Outlook India report said 125 employees at a US-based information technology service provider were laid off in Noida in New Delhi, India, and the very next day an equal number of workers started working for the company in Islamabad, Pakistan. Here's an excerpt of Outlook India story:
"On the night of November 1, stretching into early next morning, close to half the workforce at the Noida office of a US-based IT service provider was informed that their services were no longer needed. A former employee says salaries for the staff at the Noida office were declared delayed by a day on October 31. The official explanation was that the servers were not working. “They weren’t clear about how many people were going to be laid off,” he says. The next night, they “axed 125 people in half-an-hour.” They all got a severance package—a cheque for October and another two months of salary—and a termination letter. Rumors of layoffs had started doing the rounds four to five months ago. The talk was that the company was opening offices in a neighboring country. Curiously, the day the workforce in Noida was sacked, almost the same number of employees for the same low-level IT-enabled jobs logged into their systems, 676 kilometers away, in Islamabad, Pakistan. Job cuts have plagued the Indian IT sector for about two years now and have begun to get pretty serious from the start of this year. “Bloodbath in Bangalore” has been the recurring headline. But the trend of these jobs going to techies in Pakistan is more recent. Away from all the noise of ceasefire violations and surgical strikes, where Pakistan could really hurt India is in taking away low-end IT jobs. The neighbor has a budding IT industry, growing in its own space, looking to emulate the Indian IT success story where right now data operators and BPO callers come much cheaper."
The story did not identify the company by name.
Pakistan: The Next Software Hub?
There are tens of thousands of Pakistani IT engineers working in the West, particularly in Silicon Valley, the high-tech capital of the world. The popular entertainment industry recognizes this fact by featuring a Pakistani-American software engineer in lead role played by a real-life Pakistani-American Kumail Nanjiani in HBO's "Silicon Valley" serial. Articles like the New York Times Op Ed piece in 2015 titled "Pakistan, the Next Software Hub?" have helped raise the profile of Pakistan's information technology industry in the West.
Afiniti and Careem: Tech Unicorns Made in Pakistan:
Afiniti and Careem are two technology unicorns engineered in Pakistan by Pakistanis. AI (artificial intelligence) startup Afiniti software has largely been engineered in Lahore while taxi hailing service Careem's technology has mostly been developed in Karachi.
Careem is a taxi hailing app that is giving its American competitor Uber a run for its money in a region stretching from Pakistan to the Middle East and North Africa. The company cofounded by Mudassir Sheika, a Pakistani national, is headquartered in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Careem's software has been developed by its technology partner VentureDive based in Karachi, Pakistan. VentureDive was started by serial Pakistani entrepreneur Atif Azim who sold his earlier startup Perfigo to network equipment giant Cisco for $74 million in 2004, according to a report in Tech in Asia.
Washington D.C. based AI technology firm Afiniti, founded by serial Pakistani-American entrepreneur Zia Chishti, has filed for initial public offering (IPO) at $1.6 billion valuation, according to VentureBeat. The company has grown out of the technology used in the Pakistan-based call center business of The Resource Group (TRG) also founded by Zia Chishti.
Bulk of the Afiniti development team is located in Thokar Niaz Baig, Lahore. In addition, the company has development team members in Islamabad and Karachi.
Numbers, Skills and Cost:
Pakistani universities are producing over 10,000 IT engineers annually. Many of them have demonstrated their quality and skills by freelancing for American and European companies. Pakistani freelancers consistently rank among the top three year after year.
In terms of cost, Pakistani engineers cost significantly less than engineers in India and elsewhere. The average salary of a software engineer ($110,000) in Silicon Valley is about 20X more than the average salaries in India ($6,875) and Pakistan ($4,770), according to Glassdoor.
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| Source: Glassdoor |
Recent move of 125 IT jobs from Noida to Islamabad in an indication that Pakistan is becoming an attractive destination for software and information technology companies looking for highly skilled talent at significant discounts. It is an emerging center of technology with at least two unicorns, Afiniti and Careem, engineered by Pakistanis in Pakistan. With growing numbers of young homegrown Pakistani technologists, a highly skilled diaspora and an evolving startup ecosystem with incubators, accelerators and investors, the country is beginning to demonstrate its vast potential as a vibrant technology hub of the future. Provincial governments, particularly those in Punjab and KP, are showing leadership in encouraging this trend. The main ingredients are all coming together to make things happen in Pakistan.
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12 comments:
Hi Riaz. Just wanted to update you. Since 11 months I am heading a federal government technology fund that has launched several projects including a network of world class incubators across the country, a program to train 1 million people in digital skills, and funding of 30 startups and tech development projects in 4th Industrial Wave tech like AI, IoT, Robotics, Implantables, Big Data, cloud infrastructure, cyber security. We also do studies which help introduce incentives like tax breaks for startups. Check us out at www.ignite.org.pk and at @igniteNTF on FB, Twitter and Linkedin. Let me know if you need further info.
Yusuf: "Just wanted to update you. Since 11 months I am heading a federal government technology fund that has launched several projects including a network of world class incubators across the country, a program to train 1 million ......"
That's great. Would you like to write a guest post for my blog? I'll publish it under your name. My blog is widely read in US and Europe as well as in South Asia. Let me know.
Would love to. Published 5 articles in national dailies over last few months on our programs. Will send you some links and also take a look at your blog again.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1444785/igniting-4th-industrial-wave-tech-start-ups/
https://www.wamda.com/2016/02/pakistans-return-as-the-california-of-asia
The computer services exports of Pakistan have seen an increase of 32.11 percent during the first two months of the current fiscal year 2017-18, as compared to the last year, according to the report of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). Pakistan has earned $111.38 million against the services worth $84.31 million during the period.
During the past 4 years, IT Industry has contributed 98% to Pakistan’s economy by foreign exchange earnings, as stated by Minister for IT Anusha Rehman. IT industry in Pakistan is flourishing as Pakistan has earned $54.37m by exporting software consultancy services, showing growth of 69.22 percent as compared to exports of $32.126m last year.
According to the data revealed by PBS, hardware consultancy services exports have also seen an increase of 144.41 percent to $0.72 million as compared to the last year’s export of $0.3 million of the same services. Similarly, the maintenance and repair services for computers also seen a slight increase of $0.39 million as compared to $0.23 million of last year, showing growth of 68.97 million.
In general, the exports of the country have earlier seen a decline by 12% in the past fiscal year 2015-16, while the current fiscal year seems to get a boost by the export services of IT and Telecom sector. However, the trade of computer software services observed a negative growth of 1.01 percent during first two months, declining to $40.766 million this year from $41.181 million during the last year.
However, the export of telecommunication services has not been a much success for Pakistan. The export of telecom services from the country decreased by 0.93 percent by going down from the trade of $63.43 million last year to $62.84 million during the current fiscal year.
It must be noted that general services exports from Pakistan have seen an immense increase by 4.94 percent during the period under review while comparing to the same period of last year. With this considerable increase of $816.27 million of this year, compared to the exports of 777.84 million in last year, Pakistan is witnessing the great potential of its IT and Telecom sector in this era of digitalization.
https://www.techjuice.pk/pakistan-earned-111-million-computer-services-exports/
#Pakistan #IT services #exports register 14.5% growth in fiscal Q1 to reach $252 million. On track for exporting over one billion US$ in FY2017-18 https://pakobserver.net/icts-services-exports-register-14-5pc-growth-q1/ … via @PakObserver
The exports of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services and related sectors have registered a double digit growth of 14.5 per cent, surging to US $ 252 million during first quarter of this year.
During same period of July to September 2016-17, the exports recorded in this domain were US $ 220.2 million.
The statistics issued by State Bank of Pakistan have showed that local companies and startups related to Information Technology (IT) and similar sectors have continued to expand their market share in foreign market as value of exports recorded double digit growth.
Pakistani companies usually export ICT services to United States, Middle East and North African countries. Major heads of exports included software and hardware consultancy, telecommunication services, call center services and export of software.
In last financial year 2016-17, IT exports and related services touched nearly US $ 1 billion reaching an all-time high. It is expected that exports will cross the US $ 1 billion mark this year.
According to Pakistan Software Exports Board (PSEB), Pakistan’s has been showing a healthy growth rate of IT & ITES exports in South Asia during the last three years. It grew by 71 per cent from June 2013 to June 2016.
In last financial year as well, Pakistan’s IT and related services exports have grown at a faster pace than India and Sri Lanka. Pakistan’s growth rate during 2016-17 was 16 per cent whereas Sri Lanka was at 5 per cent.
The statistics of IT services exports are usually labelled as remittances under IT sector but the industry strongly believes that overall exports are three times higher than the reported numbers which includes exports of services by freelancers and various IT services in different sectors such as financial and textile sectors.
Accordingly, the exports of IT and related services stand US $ 756 million by end of first quarter of 2017-18, which will likely to touch a mark of US $ 3 billion as per estimates.
In this regard, the central bank is working to bring IT companies and service providers on-board. It has designed a reporting structure of inflows that will help in increasing inflows of IT sector in future if companies follow this pattern.—APP
International conference on emerging technologies: Chairman HEC for translating opportunities into reality
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/12/28/international-conference-on-emerging-technologies-chairman-hec-for-translating-opportunities-into-reality/
Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed has stressed on the need for translating the opportunities created by new technologies into reality while ensuring a positive use of advanced gadgets.
He said that the HEC is committed to facilitating universities and encouraging research activities. “We need to conduct researches that cast positive impacts on society and mitigates the miseries of humanity,” he underlined.
He expressed these views while speaking as a chief guest at the two-day 13th International Conference on Emerging Technologies (ICET) jointly organized by the Capital University of Science and Technology (CUST), in collaboration with the HEC and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Islamabad.
CUST Vice-Chancellor Dr Mansoor Ahmed, Professor Aamer Iqbal Bhatti, ICET General Chair and a large number of faculty members and students were also present on the occasion.
The HEC Chairman pointed out that water and food security will become vital issues in the near future. He emphasised that the solution to all social ills including terrorism, poverty and unemployment lies in the promotion of education.
“It is the era of a knowledge economy and no nation can make progress without promoting education,” he stated. He said that the universities are responsible for imparting education, creating knowledge and integrating it into society. He urged the faculty to pay special attention to the training of students, as training is imperative for a peaceful society.
Shedding light on the achievements of the HEC during the last 15 years, the chairman said that HEC set off on its journey when Pakistan had only 59 universities, adding that the number of universities in the country has now reached 188. He maintained that the HEC has been putting strenuous efforts to promote ICT in the country.
“Pakistan has one of the best ICT setups of South Asia”, he informed.
He also announced that the HEC plans to establish centres of excellence in data and artificial intelligence.
Sharing the background of the conference, Professor Aamer Iqbal Bhatti said that the first international conference on emerging technologies was held in 2005. He said CUST lays great emphasis on applied research and the 13th ICET is a testimony to that fact. He appreciated the role of the HEC and IEEE Islamabad in collaborating to organise the conference.
#India's #IT layoffs in 2017 top 56,000, led by Infosys and Cognizant — Quartz. #unemployment #technology
https://qz.com/1152683/indian-it-layoffs-in-2017-top-56000-led-by-tcs-infosys-cognizant/
For Indian techies, 2017 was the stuff of nightmares.
Since Trump took office, the fate of the H-1B, a six-year temporary work visa that Indian IT companies heavily depend on, has been hanging fire.
In March 2017, the US government stalled the premium processing of this visa category.
The criteria for computer programmers to apply for the H-1B visa became tougher. In April, Trump signed the “Buy American, Hire American” executive order, promising to bring jobs back to the country, putting migrant workers in jeopardy. In November, the judicial committee of the US House of Representatives gave its nod to the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (titled HR 170) which classifies any company that has more 15% of its workforce working on-site as “visa-dependent.” With this, the pressure is mounting on Indian outsourcing giants which sometimes have over 50% of their manpower working on-site.
Even the current workers have cause for concern—to clamp down on visa fraud, the United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) plans to double the number of visits to workplaces. “Indian IT companies, thus far champions of IT-based outsourcing, have been forced to go back to the drawing board in order to reposition themselves higher up in the value chain,” Anshul Prakash, a partner at Mumbai-based legal services firm Khaitan & Co, told Quartz.
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One of the top employment generators until a few years ago, India’s $160 billion IT industry laid off more than 56,000 employees this year. Some analysts believe this spree was worse than the one during the 2008 financial crisis. Meanwhile, hiring plummeted, with entry-level openings having more than halved in 2017, according to experts.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, two of India’s largest IT companies and once leaders in job creation, reduced their headcounts for the first time ever. Even mid-sized players like Tech Mahindra retrenched several employees. (However, TCS’s staff addition recovered after a fall during April-June 2017 and rose 0.8% in the following quarter).
“Digitisation and automation brought about disruption in traditional roles, which means that most of the IT firms found themselves reassessing the capability of the talent pool to stay market relevant,” Arun Paul, vice-president of human resources at Incedo, an IT service management company, told Quartz.
When hell broke loose
Compared to the normal rate of forced attrition (i.e. asking non-performers to leave) of around 1% in earlier years, 2017 saw Indian IT companies letting go of between 2% and 6% of their employees, said Alka Dhingra, general manager of IT staffing at TeamLease Services.
Infosys cut 9,000 jobs in January. “Instead of 10 people, what if we have three people to work on (a project). If we don’t have the software, then some others will take the advantage (away from us),” Vishal Sikka, the former CEO of the Bengaluru-based company, said in February.
Meanwhile, around 6,000 Indian employees at Cognizant reportedly lost their jobs to automation. Mumbai-based Tech Mahindra implemented a cost optimisation plan of increasing automation and reducing manpower. It turned ugly in July when the firm made headlines over a controversial audio clip that featured an HR personnel purportedly coercing an employee into quitting by 10am the next day, or risk being fired.
Moreover, it wasn’t just about those at the bottom of the IT pyramid. Pink slips were doled out to even senior employees with outdated skills.
#Pakistan Climbs Up #IT Ladder, Catches Global Attention. #technology #software
http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/5/6771/Pakistan-Climbs-Up-IT-Ladder-Catches-Global-Attention
.... 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.
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.....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 … it was a very closed-door system,” said Babar Ahmed, Mindstorm’s co-founder and CEO. “So you had to apply for a developer’s license to Nintendo or Microsoft or Sony. And they’d vet your studio out, they’d look at your resumes. They’d only give their [software development kit] to, like, very select studios. That’s not the case anymore” (as quoted in The Global Post).
#PTI's 14-Point for #Digital #Pakistan. #Elections2018 #ImranKhan https://www.techjuice.pk/pti-unveils-digital-policy-naya-pakistan/ PTI’s 14 Points for Digital Pakistan:
$2 billion set aside for National digital transformations & provision of different services to citizens through mobile.
Using technology to open government data to increase transparency
IT education of 50,000 students
Establishment of 120 new campuses to produce 100,000 technology graduates/year
Mathematics and Science teacher training and certification program
Five new major technology clusters (Special Economic Zones)
A focus will be on creating enabling environment for start-ups and entrepreneurs.
50,000 call center seats available on a turn-key basis
One window operation to register a new company
A global PR campaign involving expat community
Visa issuance on green passport for Businessmen and professionals
Simplification of processes for foreign ownership of companies
Public-Private Partnership on projects
Target will be set to increase the global ranking of Pakistan in ease of doing business
Pakistan 4th most popular country for freelancing: report
https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/06/26/pakistan-4th-most-popular-country-for-freelancing-report/
Pakistan is among the top five countries in the world when it comes to freelancing and generated a significant calculated amount of $0.5 billion entirely from freelancing.
Pakistan is ranked as the 4th most popular country for freelancing in the Online Labor Index published in 2017 by Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and is consistently ranked among the top destinations for Internet Communications and Technology (ICT) outsourcing as a result of the exponential growth of the IT sector. Pakistan has got the fourth position globally in the category of Software Development and Technology.
Talking to the media, a ministry official said, the calculated revenue is $0.5 billion but in reality, it is more than this amount. The framework for e-commerce is not implemented yet, and after the implementation of an official, state-backed framework, it would be channelised to contribute to the national exchequer.
He said many universities in Pakistan are offering software and IT degrees and due to demand of this field many individuals have chosen to opt for ever-growing field.
Many people work from home and earn a good amount. Many people in Pakistan manage to freelance with their regular jobs to make a good amount of money, he added.
He informed that the first, second and third positions are acquired by India, Bangladesh and United States respectively. The largest overall supplier of online labour according to the data, is the traditional outsourcing destination – India, which is home to 24 per cent of the workers observed. According to report, Pakistan is home to 9 per cent of total freelancers.
Bengaluru pays the highest salaries in India: Study
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/hardware-software-jobs-pay-the-highest-in-india/articleshow/66744465.cms
Hardware & networking jobs fetch about Rs 15 lakh per an .. software jobs fetch about Rs 12 lakh, and consumer jobs Rs 9 lakh.
(One US $ is worth 71 Indian rupees)
Pakistani IT Exports Cross $1 Billion Taking Clients From Indian Companies
According to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan, remittances under IT and IT-enabled services surged to $1.119 billion from July 2020 to January 2021 compared to $812 million recorded in the corresponding period of the last financial year, showing a handsome growth of 37 percent year-on-year
https://propakistani.pk/2021/02/23/pakistani-it-exports-cross-1-billion-taking-clients-from-indian-companies/
The growth in IT exports was driven by the increasing automation, and digitalized services in different countries after new ways of doing business emerged following the outbreak of COVID-19 worldwide.
Different foreign companies, mainly from the USA and EU markets, prefer placing their orders to Pakistani companies rather than Indian and the Philippines.
Barkan Saeed, Chairman Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) for IT and ITeS told Propakistani,
The growth in IT exports value was driven by the foreign clients moved from Indian companies to Pakistani companies in a post-COVID-19 scenario.
The government could double the exports from $2 billion per annum to $4 billion per annum by the next two years, with a concrete roadmap for the IT sector, which could not only fetch foreign exchange for the country, but it is a key sector that could provide the skilled job to millions of youngsters, Saeed further said.
Local IT companies and the government should work on a strategy to protect the growth of the IT sector on a sustainable basis for the future, he added.
Saeed demanded that IT should be declared a strategic sector with the same focus and treatment. The PM should resolve the pending issues of the sector immediately to unleash the true potential of the IT sector.
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