Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja will deliver the keynote address at Forum C of Margalla Dialogue 2026, which is titled Technology and the Transformation of State and Society. The session is scheduled for November 11 from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, and it is being organised by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) as part of the dialogue. The institute has shared the programme on its official LinkedIn page and has said that the forum can be watched live through an online link, so those who cannot attend in person can follow the discussion as it takes place.
The forum will be moderated by Siddique Humayun, Director Advocacy and Communications at IPRI. After the keynote of the minister, the panel will bring together speakers from Pakistan, the United States, Europe, Japan, and China, which gives the discussion a wide range of viewpoints on how technology is changing governments and communities. The session title points to the effect of digital tools and new technologies on the way states operate and on the relationship between institutions and citizens, a subject that has moved to the centre of policy discussions in many countries.
The speakers listed in the programme include Daniel Castro, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and Dr Ilaria Mariani, Assistant Professor at Politecnico University Milan. Akira Igata, Project Lecturer at the Economic Security Intelligence Lab of RCAST at the University of Tokyo, will also take part, along with Professor Li Xiguang, Director of the Pakistan Centre for Culture and Communication at Tsinghua University. From Pakistan, the panel includes Aamer Rana, Member of the Pakistan Digital Authority, and Brigadier Dr Raashid Wali Janjua SI(M), Director Research and Analysis at IPRI.
The mix of speakers brings together policy, academic, and research backgrounds, with representatives of a technology policy think tank, universities in Italy, Japan, and China, a digital regulator, and the host institute. The presence of the federal minister in charge of information technology and telecommunication at the opening of the session also gives the forum a link to the policy side of the subject in Pakistan. Details of the remarks that each participant will make have not been published in the announcement, so the discussion on November 11 will show how the panel approaches the theme of technology and the transformation of state and society.
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