Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has constituted a high powered 22-member committee to adopt Web 3.0 in the province
LAHORE (Pakistan Point News - 13 OCT, 2022) Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has constituted a high powered 22-member committee to adopt Web 3.0 in the province. Punjab Finance Minister Mohsin Leghari will be the Convener whereas Punjab IT Minister Dr Arslan Khalid will be the Co-Convener of the committee.
While elaborating the initiative, Dr Arslan Khalid said, “Under Web 3.0, we want to find avenues in ‘new economy’, ‘tech R&D’ and create a pool of new talent that can be part of the Web 3 ecosystem.”
The minister stated that the committee will engage with relevant global stakeholders and establish their R&D Centers and Innovation Labs in Punjab. In this regard, the committee will give its recommendations and propose specific actions to be taken by the government.
“The committee will deliberate in detail by engaging a range of stakeholders from industry, academia and govt. to arrive at a robust roadmap and concrete action items for the adoption of Web 3.0 ecosystem in the province,” he added.
As per the notification issued by the Chief Minister Office, the members of the committee will also propose action items to explore other areas of Web 3.0 like Metaverse as well as Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) and suggest concrete actions for implementation. Additionally, the committee will also be responsible for suggesting measures to create an enabling environment taking into account the legal, financial and regulatory frameworks of Pakistan.
The members of the committee will also study the global best practices being adopted by different countries on these subjects including but not limited to UK, USA, China, and Japan etc. The committee will also suggest the implementation R&D regime in the context.
The committee will also study all aspects of crypto-currencies, virtual currencies, NFTs & Metaverse pertaining to its pros and cons; legal, operational and taxation issues; implications, adoption in reference to trading, mining, legal provisions and all other related issues.
The PITB Headquarters at Arfa Software Technology Park (ASTP) will provide logistic and secretarial support to the committee.
The committee comprises of Secretary Law & PA, PITB chairman, P@SHA chairman, Policy and Domain Expert Dr Hussain Nadim, ICT Industry Experts including Anooshay Shaigan, Sabina Zafar, Badar Khushnood and Faisal Chaudhry. The other members of the committee include NetSol CEO Salim Ghauri, Systems CEO Asif Pir, Techlogix CEO Salman Akhtar, STEPS CEO Umar Farooq, ITU VC Dr Sarfraz Khurshid, representatives from SBP, NBP, BOP, FBR, SECP and PITB DG e-Governance Sajid Latif. The committee will submit the report within four weeks after the issuance of the notification.
