Pakistan Among Top Favorites For Outsourcing

Pakistan ranks number 3, after US (#1) and India (#2), in terms of freelancers doing outsourced IT work on contract. Bangladesh ranks fourth, according to data from four biggest online outsourcing sites:  Elance.com, oDesk.com, Freelancer.com, and Guru.com.

The data also shows that US, Australia and the UK as the top hiring countries. All four websites work in a similar way: First, companies post job requirements on these sites. Next, freelancers or IT-companies offer their bids with skills and cost for the project listed on the website. Finally, the company chooses the best bid meeting its job requirements.


Recently, Freelacers.com, one of the top four online marketplaces, said there are 240,000 freelance Pakistanis registered as providers on its website.


With more than 30 million internet subscribers, five million plus broadband users and a population nearing 200 million, according to Freelancer executive Adam Byrnes, it makes sense to have a presence in Pakistan.
“Going forward, we want to provide self-employment for a billion people, a significant portion of that is going to come from Pakistan,” he told Express Tribune.

In addition to having a large population, Pakistan has seen its human capital grow significantly over the last decade.  With nearly 16% of its population in 25-34 years age group having college degrees, Pakistan is well ahead of India and Indonesia, according to Global Education Digest 2009 published by UNESCO Institute of Statistics. UNESCO data also shows that Pakistan's lead is growing with younger age groups.

Faster economic growth requires BOTH skilled manpower and investment of dollars as Pakistanis saw during Musharraf years. Regardless, the growth of human capital is a good thing to build a foundation for Pakistan's future. It'll contribute to economic growth when the security situation improves and FDI returns to Pakistan. The country's large diaspora too will be helpful in accelerating Pakistan's growth and development with money and skills. 

Related Links:

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Upwardly Mobile Pakistan

Pakistan Among Top Outsourcing Destinations

Pakistan's IT Industry

Pakistan's Software Prodigy

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India & Pakistan Comparison Update 2011

India and Pakistan Contrasted in 2010
 
Eating Grass-The Making of Pakistani Bomb
 
Educational Attainment Dataset By Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee

Quality of Higher Education in India and Pakistan

Developing Pakistan's Intellectual Capital

Intellectual Wealth of Nations

Pakistan's Story After 64 Years of Independence

Pakistan Ahead of India on Key Human Development Indices

Comments

Riaz Haq said…
It takes a basic critical mass of enabling technologies, processes and participants before such tech-based businesses achieve explosive growth.

In this case, Internet access, especially broadband, is a relatively new phenomenon in Pakistan. I expect to see online freelance markets' accelerated growth with increasing broadband access in Pakistan.


In addition to the Elance (founded in 1999) figures of $170 million total and $40 million to Pakistanis, Express Tribune says Freelancers (founded in 2004) has paid $150 million to its freelancers, including $13 to Pakistanis, according to Express Tribune.

https://www.elance.com/trends/talent-available/geo#GeoRanking

http://tribune.com.pk/story/516239/pakistan-3rd-highest-user-of-freelancer-as-self-employment-rises/
Riaz Haq said…
Here's a Wired.com report on Karachi Hackathon:

Sabeen Mahmud has short-cropped hair and rectangular glasses; she’d fit right in hunched over a laptop at Philz or behind the counter at one of Apple’s Genius Bars. Her resume matches her style. She’s founded a small tech company, opened a hip coffee shop and organized a successful hackathon. But Mahmud doesn’t hail from the Bay – she lives in Karachi, a city more closely associated with extreme violence then entrepreneurs.

“Fear is just a line in your head,” Mahmud says. “You can choose what side of that line you want to be on.”

Mahmud represents something new in this ancient city. Mahmud “fell in passionately in love” with the first Mac she saw, teaching herself MacPaint and MacDraw in college in 1992, and devoting countless hours to Tetris. In 2006, Mahmud decided Karachi was sorely missing a space where people could gather around shared interests, an interdisciplinary space for collaboration and brainstorming. Despite the fact that in Pakistan, many women are not allowed to finish primary school, much less graduate from college and start their own company, she decided to start The Second Floor café, not letting the fact that she didn’t have any money or experience faze her. “I was living with my mother and my grandmother at the time,” she says, laughing. “I had done zero market research. I just hoped people would show up.”

People slowly have. The Second Floor now hosts four events a week, from poetry writings to live theater performances to forums on critical issues. Last month,the café hosted Pakistan’s first hackathon, a weekend-long event with nine teams focusing on solutions to civic problems in Pakistan ahead of last Saturday’s national election. “People are very disillusioned with mainstream politics right now,” Mahmud says. “We wanted to come up with a way to put that energy to use.”
-------
Starting with 30 high-level problem areas, they whittled it down to nine specific issues that could be solved with concrete apps. “Not a single soul questioned that these problems could not be solved,” Ahmed says. “It was all a matter of selecting the right approach.”..


http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/pakistans-first-hackathon/
Riaz Haq said…
Here's a story of a Pakistani woman entrepreneur:

.. Before becoming an entrepreneur, (Maria) Umar was a full-time teacher. She quit after her job refused her maternity leave and subsequently began writing for a woman she found through Rozee.pk, Pakistan's premiere job portal. The money was good — almost double what she made as a teacher — but when Umar discovered her employer's oDesk profile, she realized she could make even more money by contracting with clients directly.

She set up her own oDesk account and began taking on extra jobs and outsourcing them. At first she gave the jobs to her nieces, then to their friends, and eventually to their classmates, until she realized that she had developed a small content-creation business.

Today, this company is called The Women's Digital League, an IT-solution company that trains rural Pakistani women in micro online tasks, from ghost-writing to social media management.

Ovidiu Bujorean is the Senior Manager of the GIST Initiative, which supports entrepreneurship in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. He met Umar after she won a GIST business plan competition, and recognized her ability immediately. "She is extremely passionate and persistent," he says of Umar. "She’s also very committed to her mission of helping female entrepreneurs find job opportunities...


http://mashable.com/2013/06/29/pakistan-woman-entrepreneur-2/
Riaz Haq said…
Here's a Texas TV reporters' story on visit with some high-tech Pak graduates of UT Austin in Lahore:

LAHORE, Pakistan (KXAN) - It was a beautiful late winter day in Pakistan. The Zacky Farms outside of Lahore was busy with visitors taking advantage of the national holiday to visit the countryside.

Kids squealed with delight as they clambered onto the back of a hay truck offering free rides in front of the farm. Just inside the white washed front gates framed by butter-cream yellow walls accented with ceramic mosaics in shades of blue, tables were set for an outdoor feast.

Our delegation of was visiting Zacky Farms to learn about the sustainable agriculture trends becoming popular in Pakistan. Zacky was a model for turning biogas into power the growing operation that produces organic dairy products, vegetables, and wheat along with free range chickens.

Here, cutting-edge science and technology were being used to rethink how farms are run. I guess it should have come as no surprise I’d run into University of Texas Longhorns using their knowledge and expertise to plant the seeds for a stronger workforce to power Pakistan’s emerging tech industry.

Longhorns in Lahore

“We have really high-powered engineering teams here in Lahore,” said Abbas Yousafzai, CEO of Conrad Labs. a Lahore company specializing in engineering and development support for high tech start-up companies.

Conrad launched in 2009 as the research and development arm for Conformity -- now known as Iron Stratus -- an identity management and internet based single-sign-on startup in Austin.

Yousafzai, a University of Texas at Austin graduate with more than a decade of experience launching successful startups in Austin and California’s Silicon Valley says returning to his native Pakistan was a strategic that allows his company access to a vast network of untapped talent.

“The dedication the intelligence, the amount of talent here, commitment experience, it’s fantastic. You can’t find that anywhere else,” Yousafzai said.

Babar Ahmed, a fellow Longhorn, and CEO of Mindstorm Studios agreed.

“There are a lot of these pockets of brilliance that really come to life in Pakistan that just do these amazing things,” Ahmed said pointing to his company’s success creating games like Mafia Farm, Whacksy Taxi and Cricket Revolution for mobile devices and PCs as proof.

“Our games have hit No. 1 n the United States sitting in Lahore.” said Ahmed. "We did it all out of a room on our own.”

Mindstorm developers also created Cricket Power, The Official Game of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup. A high-profile coup that validated what some saw as Ahmed’s risky decision to leave a successful career in the United States to launch a business in Pakistan in 2006.

“If you were to say: ‘Hey, how is it coming back to Pakistan is it all a bed of roses?’ Of course it’s not,” admitted Ahmed, who believes the challenges are worth the reward not only for his company but the growing software, gaming, and animation community in Pakistan.

“Giving people that opportunity, to provide them that chance to try and compete and succeed globally that’s really fulfilling,” he added with a wide smile....


http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/austin-to-pakistan-the-tech-connection
Riaz Haq said…
Here's an AFP report on growth of computer games development in Pakistan:

LAHORE: It's a city better known for its history and culture, but a new generation of mobile game developers is bringing a slice of Silicon Valley to Pakistan's Lahore.

With open plan offices, mixed gender teams, gourmet catering and an emphasis on a fun atmosphere, the small but growing IT industry worth an estimated $2.8 billion is being led by young entrepreneurs like Babar Ahmed.

Ahmed, 33, left a career as a circuit engineer in Austin, Texas to found Mindstorm Studios in the eastern Pakistani city in 2006 with his brother Faraz.

Today their studio employs 47 people thanks to hits like 2010's “Whacksy Taxi”, which shot to number one on Apple's AppStore in over 25 countries; “Mafia Farm” in 2012 and “Cricket Power”, the official game of the 2011 World Cup.

“The idea was to put Pakistan on the gaming world,” said Ahmed, explaining he was tired of “drawing room talk” among expatriates in the US about how something should be done for their homeland.

Smartphone revolution

Mindstorm is one of several games development studios in Pakistan — mainly based in Lahore but also in the capital Islamabad and Karachi — to have prospered with the spread of the smartphone.

“After the iPhone was launched, the definition of what a game is changed overnight. The definition of what a gamer is changed overnight,” said Ahmed.

While traditional “hardcore” games — typically played on home console systems or PCs — need multi-million dollar budgets and teams of dozens of developers, games designed for smartphones need far less start-up capital.

That has allowed countries in eastern Europe, Pakistan, and the Philippines to become prime destinations for software outsourcing, said Jazib Zahir, chief operations officer at Tintash, another Lahore-based studio that provided the back-office for “Fishing Frenzy”, another top-ten hit.

According to the government, some 24,000 people are now employed in software exports — though the figure also includes more traditional areas like financial software and healthcare.

“One of the advantages that Pakistan brings is we do have a critical mass of people with training and aptitude, an interest in developing software and art and combining them,” adds Zahir, who is also a part-time tech journalist.

Breaking boundaries

At We R Play, an Islamabad-based studio based in a converted warehouse on the outskirts of the city, rows of twentysomethings busy themselves on their computers surrounded by colourful posters, plush toys and action figures.

The company was founded in 2010 by Mohsin Ali Afzal and Waqar Azim, with a major emphasis placed on a modern office space.

“We were sure from when we started that we didn't want cubicles and I wouldn't have a big office,” said Afzal, who returned from UC Berkeley in 2010.

“We wanted to make sure we're sitting with everyone. We encouraged everyone to take ownership of their spaces and gave them (money) to get stuff for their tables.”

Workspace and play is also seen as key at CaramelTech, a Lahore studio founded in 2011 by brothers Saad and Ammar Zaeem which is responsible for coding global 2011 mega-hit Fruit Ninja (which had over 500 million downloads) for an Australian studio.

The office has a designated play room complete with pool table, table football, and X-box.

“Every day at 4 pm they're forced to leave their work and go play upstairs.

We want that culture where people aren't only working but also enjoy themselves,” he said.

Also notable in the games studios is near gender-parity, a striking fact in a country where female participation in the workforce has lagged behind for decades.

People are dressed in everything from Western jeans and t-shirts to hijabs.

For some, convincing their family they are working in a “real job” wasn't easy....


http://www.dawn.com/news/1091602/gaming-industry-breaks-culture-barriers
Riaz Haq said…
With the global mobile applications (apps) market expected to be worth $25 billion by 2015 — according to a report published by MarketsandMarkets, a global market research and consulting company — everyone, from independent developers and software houses to telecommunication (telecoms) giants, is hard at work to secure their share of the fully-baked pie.
Amid growing demand and increasing competition, many are chasing high-margin outsourcing contracts in developing countries such Pakistan. With an abundance of skilled but cheap labour to offer, the country is rapidly emerging as one of the leading IT outsourcing destinations of the world.
Although mobile apps have been around since the late 90s, the increasing penetration of smartphones in the country — nearly seven to eight million smartphones according to a recent research conducted by a local telecom for its marketing strategy — has made their presence felt more deeply. “The number of smartphones has exceeded the number of computers in the country and this change has come about in the past five years,” says Asad Memon, director operations at Creative Chaos, a high-end custom software development company in Karachi with over 14 years of experience.
It is also the burgeoning utility of smartphones — surpassing that of laptops — which has accounted for the explosive growth of mobile apps. For example, the smartphone’s additional features, such as the orientation sensor (built-in compass) and cell phone triangulation (which collects data to trace the approximate location of a cell phone), assist most apps, including Google maps, to do ingenious things. “The utility of these apps has started making a lot of sense to people,” he highlights, adding that even niche brands have capitalised on the feature to directly reach out to target audiences by advertising through mobile apps. As a result, it has attracted more developers into the technology ecosystem to meet the growing demand.

Asad Memon, director operations at Creative Chaos, traces the trajectory of the mobile apps industry. PHOTO: ARIF SOOMRO
A popular outsourcing destination
When it comes to the global market, Pakistan plays its part as a mobile app developer. “Gora sochta hai, desi karta hai,” says Memon, summarising how foreign clients conceptualise the app and leave Pakistani developers to simply follow directions. Since the average rate charged by an iPhone app developer in the US ranges between $50 and $60 per hour, or more, depending on the brand and the complexity of the app, a cheaper solution is to outsource it to countries that quote the lowest price. Despite India being a much cheaper alternative, their issues with quality-control make Pakistan the next best alternative. “What sets Pakistan apart is the costing and the relationship of trust that has been established by delivering quality apps on time, depending on the company [developing the app],” says Memon. A basic app developed by a local software house can cost anywhere between Rs400,000 to Rs10 million, while the more sophisticated ones can go up to Rs20 million, depending on the company’s profile. Time difference is an additional advantage for Pakistan. “By the time we wake up, we are ready to incorporate changes based on the feedback we get,” he says. In certain cases, a team of 140 developers is dedicated to look after a single foreign client.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/786759/mobile-applications-a-test-of-apptitude/
Riaz Haq said…
#Pakistan IT industry climbing up to no 3 to grab world attention with its freelancers http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/OldNewsPage/?Id=6771&Pakistan%2FClimbs%2FUp%2FIT%2FLadder%2C%2FCatches%2FGlobal%2FAttention …

Pakistan’s tiny IT sector is carving out a niche for itself -- so much so that it has been the subject of several stories in international publications such as the New York Times, the Global Post, Al Jazeera, to name a few. Perhaps the interest is because of the obvious potential of the industry: There are now 1,500 registered IT companies in Pakistan, and 10,000 IT grads enter the market every year.

Perhaps even more significantly, the democratisation of demand as facilitated by the internet-era, has enabled Pakistan to climb up market ranks to become the No. 3 country for supplying freelance programmers, behind only the United States and India, and up from No. 5 just two years ago. This is because programmers in Pakistan can easily sign up to platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr, where the person hiring them is less interested in their location and more concerned with their skill. Because the programmer in Pakistan is using a third party platform, logistical, bureaucratic and other constraints that are typically associated with Pakistan, including corruption, do not apply.

As reported by The New York Times, Pakistan ranks in the upper 10 to 25 percent on Upwork’s listing of growth rates for top-earning countries, alongside India, Canada and Ukraine. Pakistan’s freelance programmers already account for $850 million of the country’s software exports; that number could go up to $1 billion in the next several months, says Umar Saif, who heads the Punjab IT Board and previously taught and did research work at M.I.T.

As reported by the Global Post, Pakistan’s software export industry employs some 24,000 people, according to government figures. Most companies in Pakistan’s IT sector — including mobile game studios — are growing at more than 30 percent a year, says Pakistan’s software industry trade body, P@SHA.

With success come challenges, and Pakistan’s nascent IT industry faced its first such challenge last May, when news broke that Axact, one of Pakistan’s largest IT companies, was operating as a fake degree mill. Authorities acted fast, arrested Axact’s chief within days, though the controversy did lead many to comment on whether the country’s IT industry stood a chance in the long-term.

That question was answered almost immediately, when just three days after the Axact controversy, Naseeb Networks International, a Lahore-based company that runs the online job marketplace Rozee.pk, announced that it had won a third round of investments worth $6.5 million, from the European investment firms Vostok Nafta and Piton Capital. The latest round of funding brought the company’s total venture capital funding to $8.5 million.

Or take the example of Caramel Tech Studios, a Pakistan-based mobile game startup that created the sensation “Fruit Ninja” for an Australian developer. Another such startup in Pakistan is Mindstorm Studios, maker of “Whacksy Taxi,” a racing game that topped Apple’s App Store in more than 25 countries.

And while constraints such as bureaucracy, shortage of land/space for offices, power shortages, et cetera remain a challenge, they are offset by positives, most importantly cost. “If we have a million dollars in the bank ... in the US we might only be able to make one and a half games, whereas here we might be able to make 10 games,” Saad Zaeem of Caramel Tech Studios told The Global Post, adding that graduates here are as qualified as Western ones and cost a lot less to employ, giving software startups a competitive advantage over high-wage Western countries.

Further, the rise of the mobile software market has been a huge gamechanger. “Prior to the iPhone …
Riaz Haq said…
Online #freelancing grows in #Pakistan, earnings reach $1b in 2016. #InfoTech #Software
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1379351/online-freelancing-grows-pakistan-earnings-reach-1b/


the Punjab IT Board chairman quoted a conservative figure of 150,000 Pakistani freelancers, earning combined revenue of roughly $1 billion. This fairly high number is despite the fact that so far the phenomenon of online freelancing in Pakistan has grown without any significant government support.
Riaz Haq said…
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE > BUSINESS
Pakistan’s freelancing industry is thriving

By Parvez IftikharPublished: October 30, 2017

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1544773/2-export-earnings-pakistans-freelancing-industry-thriving/

Minister of State for IT Anusha Rehman, together with Ignite CEO Yusuf Hussain, recently announced the ‘DigiSkills’ Program that “would help the youth of the country to earn a reasonable livelihood as freelancers”.

The country-wide programme to train a million freelancers is ambitious and challenging. A somewhat similar endeavour, called ‘eRozgar’, was launched by Punjab IT Board Chairman Dr Umar Saif earlier this year.

The PITB had announced that it would be running a co-working space to train 10,000 young women and men with the help of experienced freelancers in different parts of Punjab. The MoIT’s programme is much larger in scope covering the entire country, albeit with an online, rather than physical, delivery mechanism. Both, however, appear to be great initiatives.

The biggest freelancing website (Freelancer.com) ranks Pakistan as the 3rd largest country internationally in terms of user numbers. As informed by Helma Kasuma of Freelancer.com, out of 25 million registered users, nearly a million are from Pakistan.

UpWork.com regretted that they do not show their total numbers breakdown by country. But in 2015, a report released by them stated that Pakistan was the 5th biggest country in terms of user numbers, with the US in first place followed by India. Predominantly, employers who hire Pakistani freelancers are based abroad, mostly in USA, UK, and Australia. Thus, freelancing contributes to “export-earnings”. According to some, freelancers from Pakistan earn close to a billion dollars in a year. However, one must hasten to add that this is not based on any proper study or research. Perhaps, the Ministry of IT should embark upon one.


But all these “successes” have so far been achieved without freelancing being recognised as a profession. Enterprising Pakistani young men and women have been doing wonders exclusively on their own – without any opportunities to get trained, or even formally learn from each other.

In order to provide employment to many more Pakistanis, and to increase their earnings, there are numerous important skills that need to be taught (including soft skills like better English). This is where schemes like DigiSkills and eRozgar come in. One hopes that these initiatives will help turn millions of educated countrymen into productive individuals.
Riaz Haq said…
#Pakistan PM Abbasi inaugurates Digi Skills program for #ICT #training of youth. #digital #technology

https://www.geo.tv/latest/179759-pm-abbasi-inaugurates-digi-skills-program-for-ict-training-of-youth

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi inaugurated the Digi Skills programme on Thursday, aimed at imparting ICT training to one million youth through online modules.

Addressing the ceremony, the Prime Minister said the present government has delivered in many fields by building motorways, ports, airports and power plants but the advancement in information technology sector is its most important contribution in the last five years.

The premier said that the Digi Skills programme will equip youth to get online jobs and earn money in a non-traditional manner. He said that he has full faith in the youth of the country and expressed confidence that women in particular will lead in e-commerce and digital skills.

The world is changing fast due to a revolution in information technology, he noted, adding that it is the government's responsibility to fully facilitate the private sector to take initiative and lead the way.

He said that the government on its part remains committed to ensuring availability of broadband in every inch of the country.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunications Anusha Rehman hailed the Digi Skills program as an important step forward in the sector. She said the program will create online employment opportunities to enable youth to earn 200 to 300 dollars per month.

She further pointed out that Pakistan is emerging as an IT leader in the world, and with the help of this program, youth from across the country will be providing their services to the entire world.
Riaz Haq said…
Pakistan gig economy growth is the fastest in Asia and the 4th fastest in the world.


Pakistan gig economy growth of 47% is the world's 4th fastest after US (78%), UK (59%) and Brazil (48%).

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/07/the-10-countries-with-the-fastest-growing-earnings-for-freelancers.html

Technology has made it easier than ever for individuals to boost their earnings with profitable side-gigs. And while U.S. workers of all ages are reaping the greatest rewards, young freelancers across Asia are quickly getting in on the act.

That’s according to a new report from digital payments platform Payoneer, which has highlighted the world’s fastest-growing freelance markets and how they’re reshaping the nature of work.

America’s gig economy saw the greatest growth in 2019, with freelancer earnings up 78% year-on-year, according to the Global Gig-Economy Index released Tuesday. The study draws on data from more than 300,000 freelance workers within Payoneer’s network.

The world’s largest economy was followed by the U.K. and Brazil, which each saw a jump in gig worker earnings over the past year, up 59% and 48%, respectively. However, it was Asia that recorded the greatest regional growth, with earnings up 138% across four countries.

That charge was led by Pakistan, which saw a 47% increase in freelancer revenues in the past year. It was joined in the top 10 by Philippines, India and Bangladesh.

Here’s the top 10 list of freelance markets in 2019 based on year-on-year revenue growth.

Top 10 countries for freelancers
1. United States - 78%

2. United Kingdom - 59%

3. Brazil - 48%

4. Pakistan - 47%

5. Ukraine - 36%

6. Philippines - 35%

7. India - 29%

8. Bangladesh - 27%

9. Russia - 20%

10. Serbia - 19%

A shifting workforce
The boost in revenues over the past year is due in part to improved perceptions over the viability of such freelance work, according to Iain McNicoll, vice president and regional head for the Americas at Payoneer.

“We’re seeing more and more professionals leaving their jobs to join the gig economy,” said McNicoll.

“Whether it’s the flexible hours, the absence of a manager looking over your shoulder or the desire to build up your own business, workers don’t feel the need to be tied to their offices anymore.”

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