LAHORE: Saudi startups participating in Pakistan’s largest tech conference are eyeing future collaboration with the South Asian nation, after a plan to establish a joint technology house was announced during the event.
Future Fest 2023, a three-day expo held in Lahore that concluded on Sunday, was joined by around 50,000 participants, representatives of 500 startups and 200 exhibitors from more than 30 countries, including a delegation from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Fahad bin Mansour Al-Saud announced in a virtual address during the event a plan to set up a Saudi-Pakistan Tech House “to promote greater ease of doing business” between the two countries.
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Prince Fahad is the co-founder of the software development company ILSA Interactive, which was first established in 2009 by Pakistani entrepreneur Salman Nasir, with offices in Riyadh and Lahore.
The initiative was met with optimism at the festival, as Saudi companies said it will help link Pakistani talent to the Kingdom and create more opportunities for development.
“It’s actually a great achievement that will link the economies of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan,” Abdulrahman Al-Yemni, logistics director at Salasa, an e-commerce logistics company based in the Kingdom, told Arab News.
Al-Yemni said the initiative can help Saudi businesses tap into the talent pool in Pakistan, as workers from the country are already contributing “to the structure and knowledge of Saudi Arabia big time.”
He said: “We can use these human capital resources that Pakistan has to help us build an IT infrastructure in Saudi Arabia.”
Humayun Rashid, corporate account manager at Saudi-based cloud company Unifonic, said the talent in Pakistan was “amazing” and described the country as the “next tech destination.”
“We here at Unifonic are really excited,” Rashid said, adding that the initiative will be “a positive breeze for businesses.
“I’m looking forward (to it since) it will help businesses from both countries very positively and be a great opportunity for them to come together and grow as an industry.”
Mujtaba Ahmad, technical support manager of Tracking, a Saudi Arabia-based fleet management solutions company, was also looking forward to exploring the program’s potential.
“It will increase the trade between the two countries (and help them) to work on the technologies more efficiently to serve humanity.”
Khalid Abou Kassem, founder and CEO of tutoring marketplace AlGooru, said the initiative would also foster knowledge-sharing.
“We can learn a lot from each other. Both markets are considered emerging, so there are a lot of experiences that we can share with each other,” Kassem told Arab News.
“This agreement is going to open doors for cross-border opportunities between Saudi and Pakistan, which is something that excites us.”
