Staff Report
LAHORE: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced on Sunday a plan to establish a Saudi-Pakistan Tech House to further enhance cooperation between the two countries. Saudi Arabia’s startups attending Pakistan’s largest tech conference want future cooperation with Pakistan.
Future Fest 2023, a 3-day conference held in Lahore that ended on Sunday, was attended by around 50,000 participants, 200 exhibitors, and representatives of 500 startups from 30 countries, including a delegation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi-Pakistan Tech House
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Fahad bin Mansour Al-Saud announced in a virtual address during the conference a plan to establish a Saudi-Pakistan Tech House in order to promote greater ease of doing business between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Prince Fahad bin Mansour Al-Saud is the co-founder of the software development company ILSA Interactive, which was first set up in 2009 by Pakistani entrepreneur Salman Nasir, with offices in Lahore and Riyadh. The step was met with optimism at the event, as Saudi Arabia’s companies said it will assist link Pakistani talent to Saudi Arabia and create more and more opportunities for progress and development.
Abdulrahman Al-Yemni, logistics director at Salasa, an e-commerce logistics company in Saudi Arabia told Arab news that It is actually a great success that will connect the economies of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
He said that this initiative can assist Saudi businesses tap into the talent pool in the South Asian country, as workers from Pakistan are already contributing to the knowledge and structure of Saudi Arabia big time.
Tech House to open new doors
He added that they can use the human resources that Pakistan has to help them build an Information Technology infrastructure in the Kingdom.
Humayun Rashid, account manager at Saudi-based company Unifonic, added the talent in Pakistan was “amazing” and termed Pakistan as the “next tech destination.” He said that his company is really excited as the conference will be a positive wind for business.
Khalid Abou Kassem, CEO of tutoring marketplace AlGooru, said the fresh initiative would foster knowledge-sharing. He said that they can learn a lot from each other as the two markets are considered emerging. He further said that the Tech House will open new doors for cross-border opportunities between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
