KARACHI, Dec 29: Federal Information Technology Minister Awais Khan Leghari on Saturday offered to provide government help and resources to companies and individuals seeking to use IT, says a press release.

It quoted the minister as telling the audience at the 12th Undergraduate Convocation of the Military College of Signals, the National University of Science and Technology, “We are willing to finance any such project but with only one condition that the end product should involve applications produced entirely by the local software industry and it should be an open source based software, accessible to any other company and any individual in the country.”

He said the IT ministry had set up a research and development fund with Rs1 billion in the Pakistan Telecommunication Company and the funding could be available to any company or individuals seeking to develop software, utilizing indigenous skills and resources.

He also invited the faculty of MCS and NUST to submit their research proposals to this fund and promised “if they meet the selection criteria, we will fund them to the fullest possible extent.”