"40 centres are very insufficient and we have to set up such 4million centres so that more and more students could be made financially empowered," Chief Minister said. Addressing the inaugural ceremony of e-Rozgaar program and first freelancing convention jointly organized by Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and Crossover, the chief minister said the big portion of the population is consisted of the youth, they are our asset. He said that without economic empowerment of the youth no country in the world can progress. He also said that providing jobs to the millions of youngsters graduated from the universities is a big challenge for the country. He said that to turn this challenge into opportunity Punjab government has taken exemplary measures which includes e-Rozgaar program and Khadim-e-Punjab Self-employment.
He said the vice chancellor Information Technology University Dr Umer Saif laid the foundation of the e-Rozgaar program about three years ago and thousands of the youth are doing respectable jobs after getting training from these centres. He said Punjab government laid the foundation of the Punjab Education Endowment Fund (PEEF)of Rs 2 billion in 2008 and now its volume has been enhanced to Rs 20 billion and lakhs of boy and girl students are getting education from the financial aid of this program.
He said from this education scholarship 175,000 needy students are getting education and out of which 120,000 are girls. He said thousands of students have become doctors and engineers and getting education in foreign education institutions after getting financial aid from this scholarship. He also said in the same way thousands of students have got technical training from the Skill Development Program.
He claimed that sufficient electricity will be available for industry, livestock, agriculture and programs like e-Rozgaar and Pakistan will not only be self-sufficient in electricity but if India needed electricity then Pakistan will be able to provide surplus electricity to India.
Advisor to CM Punjab and Chairman PITB, Dr Umer Saif said that technology was creating jobs around the globe while incubators, Startups and freelancing co-working spaces were playing pivotal role in this regard. Pakistan being the third largest English speaking and 9th mobile user country, with 60% population comprising of youth in the world has vast potential to exercise technology in every field, he added.
Provincial Ministers Syed Raza Ali Gillani and Jehangir Khanzada also addressed the ceremony and highlighted the importance of e-Rozgaar program. During the first National freelancing convention which was participated by more than 500 applicants through competitive process of three rounds, finished with a technical interview for on the spot job offer hired 50 senior technical talents in a single day, generating jobs worth USD 5 Million per year to Pakistan's economy. Crossover has successfully tested this concept in Turkey, Russia, Romania, Poland and Ukraine.
Andy Tryba, Chief Executive Officer, Crossover in a message said that Crossover was planning to run more tournaments in Karachi and Islamabad based on Lahore experiment to hire over 200 senior software architects in Pakistan and bring an additional $20M/year worth of employment to Pakistan economy in 2017.
The successful candidates of Technical interview have been given full time / remote job offer paying worth $100,000/- per year. Crossover is also paying a winning bonus of $5000 to the champion of this tournament. Crossover (also known as Crossover for Work) not only connects companies to the best talent from around the world, but also provides a seamless end-to-end solution for remote team management. Crossover connects talent from around the globe with companies who are looking to hire only the best. Crossover has more than 1850+ people from 98 different countries working full time for its clients.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017