PESHAWAR: The provincial science and information technology department with the support of different IT organisations will hold a three-day digital youth summit from May 7 to provide job opportunities for the youth in the IT sector.

Minister for Science and Information Technology Shehram Khan Tarakai announced this while speaking at a ceremony at the Peshawar Press Club here on Tuesday. The ceremony was also participated by secretary S&IT department Farah Hamid Khan and youths from different IT organisations.

Mr Tarakai said that youth of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were talented but they needed opportunities.

He said that the IT board had been working on different projects to make the IT technology more common and easier in the business perspective.

Speaking on the occasion, Farah Hamid Khan said that after terrorism, joblessness was the major problem in the province.

The youths would find more job opportunities in the digital youth summit, she said, adding that the summit would also encourage self employment among the talented youths.

Ms Hamid said that the results of the previous digital youth summit were encouraging as many IT organisations had shown interest to invest in the province.

Faisal Khan, who runs an IT organisation in Peshawar, said that around 70 speakers and over a 1,000 delegates would participate in the coming summit. The participants would share their experiences in the IT business that would pave the way for youths to have more jobs in the IT sector, he added.

Besides other aspects of the technology, said Mr Khan, funding for private IT organisations, marketing, online jobs and how to help government in E-governance would be discussed in the summit.

There was a wide gap between the courses taught at the universities and the requirements of industries, he said. “We are trying to reduce this gap through such summits,” he added.

Faisal Khan said that as industry and agriculture sectors were unable to accommodate to youth, focus should be on development of the IT sector.

Published in Dawn February 18th , 2015

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