close
Thursday March 28, 2024

PSEB offers to help IT exports

By app
November 21, 2017
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) is out to help local information technology (IT) firms foray further into global markets in terms of greater recognition, deeper outreach, and higher exports, a top official said on Monday.
“It is imperative to promote indigenous mobile applications, gaming, animation, and other software at international level to increase the market revenue for Pakistani developers,” said Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, managing director PSEB in an exclusive talk with Associated Press of Pakistan (APP). “PSEB is determined to support all such companies for creating constructive and conceptual IT products.”
Shah said Pakistan has more than 2000 IT companies, out of which 110 are certified in quality standard such as ISO 9001 and ISO 27001, while 22 in Carnegie Mellon’s Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) standard. “More than 20 local companies have won gold or silver awards at APICTA in different categories including e-learning, e-health, e-government, security, supply chain management, communications, and financial applications,” he said adding it was a testament to the immense potential of Pakistan.
Shah, quoting IT and telecom minister Anusha Rehman, said the sector’s performance could be gauged from the fact that IT exports had registered a 98 percent growth over the past four years resulting in substantial contribution to Pakistan's economy through foreign exchange earnings and job creation. There are plenty of Pakistani IT companies like Mindstorm Studios, GameView Studios, Pepper PK, TkXeL’ etc, which are already working in international arena.
TkXel has created mobile applications and gaming companies from a university lab in Lahore, while Pepper PK made history by developing paid BlackBerry applications. On the other hand, Tintash has designed many innovative casual games for iPhone, iPad, and Android platforms.
Mobile games are not the only avenue, a number of companies have looked at broader educational and infotainment markets.
Folio3, judged as one of the Harvard Business School’s All-World Fast Growth 500 companies in 2010, has interesting products in its portfolio. It has been instrumental in creating an online educational platform for SecretBuilders, a company that boasts a virtual world for children 5 to 14 years old powered by a Web 2.0 community of children, parents, educators, writers, artists and game developers.
Pakistan has also produced some great gaming studios. The title animation sequence of “Game of Thrones”, the world’s most-watched TV series these days, has been produced by Hameed Shaukat, a US-born Pakistani. Cricket Companion application, which received worldwide recognition was also developed by TricastMedia, a Pakistani startup. Pakistani Visual Effects Artist, Mir Zafar Ali has received three Oscar awards for his work in “The Golden Compass”, “Life of Pi” and “Frozen.” Novaira Masood, a Pakistani animator, effects in some of the most popular Hollywood movies including “Maleficient”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Thor”, “Transformers 3”, and “Jack the Giant Slayer.”
Like Novaira Masood, Laraib Atta is another emerging visual artist from Pakistan who has worked on visual effects for popular Hollywood flicks such as “X-men”, “Godzilla”, and “Gravity” to name a few.