Asia-Pacific’s first smart village set up

Initiative will empower rural communities with access to digital services

ISLAMABAD:

Smart Village Pakistan (SVP), the first-of-its-kind project in Asia-Pacific, will digitally transform remote and rural communities through the provision of internet connectivity and empower them with access to a range of digital services to improve their quality of life and wellbeing, remarked Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Syed Aminul Haque.

“In line with the government’s Digital Pakistan vision and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it gives me great pleasure to announce that Pakistan is the first country that has established a smart village in the Asia-Pacific region,” the minister said at the inauguration of Gokina Smart Village project on Wednesday.

This pilot project comes under the umbrella of SVP, a nationwide initiative launched by the IT and telecom ministry in 2021 together with the Universal Service Fund (USF), International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Huawei that ensures that digital strategies benefit the rural communities.

Appreciating the efforts of USF, ITU and Huawei, Haque stressed that it was anticipated that pilot projects and the smart village initiative would help overcome key challenges that people in rural areas were facing.

“SVP projects will be initiated in all provinces very soon,” he announced, adding that people in far-flung areas were encountering different challenges such as limited access to healthcare, education, financial and digital services, lack of employment and income creation opportunities, digital literacy and gender gaps, and rural-urban divide exacerbated by an uneven technology proliferation.

Highlighting details of Gokina Smart Village, the IT minister said that education, healthcare and digital skills and entrepreneurship were identified as three priority areas through a need assessment study in Gokina, a valley located 21 kilometres from Islamabad.

It was found that though Gokina village had a high school for boys and girls, there were no science teachers, particularly in girls’ school, that was depriving students of true knowledge.

Similarly, the medical centre in the village is offering only limited services. Besides, there is a clear need and demand for digital skills enhancement and entrepreneurship whereby community members can utilise a hybrid model of digital as well as non-digital tools to become entrepreneurs in the identified areas.

These include fashion designing, stitching, handicrafts and other home businesses for women, modern agricultural skills, chef training for youth, product marketing and access to finance.

“After the success of Mobile NADRA, we are excited to launch the NADRA Motorcycle services, starting from Gokina Smart Village. It will soon be initiated all over Pakistan,” National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Chairman Tariq Malik said on the occasion.

USF CEO Haaris Mahmood Chaudhary observed that Gokina Smart Village “is an exemplary model of how we envision the future of digital inclusivity in Pakistan. We look forward to transformative collaborations with our partners ITU, Huawei, NADRA and Jazz as well as service providers TeleTaleem and Sehat Kahani to have a significant impact on lives of people”.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2023.

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