KARACHI: The Ministry of Information Technology & Telecommunications (MoIT), realizing the failure of National ICT R&D Fund, has decided to rebrand it by organizational transformation.
The MoIT is planning to realign the National ICT R&D Fund with the aim to make Pakistan a player in the knowledge economy by transforming the company into a Venture Capital fund focused on fourth industrial wave technologies and by addressing gaps in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
National ICT R&D Fund has been incorporated by the MoIT, Government of Pakistan. The company is mandated to fund research and development in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) with the vision to transform Pakistan’s economy into knowledge based economy by promoting efficient, sustainable and effective ICT initiatives through synergic development of industrial and academic resources.
The Company was established in 2006 by the federal government, to help create a knowledge economy through innovation and research commercialization. The MoIT said that over the last decade, while the National ICT R&D Fund has funded over a hundred projects, the direct impact on the economy has been minimal. Almost always, when the funding ended the project ended as academic researchers moved on to other funded projects. Therefore, the board has directed the company to focus on commercialization and impact of funded projects and to function more like a Venture Capital (VC) Fund, which will continue to provide grants, but with an emphasis on impact of funded projects.
“The Company now believes that a critical driver of the knowledge economy is a robust start up ecosystem which will set the pace for a holistic national transformation”. The current governing/policy/operational documents were developed in 2006 and need to be updated in order to embrace the demands of the new technology paradigm, MoIT added.
The National ICT R&D Fund intends to solicit services of a firm with the requisite competency and experience to update all its governing policy/operational documents in a manner that lays the framework for the company to transform as the principal driver of the knowledge economy in the country. The assignment also includes the formulation and draft of company’s HR manual, which till-date has not been developed.
