Pakistan’s IT image abroad Tuesday December 27, 2005 (1518 PST)Courtesy: The NationAs we love to compare ourselves to the Indians at all times with respect to IT (let’s face it- we can learn something from them-and acknowledge, they are far ahead in this race). The Indian government (both local and federal) has a very focused and positive/up-beat view of IT. They are not just all talk-but are in fact a very pragmatic bunch of people who actually “do” what they say! They visit almost all the tradeshows and exhibitions worldwide with respect to IT, BPO, Outsourcing, etc. Pakistan in comparison visited 2-3 tradeshows concerning IT last year. Indian companies take considerable amount of floor space when they visit, like in GITEX (held in Dubai) last year, the size of the Indian pavilion was about 600 sq. metres for the “software” industry only! Within the 600 sq. metres some 22 companies were exhibiting. The Ambassador of India to UAE inaugurated the Indian country Pavilion and almost everyone from the Embassy was present (the Consul General of Dubai, the Commercial Counselor, etc.). Well talking about Pakistan on the other hand had mere 60 square metres. That’s 1/10th the size of the Indian soft ware pavilion. Within this space-12 companies were exhibiting; each company was allotted 5 square metres for their stall. Let me give you an idea of what 5 square metres is-it’s probably the size of your apartment bathroom! Actually your bathroom might be bigger than 5 square metres. Time requires that we need to more visible on the international scene-exhibitions like GITEX, CeBit and many more small exhibitions are where we must hoist our flag. There is no doubt great need of doing more planned and organised efforts in this regard. We must be focusing on more aggressive and large campaigns that would help us in presenting true reflection of Pakistan abroad in IT industry, even though the competition is bit hard-hitting but there is always a room for enhancement and augmentation.
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