Delegations from 16 different countries gathered this month in Dhaka to promote ICT, enhance technology innovations, capability, and adoption, and encourage the development of indigenous ICT solutions for the global market.

This year’s P@SHA delegation comprised of 11 members with 10 technology products competing for the prestigious Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) against 200+ products from 16 economies in the region. Team Pakistan delivered another stunning performance in front of the Who’s Who of the technology industry in the Asia Pacific region in categories that are extremely competitive.

“I’m extremely proud to have represented Pakistan at the 2017 APICTA Awards and have won the Best Startup Award for the country”, said Qasim Zafar, CCO of the award-winning startup, Cricingif. “The Awards encourage healthy competition amongst the participating countries. Bigger challenges are yet to come for Cricingif and the connections we’ve made with like-minded people from all over the Asia Pacific will definitely help us going forward”, he added.

 CricinGif is an app for cricket lovers that aims to provide the most engaging cricket coverage on digital, with the best cricket following experience anywhere. The main focus of the app is to provide live highlights, fastest live scores online, live streaming, cricket news and blog humour and opinions from all around the cricket world. Prior to APICTA, the startup won a total of 3 awards at P@SHA ICT Awards 2017, two gold awards in the categories of Brand Development and Media & Entertainment Technology, and a silver award in the category of Best Startup Company.

Speaking on the occasion, Jehan Ara President of P@SHA said, “The P@SHA ICT Awards, P@SHA’s signature event for the past 14 years, has provided a platform to show the world what technology companies and young people in Pakistan are capable of. This year we have once again proven that our products can be benchmarked against the best in the region”.

Winners from the Asia Pacific compete in this three-day regional event judged by industry professionals, technology veterans and thought leaders from the APAC region. The consistent great results by Team Pakistan are due to the concerted efforts of judges and mentors who work tirelessly with winners at the P@SHA ICT Awards which took place in Islamabad in October this year. International APICTA Judges from 16 countries who evaluated the categories in which Pakistan participated spoke about the consistently high standard of technology products presented by Pakistan year after year.

About P@SHA
The Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA) was founded in the early nineties and has over time established itself as the voice of the industry. P@SHA’s main objective is to promote and support the software and services industry in Pakistan and to protect the rights of its members. P@SHA has been an active industry advocacy platform and has been projecting the potential of the Pakistan IT and ITES community internationally.