IT companies striving to tap into new frontiers

Plan to offer services in areas of NFTs, metaverse and Web3

KARACHI:

Pakistani companies are endeavouring to offer services in new areas of the internet such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), metaverse and Web3. Systems Limited (SYS), an IT export company, in a recent corporate briefing apprised participants that it had constituted a research team of highly skilled professionals to explore opportunities in NFTs, metaverse and Web3.

“They are exploring these new areas that have opened up recently,” JS Global ICT analyst Waqas Ghani Kukaswadia told The Express Tribune. “SYS through the provision of training to IT experts and non-IT graduates is playing an active role in the development of an ecosystem. The group plans to leverage on a young, tech-savvy population,” he added. “An NFT is a digital asset that binds ownership to a unique item, like a piece of art, real estate, music or movie,” explained SI Global Solutions CEO Noman Ahmed Said.

“NFTs are heralded as collectibles and can be bought and sold over the internet. They primarily serve as a digital evidence of possession of a specific object. NFTs are built on blockchain technology, which is the same technology behind cryptocurrencies and guarantees the uniqueness of each asset. It’s also incredibly difficult to change or counterfeit NFTs because of the way they’re built,” he added. SYS recently announced its financial results for first nine months of calendar year 2022, wherein the company posted a consolidated profit of Rs5.116 billion, up 97% year-on-year.

In the third quarter alone, the company posted a revenue growth of 118% year-on-year, whereas in dollar terms, the revenue grew 60%. Around 750 new IT professionals joined SYS during the nine months, bringing the total number of employees to 6,024. In addition, the average annual revenue contribution per employee stood at $30,000. “Metaverse, on the other hand, is a term that is often synonymous in any discussion involving NFTs.

Metaverse alludes to a technological future, which is dubbed Web3,” said Ahmed. Metaverse is widely regarded as the internet’s next frontier, with the IT industry and other technology giants seeing this as an opportunity for major economic and financial turnovers, he noted. “It is thus incredibly promising to see local institutions exploring and expanding their operations in these fields. Pakistan definitely has cause for celebration in the tech sector but the infrastructure and technology required to house and manage an operation of this nature is something I fear Pakistan lacks, which will consequently restrict imports,”

Ahmed pointed out. NFTs can broaden the reach of metaverse to be employed as a currency that could be used to buy and sell virtual items and get exclusive access. NFTs, like usernames and wallet addresses, are becoming the underlying technology to secure assets in metaverse, he commented.