Pakistan bagged 6 Silvers and 1 Gold Award at the 18th International Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards, held in Guangzhou, China, from 9th to 13th October 2018. Out of 23 Top Awards (Categories), Pakistan was able to bring home 7 Awards (6 Silver and 1 Gold), declaring the delegation 3rd in terms of yield.

With 17 different member economies participating in this mega event, winning at APICTA is a great way for participants to get recognition for their ICT innovations at an international level. This year APICTA received 350 entries from 270 teams from 17 different countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Nepal. The awards not only promote the development and deployment of ICT solutions but also facilitate in Trade, Business matching, Technology exchange, and Collaborations.

This year, a total of 11 teams participated from Pakistan in 17 different categories, winning 6 Silver Awards and 1 Gold Award.

The Gold Award was won by

Avanza Innovations for their product Cipher.

Cipher has been built with the future in mind. It is a fact that as organizations move towards Blockchain led projects there will be multiple fabrics that will be employed to deliver them. To promote interoperability, Cipher has been built as a platform-agnostic solution that can ride on any underlying Blockchain technology (Ethereum, Hyperledger, Ripple etc.). This among other key features will help with organizational onboarding and speed up the decentralization movement.

The Silver Awards were won by the following teams:

1. Connect Hear (Community Services) – Azima Dhanjee

ConnectHear is a social entrepreneurial startup which aims to bridge the communication gap between the deaf community and the society through in-person and video call sign language interpretation, and an audio to sign language app.

2. Wukla (Business Services) – Mubariz Siddiqui

Wukla is a desktop application that enables users to create standard legal documents adapted to their transaction by completing a simple form.

3. Fruges (Sustainability and Environment) – Sadaf Sajjad and Syed Akber Ali

Fruges aims to improve the health and lifestyle of farmers and consumers by producing and delivering the fresh and healthy, edibles free from impurities using IoT.

4. KeepTruckin (Research and Development) – Ali Hassan, Mudassir Khan, & Ahmed Ali

KeepTruckin is the leading fleet management platform for the trucking industry. KeepTruckin is trusted by over 40,000 fleets for compliance, fuel tax reporting, GPS tracking, video monitoring and much more.

5. PriceOye (Marketing Solutions) – Adnan Shaffi and Awais Imran

PriceOye.pk is Pakistan’s leading product discovery and price comparison engine for online shopping. It helps you buy products at the lowest online prices in the country.

6. Fly Mail (Junior Student Category) – Nazar Khan from Aitchison College & Sofia Khan

Fly Mail uses machine vision and AI to create fonts similar to a person’s handwriting. These can be used in MS Word as a font file and allows a person to write in their own handwriting.

All the entries were evaluated by a panel of esteemed judges from different economies. Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) also contributed actively in the APICTA Awards with the participation of winners and runner-ups from P@SHA ICT Awards 2018.

2 of the 6 Merit Award winners at APICTA this year were from The Nest I/O, P@SHA’s Tech Incubator. Jehan Ara, President P@SHA, Founder The Nest I/O, and Executive Committee member of APICTA commented: “Every year we work hard to mentor and train the winners of the P@SHA ICT Awards and nominate them for APICTA. The teams put in a lot of effort knowing full well that they are representing not only their companies but also Pakistan. Each year the teams raise the flag high and make us proud. This year in Guangzhou it has been no different. Although we had a much smaller team this year due to budgetary constraints, yet 7 of our 11 teams bagged an award. These numbers are enough to prove how much talent there is in Pakistan”.

All the teams from Pakistan received rigorous raining from Jawwad Ahmed Farid (CEO Alchemy Technologies Pvt Ltd, P@SHA CEC Member, and Head Judge Pakistan for APICTA), Dr Shoab Ahmed (CEO CARE Pvt Ltd, P@SHA CEC Member, and APICTA Judge), and Sultan Hamdani (CEO Maison Consulting, P@SHA CEC Member, and APICTA Judge). Other participating judges from Pakistan included Barkan Saeed (CEO Vizteck, Former Chairman P@SHA, and APICTA Judge) and Syed Ali (CEO and Founder 7Vals, P@SHA CEC Member, and APICTA Judge).

“It is not really about winning. It is about the journey and how it changes the nominees, contributes to their growth and development and creates opportunities for them. The more effort they put in, the more the chances that they will perform well” said Jawwad Ahmed Farid.

APICTA is a great platform for local teams to get validation for their products at an international level and also promote the ICT industry of Pakistan internationally.