“Bringing together the next generation of digital innovators in Pakistan”

Peshawar, May 01, 2014: Peshawar will be hosting the Digital Youth Summit (DYS), a first of its kind technology expo and conference in Pakistan. The two-day summit is organised through a collaboration of KPITB, Peshawar 2.0 and World Bank and is scheduled to kick off on 21^st May 2014. DYS promises to bring together the digital community together from across the country.

The conference part of the summit will be invite-only and will include keynotes, panel discussions and breakout sessions on freelancing, innovation and leading startups with speakers and panelists from across the country and abroad. The expo is meant to showcase Pakistani startups and introduce the youth in Pakistan and specifically in KP to the idea of online work, freelancing and startups. The expo is free and open to the general public.

The summit will feature three major themes which includes innovation, freelancing and startups. Each session will have panel discussions for the broader audience along with breakout sessions which will include a variety of hands-on training activities, panel discussions and talks.

Under the Innovation theme there will be a panel discussion on how to foster a nascent ecosystem in cities like Peshawar followed by breakout sessions on topics like Design Thinking, the role of Universities in Innovation and the maker movement & FabLabs. A number of special breakout sessions will provide hands-on training in coding or computer programming to school children.

Freelancing on the other hand shifts the focus to how a person can work online from home and earn money. Topics ranging from Freelancing 101, How to get paid online and How to stay safe online to more business-centred ones such Monetizing blogs and a session on Marketings Tools by Google for Entrepreneurs. This is particularly interesting for people who intend to engage themselves in online jobs and the blend of training sessions promises to provide them with a complete package to equip themselves with the tools and knowledge to embark upon the online journey.

The third theme is set to feature on the second day and will be focused on startups. The combination of technology with business will be explained and presented to the attendees under two main panel discussion and over a dozen breakout sessions. This will include civic hacking, impact entrepreneurship, Big Data and Next generation Life Sciences and Entrepreneurship Education. Good news for the tech-geeks is that there will be training sessions held on iOS and Android development.

The world is witnessing an era of digital economy. From the $19 billion acquisition of Whatsapp by Facebook to the buying of NEST by Google for $3.2 billion, countries are riding the wave of success by capitalizing on their superior awareness & knowledge about technology. Pakistan has an impressive ratio of young population which calls for the much needed awareness about digital economy to be created. Technology and entrepreneurship is not something Peshawar is famous for. But with this mammoth summit around the corner, that might be about to change. It also presents a substantial opportunity for the tech-starved population of the region which has a deep interest in such topics but is not provided with the much needed stimulus. DYS 2014 will be the start of our journey towards that.

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About Digital Youth Summit:

Digital Youth Summit (DYS) is a technology-expo whose motto is, “bringing together the next generation of digital innovators in Pakistan”. It is a platform for the general public to update themselves with information regarding online activities, innovation and startups. It also aims to introduce the idea & information about startups and how anyone can create their own startup once equipped with the essential knowledge.

About Peshawar 2.0:

Peshawar 2.0 is a social enterprise aimed at building a startup community in Peshawar, the capital city of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. It is a citizen/youth-led movement to rebuild and rebrand the City of Peshawar through innovation and entrepreneurship in technology, design and art. We believe entrepreneurship is an empowering medium to translate creativity and talent of the youth into action that has social and economic impact. It is a medium of expression for the youth, a channel for their passion and energy, a source of income and job creation and the primary driver of a knowledge‐based economy.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Muhammad Uzair
[email protected]
0321 902 1814

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