Pakistan IT Industry Association (P@SHA), in collaboration with its partners, will host a programme titled Digital Exports Economy in Gilgit-Baltistan: Mapping Talent and Ecosystem Development on 3 November 2026, according to a post on its LinkedIn page. The programme has two sessions. Part I is titled From Skills to Opportunities: Building GB’s Digital Workforce, and Part II is titled Regional Challenges Facing the IT and Digital Sector in Gilgit-Baltistan. P@SHA says the aim is to bring together key stakeholders to discuss the region’s digital potential, talent development, and industry challenges. The post names the British Council, the National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC), and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) as partners, but it does not give the venue, the time, the speakers, or whether the sessions will be held in person or online.
The programme follows P@SHA’s recent work on the region. The association presented its Gilgit-Baltistan IT and IT-enabled Services (ITeS) Sector Diagnostic Report to the Secretary IT of Gilgit-Baltistan and proposed a master plan for the digital economy that covers connectivity, infrastructure, workforce readiness, and market access. That report, released in November 2025, estimated that the region’s IT and ITeS sector earns between $15 million and $18 million a year, with about 120 active companies earning roughly $3.5 million and an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 freelancers earning most of the remainder, according to coverage by Business Recorder and ProPakistani. Most firms in the region are small, and many professionals work as freelancers or gig workers serving foreign clients through online platforms.
The two sessions map onto the main findings of that report. The first, on skills, deals with the gap between GB’s high literacy rate and its shortage of advanced IT skills and mentorship, which the report identified as a constraint on growth. Freelancing has grown there through short certification courses in areas such as web development, mobile app development, and digital marketing, delivered with local training institutes, and NAVTTC’s involvement points to a role for vocational training. The second session addresses regional challenges, where the report found that nearly 88 percent of companies reported disruptions from power outages and that unstable broadband affects daily work. Those problems have led the GB Software Houses Association to appeal for stable electricity and internet, and stakeholders have proposed measures such as an IT special economic zone to attract investment.
GIZ and the British Council have both supported skills and enterprise programmes in Pakistan, and their participation suggests that development partners see GB’s digital economy as an area for investment. The announcement does not say whether the partners will present new funding or programmes at the event, or what outcomes the organisers expect from the discussions. For GB’s freelancers and small IT firms, the practical questions are how training can be matched to what international clients want, how to reach larger markets, and how to fix the power and connectivity problems that interrupt work. P@SHA has not said whether recommendations from the programme will feed into the master plan it has proposed to the GB government, so the follow-up to the sessions remains to be announced.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
