By Taimoor Hassan
P
akistan is having a startup boom, and most of these startups are based on and using technology to try and bring about their respective disruption. Other than innovation and ideas, what is the one thing that drives this growth and these startups? It is talent. Talented people capable of not just handling but excelling at the technical aspects that these startups are built upon. For any country to have a vibrant startup ecosystem, there needs to be a culture in which talent is nurtured, retained, and developed. In Pakistan, we have a strange relationship with our tech talent. On the one hand, we have a phenomenon of exporting
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IT services to the Western world primarily. Prominent software companies in Pakistan like Systems Limited, Netsol and Confiz, all provide IT-based services to clients abroad, primarily to the companies in the US and Europe. We have IT engineers working in companies for clients located in other countries which choose Pakistani tech companies because of the low labour cost. Average entry-level salary for an IT graduate in the US is $61,812 yearly, according to data obtained from Glassdoor. Average entry level salary in Pakistan on the other hand for the IT sector falls within the range of Rs40,000 to Rs50,000 for majority of the roles according to P@SHA Salary Survey 2021, translating into an average Rs540,000 on a yearly basis. This low cost of labour is what Pakistan’s IT sector thrives on for
exports. Pakistan’s IT exports crossed the $2 billion mark for the first time in fiscal year 2020-21 that ended on June 30 this year. On the other hand we have technology startups in Pakistan, growing exponentially in numbers, trying to solve problems within the Pakistani society using tech-based solutions and scaling up on the back of serious funding. These startups are what you could call product companies - they do not provide IT services to any other consumer or company, they have their own product that they are scaling. Now, these startups actually pay pretty well. And not only this, but they give you opportunities for professional growth and the work is such that it is not mind numbingly boring. Somewhere in between are tech engineers that are part of the gig economy,
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