Federal Minister for IT Shaza Fatima Khawaja has been awarded the global title of \u201cIndustry Champion of the Year 2026\u201d at the Fast Mode Awards 2026, marking a major recognition for Pakistan\u2019s information technology sector.<\/p>\n
The \u201cIndustry Champion of the Year\u201d is the highest individual honour of the Fast Mode Awards and is given to only one leader from across the world each year.<\/p>\n
At the Fast Mode Awards 2026, the Pakistani minister secured the global distinction in a competition featuring more than 500 companies from over 60 countries.<\/p>\n
The award has been described as an important milestone for Pakistan\u2019s IT industry and the country\u2019s digital development.<\/p>\n
Under the leadership of Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Pakistan\u2019s IT and IT-enabled services exports reached a record $4.6 billion in the financial year 2025-26. The country\u2019s IT sector also led all services sectors with a historic trade surplus of $3.9 billion.<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s freelance export earnings also climbed to their highest level in history, touching $1.76 billion, while the number of freelancers crossed 2.37 million.<\/p>\n
In March 2026, Pakistan completed the largest 5G and NGMS spectrum auction in its history, taking the country\u2019s total spectrum to 750 MHz.<\/p>\n
Pakistan also became the first country in Asia to abolish right-of-way charges for the expansion of fibre optic networks, a step linked to strengthening digital connectivity.<\/p>\n
In August 2026, Google formally registered in Pakistan and opened its first office in the country. An assembly line for 600,000 Chromebooks annually was also launched in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Under the DigiSkills programme, more than 4.5 million young people have received free digital training, including 800,000 women.<\/p>\n
According to the GSMA, Pakistan recorded the world\u2019s fastest progress in reducing the gender gap in mobile internet usage, bringing it down from 38 per cent to 8 per cent.<\/p>\n
Pakistan also improved by 27 places in the ITU ICT Development Index 2026, registering a significant achievement in the field of digital progress.<\/p>\n
The global recognition for Shaza Fatima Khawaja comes at a time when Pakistan\u2019s IT exports, freelance economy, spectrum development, digital training and international technology engagement have recorded major gains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Federal IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja has received the Industry Champion of the Year 2026 award at the Fast Mode Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":21922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}