Some years ago I came across an article that made an interesting observation about the pre-eminence of Islamic civilisations and how it is rooted in their ability to discover new knowledge and build constructively on it to form “knowledge societies”. It went on to say that even as global knowledge advanced at lightning speed, many societies became more vulnerable to gaps in that knowledge, to what might be described as Knowledge Deficits. And, ultimately, the divide between those nations experiencing prosperity and progress and those that lagged fell to a failure to evolve societal structures based on the acquisition and application of new knowledge.
Today’s world is divided by a technology boundary that separates technologically advanced countries from technologically backward ones; and for Pakistan to progress within the comity of nations, it was essential that we dedicate ourselves towards developing our human capital and knowledge base. In other words, for Pakistan to move into the 21st Century and beyond, it is imperative we evolve into a knowledge society.
Across most of the developed world, the evolution towards knowledge societies is no longer a dream; it is reality in the making. The growth of modern communications technologies has brought about a paradigm in which information is now a mere click away. And progress – both social and technological – is taking place at a pace so rapid that often even academics and professionals have trouble keeping up. Much of this progress has been driven by incredible advances in physical infrastructure – from inter-continental connectivity to miniature super computers. In turn, this new physical infrastructure has become the basis for a new infrastructure of the mind. And the building blocks for this are the highways and byways of the internet, the structures of information systems and organisation and the accessibility of data and people through communications technology.
Hence, the building of the knowledge society is as much an intellectual as a physical enterprise. Our consciousness develops through interaction with the world around us and as we develop a more evolved society and lucid technology, we can expect that our thinking and the use of our minds will also evolve. Laying the infrastructure of the mind is then a path to improving our mental capacities and creating a more evolved human mind, capable of better thinking as new and improved mental pathways develop and solidify – in turn driving socio-economic progress.
It was the quest for better lives that led to the inevitable emergence of Knowledge Societies. Therefore, if the search for improving our lives is the crucial catalyst for the birth of knowledge societies, then Pakistan is primed for this evolution. This begs the question: what can Muslim countries like Pakistan do to once again become the definitive Knowledge Societies of our time? Over the past few years, we in Pakistan have witnessed a technology revolution that has seen us gain access to modern communications technologies and infrastructures – the backbone of Knowledge Societies. What is now needed is to ‘put flesh on the bones’ – ie drive evolution of the mind. And this can only be obtained by developing institutions that provide the mechanisms to provide such development; institutions which can produce technological human capital to match the rest of the world.
It was keeping this in mind that the Punjab Information Technology University was established, to create a work force that is skilled in varied areas of telecommunications, IT, and science and technology. The university aims to replicate the cross-disciplinary, research-oriented teaching methodology employed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and will not only provide a highly rated education, but will also harness the Blue Sky potential of Pakistani youth by helping them to leverage their passions, hopes, and frustrations as a means for social change.
Knowledge societies rest on a foundation of educational and research excellence. The internet, advances in communications technology, and the rapidly expanding global fibre optic network are necessary, but not sufficient. It takes people to train, to educate, to collaborate, and to innovate and it takes institutions to train people. To manage the variety of knowledge we must employ specialists: technicians who know how to select and transfer data from a remote computer to one used for analysis; data analysts to understand the attributes of the data and define the functions to combine and integrate the data; statisticians to provide procedures to aggregate data etc. However, these specialists need to be trained and taught to not only use existing systems but to create new ones. This is where institutions like the IT University are essential as they train the people responsible for managing vast amounts of data and engineering the systems that store and supply it.
Pakistan is a country where the majority of people are not only young and willing to learn, they are also connected to the global community and, in my observation, have a considerable aptitude for information technology. Developing this natural aptitude and using the communications revolution as a basis for it is one of the most important needs of the moment, both economically and socially. Furthermore, by working on information systems and being a part of the global knowledge community, young people from across the country will gain exposure and access to a variety of resources from around the world. This is one of the most important parts of any education and one that Pakistan desperately needs in order to become a global Knowledge Society.
(The writer is the Chairman of Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and the Vice Chancellor of Information Technology University, Punjab)
Dr. Umar Saif, "Knowledge society," Business recorder. 2013-06-19.Keywords: Social sciences , Social issues , Social rights , Social system , Social values , Islamic civilizations , Communications technology , Information services , Information technology , Pakistan