Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and ITeS (PASHA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Aga Khan Economic Planning Board for Rawalpindi (AKEPB) on September 22 to launch Skillsprint, a joint program aimed at building digital skills development for the local community. The MoU was formally signed by Ali Hasani, Secretary General of PASHA, and Ahsan Ali of AKEPB, establishing a collaborative framework under which the two organizations will run the training program together. Pairing a national IT industry association with a community-focused development board gives the initiative a structure distinct from PASHA’s more typical university partnerships, aiming the programme instead at a specific local community network already established by AKEPB.
The signing ceremony was held at ITCN Asia in Karachi, one of Pakistan’s largest annual tech exhibitions, bringing the agreement into a setting where other PASHA partnerships and industry announcements have historically been unveiled. PASHA’s Central Executive Committee was represented at the signing by Nadia Iqbal, Mohammad Munaf Majeed, Usman Akbar, Syed Junaid Ahmad, Muhammad Zohaib Khan, M. Azam Mughal, and Shawana Iftikhar, alongside Syeda Safa H. and Kashoon Leeza representing the PASHA Secretariat. The scale of representation from PASHA’s leadership at the signing suggests the association is treating the Skillsprint partnership as more than a minor side initiative within its broader slate of industry-academia programmes.
Skillsprint is expected to run as a pilot training 150 students across two major cities, with the first cohort or phase anticipated to begin before the end of the year. This pilot-first approach, starting with a modest cohort size before considering any wider rollout, mirrors the structure PASHA and other industry bodies have used for similar skills initiatives in Pakistan, where smaller pilot programmes are typically used to test curriculum design and delivery logistics before committing to a larger scale expansion. The two-city scope also suggests AKEPB’s existing community network, centered around Rawalpindi, may define the initial geographic reach of the programme rather than an immediate nationwide rollout.
The partnership reflects PASHA’s continued commitment to building industry-aligned talent pipelines in collaboration with educational institutions across Pakistan, extending a pattern that has included previous agreements with universities like LUMS focused on skill development, job placement, and industry-driven curriculum design. Bringing AKEPB into this kind of arrangement for the first time adds a community development organization to PASHA’s existing roster of academic and governmental training partnerships, potentially opening a model that other community-based organizations outside the traditional university system could replicate going forward. Whether Skillsprint’s pilot phase, once launched before year-end, succeeds in building a model worth scaling to more cities will likely determine how PASHA approaches similar community-level digital skills partnerships in the future.
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