Dr Umar Saif speaks at Harvard Business School USA

Lahore: Vice Chancellor Information Technology University Lahore and Chairman Punjab IT Board (PITB) Dr Umar Saif who is on visit to the USA, spoke to the faculty and students of the University of Washington and Harvard Business School last day.

Dr. Saif told the audiences how various ICT ventures had been devised by PITB and implemented in Punjab in order to enhance transparency, accountability and efficiency of the government businesses. It was stated by a spokesperson of the PITB through a press release issued on Friday.

Dr. Saif said that the Punjab was becoming role model for other provinces in using ICT tools for e-governance. He said “KPK and Baluchistan were adapting e-Vaccs program while Romania and Albania were replicating Punjab’s Citizen Feedback System devised by the PITB.

There are a number of success stories pertaining to Health, Education, Police, Revenue, Rescue and other sectors of Punjab for we have received applause from the President World Bank, the head of Department for International Development (DFID) UK, the US Ambassador and many more.

The PITB is working on more than 236 projects aiming at e-governance, transparency and efficiency enhancement”.

At the Harvard Business School Dr. Saif said that USA and Punjab Government might collaborate effectively in the field of entrepreneurship and start-up incubation as Punjab had set up and running the first start-up incubator of Pakistan named Plan9 that had incubated more than 66 business companies some of whom are active at global level.”

Dr. Saif told that PITB was establishing new incubators at the major educational intuitions across Pakistan. The audiences appreciated the talks and apprehended them a motive behind upcoming collaborations between both countries.

Earlier, Dr. Saif had addressed the audience at the Microsoft Headquarters, University of California, Berkeley and the Facebook headquarters. “He will participate in the Brown Bag Lunch arranged at the World Bank Headquarters and will visit the office of renown newspaper daily the New York Times in the morning on 6^th April while he will address the audiences gathered at the auditorium of New York University (NYU) same day afternoon.” Added the spokesperson