Pakistan has secured first position at the Cisco EMEA NetAcad Cup 2026, with the Special Communications Organization’s Software Technology Park Mirpur Cisco Networking Academy outcompeting more than 70 countries and 500 elite information technology academies from across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The competition tested advanced skills in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and industrial networking, with Pakistan’s students emerging at the very top of the international field.
The achievement is particularly significant given the geographic and institutional context from which it emerged. The SCO Software Technology Park in Mirpur, located in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, is part of an extensive network of information technology centres and software technology parks that PSEB has established in partnership with the Special Communications Organisation across AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan, including the region’s first dedicated Women’s Software Technology Park. The fact that students from this infrastructure, built specifically to extend digital opportunity to historically underserved regions of Pakistan, have now won a globally competitive technology championship underscores both the quality of training being delivered and the potential of Pakistan’s youth in areas that have long been outside the mainstream of the country’s technology sector.
PSEB, which has been a strategic partner of the Special Communications Organisation in driving this digital inclusion push, congratulated the instructors, students, and the entire SCO team on the victory, framing the result as confirmation of what recent global indices have already been indicating: that Pakistan’s talent availability and technical proficiency are now among the best in the world. The Ministry of IT and Telecommunication also highlighted the win as a demonstration of Pakistan’s emergence as a global digital powerhouse, noting that the country’s commitment to building technology infrastructure across every corner of the country, including its most remote regions, is producing world-class results on the international stage.
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