The Ministry of IT & Telecommunications recently hosted a ceremony at the Faculty of Law, University of Turbat, to distribute stipends to the successful trainees of the Ignite-funded DigitalSkills Training & Support Program for Southern Balochistan.
The ceremony’s main guest of honour was Sadiq Iftikhar, Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunications. Dr. Abdul Malik Baloch, a former chief minister of Balochistan, and Lala Rasheed Dashti, a chief minister of Baluchistan’s advisor, were among the other notables that attended the event as guests of honour.
Speaking at the occasion, Sadiq Iftikhar expressed his delight at witnessing the dedication to study and education among so many young people in Balochistan. The State Minister emphasised the significance of uniting our efforts to develop IT education in this part of the country.
He also emphasised the importance of digital skills and the IT ministry’s role in the province’s effort to cultivate skilled labour. He praised the participants for finishing the training project in Balochistan and thanked Ignite, Virtual University, the Universities of Turbat, Gwadar, and BUET Khuzdar for their contributions.
Ignite’s CEO Asim Shahryar Husain introduced Ignite’s digiskills.pk programme, the largest online training programme for independent contractors in Pakistan, in a video greeting to attendees. Over the past four years, more than 3 million students have enrolled in 15 different freelancing courses through digiskills.pk, which is run by Ignite.
Freelancers taught by digiskills.pk are expected to make $290 million between 2021 and 2022, according to a third-party earnings analysis done last year.
He claims that due to connectivity issues in that area, the Ministry of IT, Ignite, and VU decided to begin classroom-based training in three Southern Balochistan districts—Turbat, Khuzdar, and Gwadar—in January of last year.
VU and Ignite set a goal of 5,000 enrollments, but after one year, they’ve reached 7,800 enrollments, demonstrating the program’s success. The fact that 33% of the students are female independent contractors speaks to their commitment to learning and independence.
He congratulated the freelancers who had benefited from the training and wished them luck in finding lucrative local and worldwide freelance work to support their families in the near future.
The freelancers who had successfully completed the digiskills trainings received stipends from the chief guest.
