Information Technology Potential and Scope in Gilgit-Baltistan

 

Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), a rugged mountainous area with less employment opportunities for its youth and very distant from large cities where all the private sector organizations have its corporate offices, the youth of GB is suffering badly, and the province will soon face the issue of youth bulge – a high number of unemployed people. This not only will be a burden on the society, but it will also stress the limited fiscal resources, the province has. On the other hand, Pakistan is the fastest growing country in the world in freelance working and its youth have earner over $500 million US dollars in 2020.

To this backdrop, Karakoram International University, Gilgit under its vision for “meaningful contribution to sustainable development, promoting knowledge economies and pluralistic societies in the mountainous regions of Pakistan and geographically similar landscape elsewhere” is aiming to train 3000 youth (40% female and 60% male) on freelancing skills over the next three years. The project is aimed to economically empower youth to work online and earn their bread and butter from the Gig economy. This will also ease the pressure on the government for creating more jobs in the public sector.

The project will span over three years where KIU will train 1000 youth each year from all 10 districts of GB. A total number of 300 youth from each district will be trained under this program. We project 80% success of this program and expect that after the successful completion of the training, each individual will be able to earn on average PKR 30,000/- per month. This is a very conservative estimate as compared to the country’s average of PKR 52,000/- per month. Based on our projections, we are hopeful that upon 80% success, the youth of GB will be able to generate a revenue of PKR 864.000,000/- per year. The proposed budget for the project is PKR 15000 per person which makes a total of PKR 45,000,000/- for three years i.e. PKR 15,000,000/- per year.

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