Code for Pakistan’s Biggest Moments: Looking Back at 2021
As we look back on 2021, we’re humbled by everything we accomplished: we expanded the Fellowship Program from the provincial to the federal level; we launched a new Women’s Civic Internship Program; we hired a Country Head; and we’re partnering with more government organizations to help Pakistan deliver better digital services to Pakistanis like you and me.
Our work is about creating technology-enabled solutions that are citizen-centered, and this year and its successes is owed as much to you as it is to our team. Thank you for making our favorite moments from this year possible, and for being a part of this incredible community.
Read on for highlights, where we look back at a year of deeper partnerships, community events, and more citizen-centered projects.
The 7th cycle of the KP Government Innovation Fellowship Program began in October. Our team recruited 20 full-time Fellows to work closely with 7 KP government departments to develop solutions that empower citizens, increase government efficiency and transparency, and open communication channels for citizen feedback and reporting.
Ali, Anam, Ebtihaj, Mubassir and Bushra managed 6 Fellows for the TECH-NIH Fellowship Program (our first Fellowship Program at the federal level) with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) based out of Islamabad. The Fellows helped our government improve public services focusing entirely on projects that relate to public health.
Our KP Fellowship team, consisting of Anam, Ibraheem, Sohail, Nazim, and Shah Zeb, launched a new initiative, the KP Civic Women’s Internship Program with our partners, Helvetas, KP IT Board, and the World Bank. The internship program is a six month paid internship aimed at empowering women from remote regions of KP.
Our team developed a prototype for the KP IT Board to provide KP digital services to citizens in a single platform. The prototype introduces novel concepts for digital identity and communications between the government and citizens.
Stay tuned for more updates.
Ebtihaj and Sahar led our efforts on the Code for All Exchange Program, working with Codeando México to co-develop and launch a framework for digital citizen-led participatory processes.
At the TICTeC Show & Tells, Ibraheem shared how our KP Fellows developed and deployed a digital system for pharmacy license registration. The system enabled KP’s Health Department to track duplicate/fake licenses and illicit pharmacies, and helped monitor inspector performance. The online system has digitized over 15,000 records of pharmacists across KP, while 1800+ licenses have been issued digitally since January 2021.
We launched an online competition, the GovTech Innovation Challenge, in partnership with the KP IT Board and the World Bank. The challenge asked fellow citizens to identify problems in Pakistan that need better solutions for. Over 1000 problem statements poured in from all over the world, and 5 of the most well-thought out statements took home prizes (some of the problem statements even served as inspiration for our GovTech Hackathon!).
Around 1500 creative thinkers, problem solvers, subject matter experts and coders joined us for our GovTech Hackathon. The participants teamed up to submit 50 innovative solutions to challenges that will transform Pakistan in areas of Education, Health, Climate Change, Mobility, Travel & Tourism.
Boltay Huroof, the team that created Pakistan’s first Braille Translator software, won the GovTech Hackathon. Ammar, our lead storyteller, sat down with founder, Umar Farooq, and discussed Boltay Huroof’s journey.
READ MORE | WATCH THE INTERVIEW
Our team organized a panel to discuss open data at the Digital Youth Summit. The session focused on the application of data in the public sector to generate public value, and participants discussed the barriers of implementing an inclusive digital governance framework across Pakistan.
Samina, Mahwish, and Ebtihaj traveled to Lahore to sign an MOU with Punjab IT Board that establishes collaboration on projects related to Punjab government’s digital transformation and civic engagement within the province.
Ibraheem delivered a lightning talk at the Code for All Summit, where he discussed case studies from the KP Fellowship Program. The summit was attended by grassroots activists, technologists, and change-makers from all over the world.
Ebtihaj served as a panelist on MySociety’s first Civic Tech Surgery. The panel discussed tackling the problems that occur when NGOs and nonprofits take on work within governments and public authorities.
Samina discussed Code for Pakistan’s role in bridging the gap between citizens and governments in Pakistan on the Startup Talks podcast. She also spoke generally of the civic tech movement, empowering citizens, and utilizing technology to improve governance.
Sheba, Founder and Executive Director, shared examples of civic tech in her talk at San Diego Design Week 2021. She discussed human-centered design approaches to Smart Cities, exploring collaborative projects that have addressed issues such as parklets, housing, air pollution, and more.
Thank you again for being a part of this work. Here’s to helping our government meet our needs where we are, and for citizenship that allows us all to contribute towards creating the sort of country we all want to live in. Your continued belief in our mission means that even more Pakistanis will have the opportunity to work on civic initiatives like the Fellowship programs, civic hackathons, and community-led projects, enabling us all to become change agents in our communities.
