Pakistan must establish cybercity to capture fourth industrial revolution

Islamabad: “We need electricity and the internet to reshape our country. Pakistan must establish a cybercity to generate, use, disseminate and share knowledge of networking, internet, internet of things and the fourth industrial revolution.”

This was stated by Dr. Kashif Nisar of Universiti Malaysia Sabah while addressing an online seminar jointly organised by COMSTECH and International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, University of Karachi.

In his lecture, Dr. Nisar talked about the fourth industrial revolution and IoT, smart home technologies, IoT and banking, IR 4.0 in agriculture and tourism, future internet and information-centric networking (ICN).

He informed the participants that the 4th industrial revolution was coming with the application of internet of things to industry combined with other technologies like big data, machine learning and 3D printing, mentioning that the industrial revolution leading the intelligent information society and the digital transformation.

Wearable devices, building, and home automation, smart cities, smart manufacturing, smart health care and smart automation are the topics of research and application of tomorrow, he mentioned by quoting examples of the application of such technologies from advanced countries.

He gave a snapshot of the future world by mentioning that 10 percent of people will be wearing clothes and reading glasses connected to the internet, 1 trillion sensors will be connected to the internet, 1st robotic pharmacist in the US, 1st 3D printed car production, 10 per cent driverless cars on US roads and 90 percent population will be with smart phones by 2025.

Dr. Nisar pointed out that key success factors in the 4th industrial revolution era were technology, industry, and society that must be fully equipped with the modern information technologies.

The Internet has changed the world and made profound changes in human history, he said, adding that if we compare the world of pre and post-internet, this is the internet that has changed our way of living altogether.

The COMSTECH Coordinator-General Prof. Dr. M. Iqbal Choudhary, in his introductory remarks, said that the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, University of Karachi was the first one which started using the Internet and Email in the 1980s.