ISLAMABAD - Chief of the Air Staff, Pakistan Air Force, Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu, has said that in the wake of the evolving global and regional environment, there is a need to induct niche and disruptive technologies.
During the initial opening before the inaugural ceremony of National Aerospace Science and Technology Park, Chief of the Air Staff Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu said, “We live in a challenging time in the wake of an evolving global and regional environment. This is an era of transition that has induced the need to induct niche and disruptive technologies, which has subsequently affected the traditional concept of national security and defence”.
While appreciating the vision of national leadership, the Air Chief emphasized that in order to address the contemporary challenges, the national leadership of Pakistan has envisioned the establishment of Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) so as to create desired linkages and provide opportunity to different platforms for bringing foreign direct investment in Pakistan.
He further highlighted that PAF has also planned to play its role in the ongoing national building projects under the umbrella of SIFC, predominantly in the Aerospace and IT domains. He declared NASTP as a major landmark which being a multi-layered project based on hybrid model would be covering the private sector and aerospace clusters across all major cities of Pakistan. Underscoring the project’s distinctiveness, the Air Chief further said, “The biggest hallmark of the NASTP project is its Aviation Design and Innovation Center comprising of Techno Parks, IT clusters, Nurseries and Basic Incubation Centers, making the project diversified and unprecedented in the history of Pakistan.”
Chief of the Air Staff highlighted that through the NASTP project, the PAF is bringing all organic setups at one place including Nano Technology, Space, Cyber, Artificial Intelligence, Super Computing, Networking and Algorithms in order to facilitate entrepreneurship and technological skill development in the country.