (by spend over the last four quarters: Q32012 – Q22013)
1. India
2. United States
3. Philippines
4. Ukraine
5. Pakistan
6. Russia
7. China
8. Bangladesh
9. Canada
10. United Kingdom

http://tribune.com.pk/story/588823/odesk-more-than-half-of-online-freelancers-are-pakistani/

Riaz Haq said...

With the global mobile applications (apps) market expected to be worth $25 billion by 2015 — according to a report published by MarketsandMarkets, a global market research and consulting company — everyone, from independent developers and software houses to telecommunication (telecoms) giants, is hard at work to secure their share of the fully-baked pie.
Amid growing demand and increasing competition, many are chasing high-margin outsourcing contracts in developing countries such Pakistan. With an abundance of skilled but cheap labour to offer, the country is rapidly emerging as one of the leading IT outsourcing destinations of the world.
Although mobile apps have been around since the late 90s, the increasing penetration of smartphones in the country — nearly seven to eight million smartphones according to a recent research conducted by a local telecom for its marketing strategy — has made their presence felt more deeply. “The number of smartphones has exceeded the number of computers in the country and this change has come about in the past five years,” says Asad Memon, director operations at Creative Chaos, a high-end custom software development company in Karachi with over 14 years of experience.
It is also the burgeoning utility of smartphones — surpassing that of laptops — which has accounted for the explosive growth of mobile apps. For example, the smartphone’s additional features, such as the orientation sensor (built-in compass) and cell phone triangulation (which collects data to trace the approximate location of a cell phone), assist most apps, including Google maps, to do ingenious things. “The utility of these apps has started making a lot of sense to people,” he highlights, adding that even niche brands have capitalised on the feature to directly reach out to target audiences by advertising through mobile apps. As a result, it has attracted more developers into the technology ecosystem to meet the growing demand.

Asad Memon, director operations at Creative Chaos, traces the trajectory of the mobile apps industry. PHOTO: ARIF SOOMRO
A popular outsourcing destination
When it comes to the global market, Pakistan plays its part as a mobile app developer. “Gora sochta hai, desi karta hai,” says Memon, summarising how foreign clients conceptualise the app and leave Pakistani developers to simply follow directions. Since the average rate charged by an iPhone app developer in the US ranges between $50 and $60 per hour, or more, depending on the brand and the complexity of the app, a cheaper solution is to outsource it to countries that quote the lowest price. Despite India being a much cheaper alternative, their issues with quality-control make Pakistan the next best alternative. “What sets Pakistan apart is the costing and the relationship of trust that has been established by delivering quality apps on time, depending on the company [developing the app],” says Memon. A basic app developed by a local software house can cost anywhere between Rs400,000 to Rs10 million, while the more sophisticated ones can go up to Rs20 million, depending on the company’s profile. Time difference is an additional advantage for Pakistan. “By the time we wake up, we are ready to incorporate changes based on the feedback we get,” he says. In certain cases, a team of 140 developers is dedicated to look after a single foreign client.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/786759/mobile-applications-a-test-of-apptitude/

Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistan, the Next #software Hub? 1500 registered #informationtechnology companies, 10,000 IT grads every year. http://nyti.ms/1P0Yfdu

Pakistan’s I.T. sector is carving a niche for itself as a favored place to go for freelance I.T. programmers, software coders and app designers. There are now 1,500 registered I.T. companies in Pakistan, and 10,000 I.T. grads enter the market every year. Energetic members of the middle class educated in Pakistan’s top universities, they have honed their skills at the many hackathons, start-up fairs and expos, digital summits and entrepreneurial events at campuses, software houses and I.T. associations across the country.

Next comes showcasing their skills to a global market in order to grow businesses. So Pakistani freelance programmers flock to global freelance hiring sites such as Upwork, or fiverr.com, where digital employers in the United States, Australia or Britain bid to hire programmers for small software and app projects. On these platforms, hiring someone from Pakistan becomes as easy as hiring someone from Ireland or India, because traditional concerns about security, corruption and invasive bureaucracy in Pakistan do not apply.

The formula is working: the Pakistani programmers market ranks as the No. 3 country for supplying — freelance programmers — behind only the United States and India, and up from No. 5 just two years ago. It ranks in the upper 10 to 25 percent on Upwork’s listing of growth rates for top-earning countries, alongside India, Canada and Ukraine. Pakistan’s freelance programmers already account for $850 million of the country’s software exports; that number could go up to $1 billion in the next several months, says Umar Saif, who heads the Punjab I.T. Board and previously taught and did research work at M.I.T.

The optimism one hears in Karachi and Lahore even withstood a scandal last May, when news broke that Axact, one of Pakistan’s largest I.T. companies, was operating as a fake degree mill. Members of the tight-knit I.T. community reacted at first with fears for Pakistan’s chances to become a major player on the world’s I.T. stage. Perhaps those fears acted as a spur to the authorities, who arrested Axact’s chief within weeks after the scheme was laid bare.

In any event, three days after investigators raided Axact’s offices, Naseeb Networks International, a Lahore-based company that runs the online job marketplace Rozee.pk, announced that it had won a third round of investments, worth $6.5 million, from the European investment firms Vostok Nafta and Piton Capital, bringing the company’s total venture capital funding to $8.5 million. It was the latest in a series of large venture capital investments in Pakistan over the last year and a half.

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It’s now also faster and easier for foreign companies to acquire the apps these programmers create, in contrast with negotiating traditional service contracts, and Mr. Saif anticipates that such start-ups will themselves become targets for acquisition by overseas companies.

According to him, venture capital is the one missing ingredient in an enabling environment that the government, universities and software associations are building. Per Brilioth, the managing director of Vostok Nafta Investment, agrees. “The macro indicators and demographics are very strong,” he said, “and the country doesn't seem to get a lot of investor attention, so valuations are reasonable."

Those factors — and the rapidity with which Pakistan’s 200 million people are embracing the Internet on sub-$50 Chinese 3G smartphones — are markers on which Pakistan’s entrepreneurial leaders pin their hopes for the future. They see problems like Axact as bumps in the road as Pakistan builds a haven for I.T. development.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/opinion/bina-shah-pakistan-the-next-software-hub.html?_r=0

Riaz Haq said...

Sixteen-year-old Raffay Ansari is a self-taught programmer. He’s been an iOS developer for over three years and has now graduated into full-stack, meaning he’s comfortable working with a number of different languages as well as both back-end and front-end technologies. The teenage prodigy from Pakistan has earned several thousand dollars freelancing online, coded games that have attracted about 8 million cumulative downloads, and is now on the brink of launching his own start-up....Raffay has Ataxia, which means he has difficulty walking, speaking clearly, writing, reading, and other activities that require fine motor control. Raffay tells Tech in Asia that his muscles continue to weaken, even after his diagnosis over two years ago.

“The disease is more of a gift to me. As I can’t sleep much at night, I utilise the time learning new things instead. People treat me differently and are always willing to help. It’s a huge advantage,” he beams.

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The internet became Raffay’s teacher. He taught himself how to code through free online courses, primarily from Code Academy. His parents were initially reluctant to encourage his sudden interest in programming, but warmed up to the idea once they saw his passion for it. By the age of 13, he had successfully bid for and completed his first freelance assignment – coding the iOS game Mr Flap.

Raffay is now on the brink of launching his own start-up, Odyssy, which he describes as a data-driven content management system (CMS) targeted at bloggers and publishers who aren’t very technologically savvy and who don’t want to spend time coding in HTML. He reveals Odyssy is on the brink of closing its seed funding round – $20,000 from an angel investor based out of Islamabad.


http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/meet-the-16-year-old-self-taught-coder-from-pakistan-115083100538_1.html

https://www.techinasia.com/this-self-taught-coder-probably-has-more-entrepreneurial-experience/

Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistan IT industry climbing up to no 3 to grab world attention with its freelancers http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/OldNewsPage/?Id=6771&Pakistan%2FClimbs%2FUp%2FIT%2FLadder%2C%2FCatches%2FGlobal%2FAttention …

Pakistan’s tiny IT sector is carving out a niche for itself -- so much so that it has been the subject of several stories in international publications such as the New York Times, the Global Post, Al Jazeera, to name a few. Perhaps the interest is because of the obvious potential of the industry: There are now 1,500 registered IT companies in Pakistan, and 10,000 IT grads enter the market every year.

Perhaps even more significantly, the democratisation of demand as facilitated by the internet-era, has enabled Pakistan to climb up market ranks to become the No. 3 country for supplying freelance programmers, behind only the United States and India, and up from No. 5 just two years ago. This is because programmers in Pakistan can easily sign up to platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr, where the person hiring them is less interested in their location and more concerned with their skill. Because the programmer in Pakistan is using a third party platform, logistical, bureaucratic and other constraints that are typically associated with Pakistan, including corruption, do not apply.

As reported by The New York Times, Pakistan ranks in the upper 10 to 25 percent on Upwork’s listing of growth rates for top-earning countries, alongside India, Canada and Ukraine. Pakistan’s freelance programmers already account for $850 million of the country’s software exports; that number could go up to $1 billion in the next several months, says Umar Saif, who heads the Punjab IT Board and previously taught and did research work at M.I.T.

As reported by the Global Post, Pakistan’s software export industry employs some 24,000 people, according to government figures. Most companies in Pakistan’s IT sector — including mobile game studios — are growing at more than 30 percent a year, says Pakistan’s software industry trade body, P@SHA.

With success come challenges, and Pakistan’s nascent IT industry faced its first such challenge last May, when news broke that Axact, one of Pakistan’s largest IT companies, was operating as a fake degree mill. Authorities acted fast, arrested Axact’s chief within days, though the controversy did lead many to comment on whether the country’s IT industry stood a chance in the long-term.

That question was answered almost immediately, when just three days after the Axact controversy, Naseeb Networks International, a Lahore-based company that runs the online job marketplace Rozee.pk, announced that it had won a third round of investments worth $6.5 million, from the European investment firms Vostok Nafta and Piton Capital. The latest round of funding brought the company’s total venture capital funding to $8.5 million.

Or take the example of Caramel Tech Studios, a Pakistan-based mobile game startup that created the sensation “Fruit Ninja” for an Australian developer. Another such startup in Pakistan is Mindstorm Studios, maker of “Whacksy Taxi,” a racing game that topped Apple’s App Store in more than 25 countries.

And while constraints such as bureaucracy, shortage of land/space for offices, power shortages, et cetera remain a challenge, they are offset by positives, most importantly cost. “If we have a million dollars in the bank ... in the US we might only be able to make one and a half games, whereas here we might be able to make 10 games,” Saad Zaeem of Caramel Tech Studios told The Global Post, adding that graduates here are as qualified as Western ones and cost a lot less to employ, giving software startups a competitive advantage over high-wage Western countries.

Further, the rise of the mobile software market has been a huge gamechanger. “Prior to the iPhone …

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan among top countries earning through freelancers


https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/03/31/pakistan-among-top-countries-earning-through-freelancers/


The ever-increasing broadband access in Pakistan has accelerated the growth of freelance marketplaces, according to a survey report. Due to internet proliferation, freelance jobs are growing as more than 10,000 IT graduates enter Pakistan’s market annually.

Freelancing is progressing in conventional job markets and it is estimated that by 2020, one in three workers worldwide will be freelancing online.

Online marketplaces help their clients with tools, technologies and services to hire and manage remote work teams and enable employers and freelancers to contact one another.

The arsenal of technology available today makes it possible to work from any location without requiring a physical office. Freelancers can now more easily find jobs and connect to businesses that need work.

This online revolution has improved availability, quality and affordability of workers, especially in Pakistan. Freelancing, if done professionally, can become a great way to supplement income, earn a living and get paid to perform.

Experts say freelancing has become a big business and is now expanding at an exponential rate. Pakistan is ranked among the top countries that are earning through freelancing.

Human capital in Pakistan has grown significantly over the last decade with almost 16% of the younger age group having a college degree. Pakistan is considered as one of the top two outsourcing destinations in terms of growth, value for money and customer feedback.

According to a survey, Philippines experienced 789% growth in its outsourcing business while Pakistan was second on the list with 328% growth.

Labour costs in many countries have risen sharply and in some cases more than the productivity. The reason behind freelancing is to get cheap yet competitive labour and Pakistan’s IT sector is carving a niche for itself as an ideal place to go for low-cost but equally competent freelance IT programmers and Mobile app designers/developers.

The MIT Technology Review Pakistan has reported there are an estimated 1,500 registered IT companies in Pakistan. Another survey revealed that freelancers in Pakistan work 34 hours per week.

The qualities of projects provided by the Pakistani freelancers are in line with top freelancer countries around the world. The availability of cheap digital labour in Pakistan has turned contractors towards it.

The rapidly growing freelance economy can play a dramatic role in achievement of development and economic goals. But there are some national objectives to be achieved including basic literacy, basic healthcare, business opportunities and employment to boost exports and to get better results.

Riaz Haq said...

Online #freelancing grows in #Pakistan, earnings reach $1b in 2016. #InfoTech #Software
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1379351/online-freelancing-grows-pakistan-earnings-reach-1b/


the Punjab IT Board chairman quoted a conservative figure of 150,000 Pakistani freelancers, earning combined revenue of roughly $1 billion. This fairly high number is despite the fact that so far the phenomenon of online freelancing in Pakistan has grown without any significant government support.

Riaz Haq said...

Where are online workers located? The international division of digital gig work

Pakistan ranks 4th after India, Bangladesh and United States, according to Oxford Internet Institute's Online Labour Index top occupation by country, 1-6 July 2017


http://ilabour.oii.ox.ac.uk/where-are-online-workers-located-the-international-division-of-digital-gig-work/

Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistan PM Abbasi inaugurates Digi Skills program for #ICT #training of youth. #digital #technology

https://www.geo.tv/latest/179759-pm-abbasi-inaugurates-digi-skills-program-for-ict-training-of-youth

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi inaugurated the Digi Skills programme on Thursday, aimed at imparting ICT training to one million youth through online modules.

Addressing the ceremony, the Prime Minister said the present government has delivered in many fields by building motorways, ports, airports and power plants but the advancement in information technology sector is its most important contribution in the last five years.

The premier said that the Digi Skills programme will equip youth to get online jobs and earn money in a non-traditional manner. He said that he has full faith in the youth of the country and expressed confidence that women in particular will lead in e-commerce and digital skills.

The world is changing fast due to a revolution in information technology, he noted, adding that it is the government's responsibility to fully facilitate the private sector to take initiative and lead the way.

He said that the government on its part remains committed to ensuring availability of broadband in every inch of the country.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunications Anusha Rehman hailed the Digi Skills program as an important step forward in the sector. She said the program will create online employment opportunities to enable youth to earn 200 to 300 dollars per month.

She further pointed out that Pakistan is emerging as an IT leader in the world, and with the help of this program, youth from across the country will be providing their services to the entire world.

Dr Bilal said...

Well done sir very informative forum you initiated and runing.

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan needs a balanced mix of quality skilled workers, technicians, technologists, engineers, researchers and development scientists to promote the country's industrialization. National University of Technology is Pakistan government's answer to fulfill this need.

https://youtu.be/ZDQ2dy3cBSY

The problem with Pakistan’s technological education hitherto has been a surfeit of theory adept engineers, who lack practical skills upon graduation and are therefore of limited use for industry that demands hands on technologists, who could run industrial processes with the desired degree of competence. NUTECH seeks to fill that void through degree programs that will give both respectability and international recognition to the technologists who would undergo four year degree programs in different disciplines of engineering technology. These engineering technology graduates would be exposed to a curriculum geared towards practical aspects of technology that come in handy for an industrial employer. While the engineering degree holders would concentrate on designing and policy aspects the graduates of NUTECH would be focused on actual execution of technological tasks on shop floor. With a practical orientation these engineering technology graduates would already be adept in engineering practices on graduation unlike a normal engineering graduate whose learning starts upon graduation.

The production of top quality engineering technologists accredited to top class international technology regimes like the ‘Dublin, Sydney, and Bologna Accords’ would be a big shot in the arm for our human resource starved industrial sector. As a pioneer technology university under the Ministry of Education and affiliated with the Higher Education Commission, the University is charged with forging a direct linkage with the industry. While NUTECH would be mainly conducting Degree Programs, it is capable of reaching out to less developed areas through its widespread network of technical and vocational training institutes, producing skilled workers for the industry. With more focus on hands on practical training and inclusion of the industrial sector as a stakeholder in designing of curricula, it would synergise the academic output for the benefit of industry.

Pakistan that has suffered because it has completely bypassed industrial development by taking a shortcut to the services sector. Without industrial sinews, no country in the contemporary world can enjoy sustainable economic development. The time has come to correct that egregious flaw in our national development planning through sustainable initiatives. NUTECH is one such initiative, which was long overdue.

https://dailytimes.com.pk/246297/technical-education-industrial-development-and-pakistan/

Riaz Haq said...

The Philippines, India and Pakistan are the top three countries in terms of the number of workers being hired in the Asia-Pacific region, said a new report.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/jobs/uae-jobs-indian-pakistani-filipino-workers-are-most-in-demand-says-new-study


According to Deel’s State of Global Hiring Report released on Tuesday, Australia, Singapore, and India are the top three countries in the Asia-Pacific region where organisations were hiring last year. At the same time, Australia, Hong Kong and India were the fastest-growing countries for hiring new employees in the region.

In the UAE, Indian and Pakistani nationals account for the largest number of people among all expatriate communities. There are around 3.5 million Indian nationals, 1.7 million Pakistanis and 650,000 Filipinos employed in different public and private sectors nationwide.


The Deel study revealed that software engineering, sales and products were in the highest demand roles in Asia-Pacific.

In terms of salaries, Taiwan, Thailand, and South Korea saw the biggest average salary gains across all jobs.

Deel’s State of Global Hiring Report data is based on over 260,000 contracts and 15,000-plus customers across more than 160 countries, as well as over 500,000 data points from third-party sources, including Microverse. All countries, states, and cities in the report have at least 50 worker contracts on file as of December 2022.

Globally, hiring sustained its momentum throughout the year, as 89 per cent of all contracts were for remote roles. Many companies looked abroad to optimise talent costs.

Professor Samuel Dahan, chairman of Deel Lab for Global Employment, said average starting salaries for the role in content creation, operations and fiancé increased the most in the Philippines, India and Brazil.

While compensation rates also fell worldwide for new workers for the roles of accountants, customer support agents, consultants, designers and software engineers

Due to instability in the cryptocurrencies, Deel said, workers, lost some interest in receiving payments in cryptocurrencies.