Syed Ahmad

DPL

Ahmad is the CEO and co-founder of DPL. He has said he started his company from zero, working from his drawing room. [1][2]

Ahmad has said he went to the US in 2013 while looking to grow his own company. He has said people told him to forget about scaling an IT company in Pakistan. [2]

He has said his company's key markets are America and Northern Europe. He has said the company is talking to some of the largest companies in Saudi Arabia in the space of IoT, digital transformation and innovation. He has said his own company gets a few resignations every month, and that it hired 55 people last year after about 1,800 interviews. [1]

Pasha and Digital Pakistan

Ahmad has said he served as an industry chairman for two years. He has described Pasha as a vertical association specialising in one sector. He has said the Pasha platform helped make IT relevant in government circles. [1]

Ahmad says Pasha launched the Digital Pakistan 2020 campaign in 2016. He has said his group coined the Digital Pakistan 2020 slogan to push IT exports and job creation. He says they identified two key areas that were government needs and that the IT industry could fill: job creation at a massive level, and export growth. He says Digital Pakistan reached the masses, including overseas Pakistanis. [1][2]

Task force and special technology zones

Ahmad has said he was part of a Prime Minister's task force, and that his task force team helped set up special technology zones. He has said he and his colleagues got the STZA Act passed. He has described the Special Technology Zones Authority as the body that was to set up Special Technology Zones. He says his team gave proposals for STZs, and that STZs will be set up in all five provincial and federal capitals. [1][2]

Ahmad has said the idea of virtual economic zones does not exist anywhere in the world, and that he thinks the virtualisation direction now being taken will die very quickly. He has said that if the original vision on which the technology zones were created is executed, 200 percent growth is very possible and within three years the figure could reach 10 billion dollars. He has said surface-level policy interventions will not get there even in ten years. In his view, what is needed is clear leadership in the technology area, led by technocrats. [1]

Views on the IT industry

Ahmad has said war and terror, and Pakistan's image, were a fundamental issue in the growth of the IT industry. He says that for contracts above 10 million dollars, country risk analysis is generally carried out. He says Pakistan has become much more politically stable. He also says business growth and IT growth are visible, but that in terms of perception Pakistan is probably still some years behind. [2]

Ahmad has said the first step for Pakistan is the services sector. He has said India has dozens of services companies with more than a billion dollars in revenue, and that Pakistan would have at least 5 to 10 companies reaching 1 billion dollars in revenue in services. He has said Indian IT was built by its expats. He has said the biggest opportunity for Pakistan is to invest in its people. [1]

Ahmad has said he sees an opportunity of at least 22 billion dollars and that he would need 800,000 to 1 million engineers in IT services. He has said 200 to 300 percent growth is possible, and that 10 billion dollars is not a big figure if the fundamentals are fixed. He says AI has created many data entry jobs. [1][2]

Ahmad says IT is a cross-cutting function that affects every ministry, not a single vertical. He says the knowledge sector is service based and needs its own policies. He says Pakistan has never carried out knowledge economy reforms like its industrial reforms, and he credits Ayub Khan era industrial reforms for textile exports of about 12 billion dollars. He says Pakistan has a lot of capability, much better than even China, because of the English language. [2]

Views on talent and education

Ahmad has said the quality of talent is a big issue right now and that graduate quality is really bad. He says the quality of graduates is very low, which frustrates companies. He says companies interview 100 candidates and filter out only 5 or 8. He says basic aptitude often does not show in fresh graduates, which is a big issue. [1][2]

Ahmad believes aptitude is the first thing that matters in IT, and that a person without aptitude cannot succeed in IT, however much they are upskilled. He says students whose families can afford fees enter university regardless of aptitude. He says IT does not need a degree, and many billionaires have none. He says Google and Facebook are dropping their degree requirements. [2]

Ahmad has said the top merit is now in IT, with a very large intake. He says companies compete for talent by poaching staff from each other, and that some estimate 1,000 to 2,000 people can compete internationally. He has said Pakistan cannot produce 200,000 undergraduates and can probably produce 50,000 to 100,000 undergraduates. [1][2]

Ahmad says the Ehsaas scholarship programme is not specific to ICT, and that a PM Task Force proposal would scale ICT scholarships to 10,000 a month. He says 600 to 700 children in Kashmir are doing medical transcription work. He has said that if he were in Pakistan, he would be creating 10 nursing homes. [1][2]

Views on startups

Ahmad says Pakistan is not ready to produce unicorns right now, and that its startup scene has matured a lot. He says a 10 million dollar exit is a good enough success for a startup. He says a lot of successful startups are built by expat Pakistanis, and that there will definitely be some outliers, which expats may contribute a lot to. He says Japan and China moved from copying and contract manufacturing to innovation over time. [2]

Views on government and business

Ahmad says government budgets for digitalization are very inadequate, and that there is currently no standard for e-government in government. He says an e-office project that began in 2007 has still not been closed. He says government bodies have set up their own software houses that win projects on their official position. He describes a rent-seeking mindset in which government bodies take all toll plaza projects, and says the ministry has no cadre of staff who understand IT. [2]

Ahmad says local demand in Pakistan has not been created, either before or now, and that no AI work is happening in Pakistan because private companies have no projects. He says that with things such as bitcoin, IoT and 3D printers, they are simply held back. He says there is a long way to go when it comes to ease of doing business. He says visa issues have a very large impact on the market, and that free movement of people means market access in the IT industry. He says the PM citizen portal is the only app that makes much sense. [2]

Ahmad has said that since Bhutto's time, business people have been criminalised in the public mind. He has said that one or two percent of people in any society are genuinely good and will stand up for the truth, and that the genuinely good people do not want to do anything with politics. He has said self-centredness is very strong in the business community. He has said he is not happy with the way things are going. [1]

Timeline

2013

Went to the US while looking to grow his own company.[2]

2016

Pasha launched the Digital Pakistan 2020 campaign.[2]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. Pakistan's IT growth is flatlining — and the policy is making it worse . Thought Behind Things , 2024-01-05.
2. Pakistan's IT industry is a symptom, not a market . Thought Behind Things , 2020-11-18.