Pakistani Teams Emerge Victorious in Huawei ICT Competition Global Final

 

ISLAMABAD, JUN 29: The Huawei ICT Competition 2021-2022 Global Final in Shenzhen drew to a close on June 25. This year marks the sixth Huawei ICT Competition, which included three competitions – Practice, Innovation and Industry – attracted 150,000 students from more than 2000 universities in 85 countries and regions around the world. After making it through the national and regional competitions, 130 teams from 43 countries and regions faced off in the global final, making this year's finals the largest yet. This year's participants were also the first to compete for a new series of Women in Tech Awards which have been designed to honor the outstanding talent displayed by the young women contestants in the Competition. A TECH4ALL Digital Inclusion Award was also presented during the awards ceremony, as part of Huawei's TECH4ALL Digital Inclusion Initiative.

2021-2022 Regional finals winners, Pakistan’s team one; Sateesh Kumar, Iqra Fatima, and Bhagchand Meghwar along with their instructor Dr. Faheem Khuhawar and team two; Hafiz Rizwan, Adnan Ali, and Mukhtar Memon along with their instructor participated in the practice competition. These students hail from Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Islamiya University Bahawalpur and UET Lahore.In the Innovation Competition, two further teams from Pakistan were nominated this year. Osman Ahsan Sheikh, Muhammad Abdullah Ahsan Sheikh, Aqsa Amir and their instructor Merai Syed represented team ‘Homevism’, comprised of students fromNUST. The second team, ‘Boltay Haroof’, from LUMS consisted of Umer Farooq, Tabish Rafiq, Areej Ahmed and their instructor Muhammad Saeed. After a hotly contested competition, in the Network category of the Practice competition, Pakistan Team One clinched the 1st prize, while Pakistan Team Two grabbed the 3rd prize. In the Innovation competition, Team Boltay Haroof won the 2nd prize, while Team Homevism were awarded the 3rd prize.

Huawei Enterprise's President of Global Partner Development and Sales Xiao Haijun spoke at the event about how indispensable ICT has become to our work and lives. As one of Huawei's key initiatives in talent cultivation, the Huawei ICT Competition is designed to help build an ecosystem that students around the world can use to bridge digital divides and accelerate global digital transformation by improving their ICT knowledge, skills, and innovation capabilities.

CEO Huawei Pakistan, Mr. Mark Meng stated, “Despite the lingering pandemic, this Huawei ICT Competition attracted more participants than before. The achievements and milestones Pakistan students and teachers have achieved reflects on the great vision and determination of Pakistan government towards ICT talent nurturing, innovation and technology adaptation.”

Dr. Faheem, proud mentor of Pakistan’s Team One stated, “This is nothing short of a privilege and honor for Pakistan, we highly appreciate and are thankful to Huawei for the continuous support throughout this journey that led to achieving this level of success. Their cooperative nature and professionalism to resolve issues that ICT academy instructors and students face from all over Pakistan are extremely noteworthy.”

Bhangchand Meghwar, who was born in Tharparkar, Sindh, exclaimed, “I come from a village where there aren’t a lot of resources on hand, being able to represent and win for Pakistan on such a prestigious platform has been nothing short of a dream come true.”

In the future, Huawei plans to continue building education, industry, and public talent ecosystems by establishing talent alliances, integrating talent standards, improving talent capabilities, and demonstrating talent value. Huawei has also announced plans to nurture 1 million certified ICT professionals by 2024 to improve the digital skills of society as a whole. This is intended to promote scientific and technological progress, industry development, and sustainable social and economic development.

----------------------------------------

Paymob, NIFT Sign Agreement to Securely Enable Digital Payments in Pakistan

 

ISLAMABAD, JUN 29: Paymob, the leading omni-channel financial services platform in the MENAP region, signed an agreement with National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (NIFT) to facilitate digital payments in Pakistan and to secure payment transfers. Under the agreement, Paymob will enable digital payments for their merchants using the NIFT ePay payment platform which supports account, wallet, and card-based payments.

Paymob’s payment infrastructure enables SMEs to accept digital payments online and in-store whilst providing them better access to financial services. As an API integrator, Paymob’s gateway  sits on merchants’ websites to facilitate payment capture. In addition to conventional bank cards, Paymob merchants will have access to mobile wallets, QR payments, bank card installment plans, and Buy-Now Pay-Later (BNPL) options all of which serve to drive an increased volume of transactions and revenue.

Paymob plans to extend its Tap-on-Phone payment acceptance service to the Pakistan market. The company will also launch cards to enable B2B transactions for its merchants and build tools for merchants to better manage and grow their business.

NIFT was established in 1995 as a joint venture between six major Pakistani banks and entrepreneurs from the private sector. It is the leading Payment System Operator (PSO) in Pakistan for cheque clearing and is the country’s foremost Digital Payment Gateway, providing an electronic platform for clearing, processing, and switching electronic transactions in Pakistan under the brand name NIFT ePay.

Haidar Wahab, CEO of NIFT commented, “NIFT continues to play an important and proactive role in streamlining Pakistan’s payment system. As promoters of financial technology, NIFT is committed to delivering an efficient, secured, and convenient digital payment system in which our economic growth can further thrive. This new partnership with Paymob opens a range of exciting new possibilities for Pakistan’s payment infrastructure and puts it at the cutting edge of innovation in this space.”

Fawad Abdul Kader, Country Manager of Paymob in Pakistan mentioned, “We are proud to partner with NIFT ePay which will serve to drive ecommerce by making a variety of payment options available to merchants all across Pakistan. SMEs are the engines of growth in any economy and this partnership with NIFT ePay will serve to fuel that growth and drive revenue in today’s digital economy.”

----------------

Japan provides grant-aid for Human Resource Development Scholarship

 

Islamabad, JUN 28: The Government of Japan today announced grant aid worth 313 million Japanese Yen (around 2.4 million USD) for the Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS) program in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Mr. ISHII Kensuke, Charge d’ Affaires ad interim of Japan to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Mr. Mian Asad Hayaud Din, Secretary of Ministry of Economic Affairs, have signed the Exchange of Notes (E/N) on this program. The Grant Agreement (G/A) for the aforementioned program was also signed between Mr. Adil Akbar Khan, Joint Secretary of Ministry of Economic Affairs and Mr. KINOSHITA Yasumitsu, Chief Representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Pakistan Office.

JDS is designed to support social and economic development of the country by providing government officials to obtain Master’s or Doctoral degree in Japan in order to strengthen the administrative capacity of officials. The participants of JDS program who are involved in formulation and implementation of policies are expected to learn in partner universities in Japan and acquire knowledge of their specialties as well as the know-hows of how Japan became a country as it is today.

As JDS in Pakistan started from 2018 and has four batches in four consecutive years, the first phase concluded this year. This occasion celebrates the signing of the very first batch of the second phase of this program. For this batch, the maximum number of the slots for JDS participants in Pakistan is 17 seats for the Master’s degree and one seat for the Doctoral degree.

Mr. KINOSHITA while speaking at the event said "It is worth stating that Japan and Pakistan are celebrating 70 years of anniversary this year. We hope that JDS fellows as well as those 7,000 JICA training participants supported under Technical Cooperation Program will build broader human networks that will benefit both Pakistan and Japan in the long run. "

Mr. ISHII highlighted that "JDS scholarship is expected to contribute to strengthening the administrative capacities of government of Pakistan by providing the talented government officials with the opportunity to obtain the Master and Doctor of Philosophy degree, so that they can effectively lead the social and economic development of Pakistan. I hope this project would further contribute to strengthening the friendship between the two countries."

----------------------------

Online leading e-ticketing platform Sastaticket onboard new airline Fly Jinnah

 

LAHORE, JUN 26: Fly Jinnah - another low-cost carrier joins Pakistan’s aviation industry. The airline is a joint venture between Air Arabia and Lakson Group. Fly Jinnah got the license from the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority last year and will now soon start their operations in June 2022.

Sastaticket.pk welcomes Fly Jinnah and look forward to great times ahead.

Fly Jinnah is the fourth airline in Pakistan's aviation sector and will be operating with three leased A320s aircraft. With time, it has plans to expand its wings in the industry and touch new heights in the international market. 

Currently, AirSial, Airblue, and PIA are successfully operating in the market. With the launch of another domestic carrier, we expect competitive airfares where customers will enjoy low prices and best services. 

 

The airline has worked intensively on its cabin crew training and is focusing on customer service as their prime objective.This is the perfect time to make its mark in the industry as travel restrictions have now been lifted and people have started to travel more.

In addition, it will be a sigh of relief for the customers as a new entrant will provide more options and convenience in terms of time and monetary resources when it comes to domestic travel.

Sastaticket.pk welcomes the arrival of Fly Jinnah and expects that the airline will perform well in the near future and mark its name in the industry.

-------------------------------

Karachi ranks among least livable cities

 

KARACHI, JUN 24: Pakistan’s financial capital, Karachi, has been ranked among the world’s most unlivable cities, according to an annual index released by The Economist Intelligence Unit.

The unit’s global livability index for the year 2022 ranks Karachi 168th in terms of livability among a total of 172 countries.

Every city is assigned a rating for relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Scores are compiled and weighted to provide a score in the range 1-100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal.

Karachi has an overall score of 37.5, significantly lower than ideal. It has performed most poorly on the stability indicator, with a score of 20. The city has scored 33.3 on the healthcare indicator, 35.2 on culture and environment, 66.7 on education and 51.8 on infrastructure.

“Damascus (Syria) and Tripoli (Libya) continue to languish at the bottom of the list — along with Lagos (Nigeria) — as they face social unrest, terrorism and conflict,” the report said.

Karachi has been ranked among the least livable cities in previous years too. Last year, it ranked 134 of 140 cities in the index. In 2019 it ranked 136 out of 140. The 2020 report was not published.

Most of the top-ranked cities on the index are from western Europe and Canada, with the Austrian capital Vienna topping the list. The city has a perfect score of 100 on four out of five indicators, namely stability, healthcare, education and infrastructure. On the one remaining indicator of culture and environment, the city has a score of 96.3. Its overall score is 99.1.

The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv was excluded from the list due to Russia’s invasion. The conflict influenced rankings for the Russian cities of Moscow and St Petersburg. Both recorded a fall in scores owing to increased instability, censorship, imposition of Western sanctions and corporates withdrawing their operations from the country.

---------------------------------

Courtesy Dawn News