Pakistan to Join the Innovation Journalism Program at Stanford University in 2006
The Government of Pakistan/the Ministry of Finance is linking finance to innovation and competitiveness and establishing the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) as a platform for innovation and competitiveness initiatives in Pakistan.
Islamabad (PRWEB) January 21, 2006 -- The Government of Pakistan/the Ministry of Finance is linking finance to innovation and competitiveness and establishing the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) as a platform for innovation and competitiveness initiatives in Pakistan. The initiative is co-funded by the United State Agency for International development (USAID) Office to Pakistan.
The objective of the initiative is to catch up the progress made in India, China, Thailand, South Korea, in Europe and North America on innovation and competitiveness to boost the economic growth and create better employment. Furthermore, the initiative will contribute to improving the competitiveness index of the Pakistani economy which is ranked by the World Economic Forum at place 83 among the 117 countries. President, Pervez Musharraf is scheduled to participate in annual meeting of the World economic Forum in Davos/ Switzerland
Omer Ayub Khan, Minister of State for Finance announced about this significant development while presiding over a special meeting here at MoF on Saturday, which was attended by representatives of USAID, MoF and experts from media and development sectors.
Mr. Omer Ayub Khan, Minister of State for Finance briefed the journalists about one of the components of the initiatives to involve media in financial reporting, innovation and competitiveness. He announced that Pakistan has become one of the participating countries in the Innovation Journalism Fellowship programme at Stanford University to increase public focus on innovation and competitiveness, business and technology through news and improving communication within the sectors and clusters and across sectors. This programme will receive initial support from USAID.
The Government of Pakistan’s wish is to build networks between leading Pakistani innovation journalists and their peers from other countries, in order to strengthen the Pakistani overview of innovation in other countries, as well as make the other countries more aware of Pakistan.
Omar said that Stanford, being the heart of Silicon Valley, is clearly the right place for journalists from all parts of the world to meet in order to learn and exchange thoughts on the best practice of innovation journalism.
The programme will take about three years and each of the 6 months to selected journalists will be participating in the programme at Stanford. Two journalists were selected at the meeting to participate at the programme which is due to start on the 6th of February.
The Minister of State for Finance further briefed the participants that the CSF will be holding meetings with the media professionals later on in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta on these issues.
The CSF will be managed by an independent management team lead by Mr. Arthur Bayham, as the CEO of the Fund. The Govt. will not manage or run the CSF, although the CSF will be housed in the MOF but that is only to act as an independent body facilitating between the various Govt. entities, he stated further.
Omer Ayub Khan emphasized upon the role of the provincial and district governments in creating an enabling environment. He made special reference to Prime Minister's vision on "One Village One Product" and the role of the community boards for the poverty alleviation in country. He said that the CSF plans to interact with the provincial and district governments, private sector and academia along with the media organizations.
The Minister termed the World Competitiveness Institute based in Barcelona/Spain will held its Regional Conference on Competitiveness for Asia and Pacific in May 2006 in Islamabad. The conference is an outcome of the Mr. Ayub’s meeting with the TCI leadership in Hong Kong in November, 2005.
Arthur Bayhan, on this occasion, explained that "The Government can also be a Venture Capitalist, as there are examples in other parts of the world, such as in Asia and Europe etc. where the Venture Capital initiatives have been very successful.
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