909 students awarded scholarships under PM National ICT Scholarship

Islamabad: Total 909 aspirants across the country have been awarding scholarships of worth 1.1 billion Rs to chase 4 years ICT degree programmes in the top ranked universities of Pakistan under Prime Minister’s National ICT Scholarship Programme, since the year 2013.

Though, an amount of Rs 54.72 million has also been provided to 866 final year projects of undergraduate ICT students of government and private sector varsities since 2013 under National Grassroots ICT Research Initiative of Ministry of Information Technology.

As per the official sources, the Ministry of Information and Technology is also associated along with Microsoft for the establishment of computer laboratories in Bait-ul-Mal women empowerment centres for girls across the country where computer skills will be taught.

Under this Internship programme for the Information Technology graduates via ICT Research and Development Sponsorship and Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), almost 800 IT graduates as well as final year students have been placed as interns at various IT companies during the academic year 2013-2015.

The government will soon launch another similar internship programme for 3,000 ICT graduates. National ICT Research and development Fund of the ministry will sponsor internship cost of Rs 15,000 month for placement along with IT companies for time period of 6 months.

Moreover, Ministry of Information and Technology is also considering the establishment of over 500 purpose built Tele-centres in next two years via public private partnership with the industry through appropriate funding by USF.

The ministry will establish a purpose built ICT Incubator Centre in the Capital to transform the pioneering ideas of talented young teams into feasible and self-sustainable start-up companies by getting necessary training, mentorship as well as facilitation.