CIO Year Ahead 2012 Summit Reinforces Pakistan’s Technology Roadmap

In partnership with the World Economic Forum, WEF, CIO Pakistan will, for the second year running, engage in an exchange of knowledge related to the growth of the country’s IT sector. The knowledge exchange will take place at the CIO Pakistan/ Afghanistan’s Annual CIO Year Ahead’12 Summit on June 2, 2011 at the Pearl Continental Hotel in Karachi. IBM Pakistan will be the presenter for the event.

The summit will bring together an exclusive gathering of IT industrialists, businessmen and Pakistani media who will aim to incorporate a discussion revolving around the theme of ‘Rebuilding Pakistan: Communicate. Collaborate. Construct.’ Adding vitality to the discussion, Thierry Geiger and Maryam Hassimi, Editors to the Global Information Technology Report (GITR) will be interact with the local industry champions on videoconference, bringing an international perspective to the discussion. GITR offers extensive coverage on the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on the development process and competitiveness of 133 economies across the world. Point to note, is the fact that Pakistan has moved 11 notches up from 98 to 87 as per the findings of the GITR 2009-2010.

The event in itself will be divided into three sessions each of which will deal with a way in which the country’s IT industry could be mobilized to rebuild a better Pakistan. The first session, ‘Communicate’ will be a knowledge-building session aimed at exploring and discussing the flow of Pakistan’s current IT policy and the country’s present international branding from a business and economic precept.

This will be followed by the videoconference, the highlight of the second session. During the videoconference, ‘knowledge-bits’ will be shared with the editors of GITR at the World Economic Forum. A similar videoconference in 2010 had led Salman Ansari, a participant at the event, to say, “It is to the credit of the CIO Pakistan team that they pulled off the videoconference with the key people concerned at the WEF and INSEAD.” He also looked forward to more effective future collaboration with INSEAD/WEF.

The last session, ‘Construct’ will help lay the basis for greater collaboration amongst the IT, business and media sectors of the country. Furthermore, the session will present a scope whereby these three key players of the IT industry can work together to play a more constructive role in helping Pakistan get back on its feet economically, socially and otherwise, without having to go through the hassle of re-inventing the wheels of past policy-making sessions.

Partners to the CIO Pakistan/ Afghanistan’s Year Ahead’12 Summit include IBM Pakistan presenting the summit, InfoTech as the Millennium Sponsor, exD on board as the Century Partners and Catalytic Consulting, the event’s Decade Partners.