Riyadh, (Web Desk): Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja has said the future of the 21st century will be shaped by emerging countries that harness digital technology to generate wealth and determine their own economic destiny.
Speaking at the LEAP 2026 conference during a session titled “How We Built a Digital Nation”, she said Pakistan was developing a national digital framework based on open-source technology.
The minister said once the digital framework was completed, Pakistan intended to provide it free of charge to frontier and emerging economies. She stressed that digitalisation should enable nations to go beyond simply modernising their systems and instead use technology to generate wealth and strengthen economic self-reliance.
Shaza said the government had shifted its approach from investing in “fancy big projects” to establishing durable and effective digital infrastructure.
She noted that during the past two years, the government had enacted important legislation, including the Digital Nation Pakistan Act and the National AI Policce.
The minister said reforms concerning rights of way had also been carried out to facilitate the expansion of fibre networks and encourage wider broadband use.
“In a nutshell, what we did was the grunt work for very strong, solid foundations for a digital era,” she said.
Shaza said the government had started the process by engaging with investors, industry representatives, young people and international partners to understand their challenges and priorities.
She termed digital connectivity the country’s first major hurdle, maintaining that meaningful digital progress could not take place unless dependable, high-speed internet was available nationwide.
She pointed out that limited spectrum availability had previously restricted growth, adding that Pakistan had now carried out what she described as the world’s largest spectrum auction, making 480 megahertz available.
The minister said deployment of the newly available spectrum was progressing rapidly. She added that Pakistan had brought two additional submarine cables ashore, while fibre-related reforms had also been implemented and house passes had nearly doubled.
According to Shaza, ensuring continuity in government policies represented the second major challenge. She credited Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for creating the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), saying the forum had played an important role in maintaining policy consistency.
The minister identified business competitiveness as the third major obstacle, particularly for technology firms that have faced difficulties linked to taxation.
“We’ve developed special technology zones for our companies that have tax-free status for the next 10 years,” she said.
Shaza said digital transformation was no longer confined to the technology ministry and had become an important objective throughout the government.
She said countries reaching that point needed to rely on innovation, cooperation and intelligent investment if they wanted to maintain momentum.
“If you want to compress decades into years and cross this S-curve fast to become a developed nation with a diversified economy, you must become a digital nation,” she said.
She termed digital transformation the “single greatest intervention” a government could undertake to safeguard its long-term future while speeding up national development.
The minister said Pakistan had already established the basic groundwork required for becoming a digital nation and was now moving quickly to expand its digital infrastructure and services.
Pakistan, she said, has around 240 million people, more than 150 million of whom are below the age of 30. “We cannot afford to learn slowly,” she said.
Reflecting on Pakistan’s experience, Shaza said countries undertaking digital transformation should study nations that had already travelled the same path and learn from their successes and mistakes.
She presented five key takeaways from Pakistan’s own digital journey. The first was that governments should concentrate on legislation and policymaking instead of developing software themselves.
She said the state should establish effective laws, policies and institutions while ensuring that each institution has clearly defined responsibilities.
Her second point was the importance of having a dedicated digital GovTech body positioned between the ministry responsible for policymaking and the public and private organisations tasked with implementing digital initiatives.
Such an organisation, she said, should establish a clear target operating model and coordinate digital efforts across the entire government rather than allowing individual departments to work independently.
Ideally, she said, such an agency should directly report to the country’s head of state. In Pakistan’s case, she noted, the National Digital Commission reports to the prime minister.
Pakistan’s own target operating framework is outlined in the Digital Nation Master Plan, which places emphasis on interoperability built around trust and security.
The third lesson was the importance of staying focused on clearly defined objectives. Shaza said governments needed discipline, quantifiable goals, key performance indicators and consistent monitoring to turn plans into actual results.
The fourth principle was to “build rails, not products”. She said the government should first establish essential digital infrastructure, including data-sharing systems, digital identity and payment mechanisms, and then allow businesses and entrepreneurs to develop innovative products and services on top of those foundations.
“Our job is to hand them the backend, the tools, the embedded finance, the parameters of acceptable building, and then watch them do the magic,” she said.
She referred to WeChat as an illustration of this approach, noting that 97pc of its applications were controlled by private-sector entities.
The fifth and final lesson, she said, was that governments and countries could not achieve meaningful digital progress by operating independently.
“No nation can go at it alone, and nations that join together go further,” she said.
Shaza said these five principles had provided Pakistan with both the institutional foundation and strategic roadmap needed to advance its digital transformation.