ISLAMABAD - President Dr Arif Alvi has said India was carrying out its disinformation campaign against Pakistan in full swing and stressed that the propaganda needed to be countered by acquiring ‘cyber strength’ by Pakistan.
“India had not learnt the lesson even after the EU Disinfo Lab had exposed its network of propaganda against Pakistan,” the President said this while addressing the convocation ceremony of Air University here yesterday. He said Pakistan needed to ‘intellectually’ counter the propaganda by acquiring ‘cyber strength’ besides other conventional modes of security.
The President highlighted the need for the world’s fifth populous nation to gain knowledge in contemporary fields particularly artificial intelligence, cyberspace, and data-driven technology. Alvi said Pakistan had achieved professional prowess in traditional and conventional defence such as a nuclear deterrence, however, stressed that gaining a strong foothold in cyberspace was also vital for survival. He pointed out that in the last year’s global cyber ranking, Pakistan was placed nowhere on the list. The situation, he said, demanded an overhaul in choices of career pathways besides a major shift in the retrogressive mindset.
He said cyber knowledge was one of the best tools to equip the country’s big youth bulge with contemporary skills.
He mentioned that a huge quantum of data based on pattern recognition was available in the world that needed the skill of artificial intelligence to quantify and analyze it.
The president called for decision-making on imparting the youth requisite knowledge about quantum computing and artificial intelligence as the world witnessed an unprecedented transformation in these fields. He emphasized the importance of carrying out thorough research on job markets by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and said that it would produce a skilled human resource to match the demands of national and international organizations, thus aptly addressing unemployment in the country