LAHORE: Saudi start-ups at Pakistan’s largest tech conference are eyeing future cooperation with the South Asian country after plans to set up a joint technology company were announced during the event.
Future Fest 2023, a three-day expo in Lahore that ended on Sunday, attracted nearly 50,000 attendees, 500 startup representatives and 200 exhibitors from over 30 countries, including a Saudi delegation. You have to participate.
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Fahd bin Mansour Al-Saud announced plans in a virtual address during the event to establish a Saudi-Pakistan tech house to “facilitate making business easier” between the two countries bottom.
Prince Fahd is the co-founder of ILSA Interactive, a software development company. ILSA Interactive was founded by Pakistani entrepreneur Salman Nasir in 2009 and has offices in Riyadh and Lahore.
The initiative was received with optimism at the festival, with Saudi Arabian companies saying the initiative would help connect Pakistani talent to the kingdom and increase opportunities for development.
“This is actually a huge achievement that brings together the economies of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan,” Abdulrahman Al-Yemni, logistics director at Kingdom-based e-commerce logistics company Salasa, told Arab News.
Al-Yemni said the initiative will help Saudi businesses tap into Pakistan’s talent pool, as the country’s workers already “contribute significantly to the structure and knowledge of Saudi Arabia.”
he said:
Humayun Rashid, corporate account manager at Saudi-based cloud company Uniphonic, said Pakistan’s talent was “amazing” and described the country as “the next tech destination.”
“We are really excited here at Unifonic,” said Rashid, adding that the initiative “will be a positive wind for the company.
“I’m looking forward to it[since then]. It will be a great opportunity to support business in both countries very aggressively and bring them together and grow as an industry.”
Mujtaba Ahmad, technical support manager at Tracking, a fleet management solutions company based in Saudi Arabia, was also excited to explore the program’s potential.
“By more efficiently developing technologies that serve humanity, trade between our two countries will increase (and help both countries).”
Khalid Abou Kassem, founder and CEO of tutoring marketplace AlGooru, said the initiative will also encourage knowledge sharing.
“We can learn a lot from each other. Both markets are considered emerging markets, so we have a lot of experience to share with each other,” Qassem told Arab News.
“This agreement opens the door to cross-border opportunities between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which excites us.”
