500 women to benefit through ICT fund for entrepreneurship training

National ICT R&D Fund is inviting proposals from qualified applicants to provide ICT training to women entrepreneurs.

With the world moving towards digitization, ICT is crucial for a country’s economic and social development. Pakistan government has mandated that a certain part of gross revenue generated by all telecom service providers be allocated to R&D of information and communication technologies.

Women constitute 48 percent of Pakistan’s population but the female labor force in Pakistan is less than 25%. Entrepreneurship is still an emerging concept in Pakistan, it ranks last on the Female Entrepreneurship Index (FEI) developed by the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute (GDI).

The National ICT R&D is responsible for transforming Pakistan into a knowledge-based economy with various ICT initiatives. In order to empower women by providing them training in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the company is accepting request for proposals (RFP) from registered legal entities.

Target Audience of program

About 500 women are expected to benefit from the program with at least 70 in each province. Existing and potential women entrepreneurs are the target audience of the program.

Desired outcomes of the Program

• Empower women to become entrepreneurs and start their own business.
• Spread awareness of tools and agencies available that can help women entrepreneurs.
• Teach women the new ways of doing business by employing latest technologies.
• Inform them about freelancing opportunities available in Pakistan.
• Train them on how to set up a company considering all legal aspects.
• Teach them to develop effective business plans.
• Explain them the product development and how marketing channels should be used to acquire users and earn profit.

Request for Proposals

The firms are invited to submit a Technical Proposal with project design proposal along with a Financial Proposal as per the Scope of Work given in the RFP document. The proposal will be the basis for contract finalization with the selected firm. Section 2.7 states,

“The Company requires that the hired firm provides professional, objective, impartial advice and services and at all times hold the Company’s interests paramount, without any consideration for future work, and strictly avoid conflicts with other assignments or their own corporate interests.”

The selected firms will have to develop two customized training programs of minimum two weeks duration that will teach women about idea generation, accessing suppliers, developing and marketing products, accessing market, building capacity in ICTs etc. The firms are expected to submit a sample of curriculum along with the proposal.

The proposal must include:

The applicants are required to be on Active Taxpayers List (ATL) of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). The last date to apply for this program is March 6, 2017.

Pictured – WomenX program.