Possible futures post COVID-19 discussed

Islamabad : ‘Wusool’, a startup focused on digital payments in general and E-Commerce payment gateways, organised an online panel discussion on possible futures after the COVID-19 experience.

The discussion invited a cross section of participants to take part in the discussion through an open platform. The discussants included public policy experts, researchers, industry experts and media professionals.

The participants agreed that the government needs to take a lead in creating an enabling environment at this stage to encourage digital transformation.

The issue of new entrants to create new value for the citizens also came under discussion, where the cost of entry to business is a serious challenge in terms of innovation and alternate solutions required at this challenging time.

Shabbir Buxamoosa, co-founder of ‘Wusool’ and senior industry professional, highlighted the need for think tanks to create knowledge resources and enough evidence through data, that could push the policy makers and business leaders to create value in the changing times for the end consumer, while benefiting from the digital transformation identifying new areas of growth for the industry and job creation for the economy.

Mohsin Iqbal, co-founder of ‘Wusool’, said, "While we are all looking at the COVID-19 from an operational point of view, we need to see this from a regulatory and public policy perspectives as well, where the COVID-19 has put the entire world into an incubation, where all key stakeholders have been pushed to adopt digital platforms for doing business or public service.

"Generating a surge in data consumption, creating opportunities in the digital sphere, but also exposing performance and compliance requirements at the part of the regulatory and industry players."

Amir Jahangir, CEO of ‘Mishal’ Pakistan, a country partner institute of the World Economic Forum, said the use of online services and data had increased more than 200 times.

"The impact of COVID 19 (Coronavirus) at the domestic and international level has locked down communities into isolated environments, making the entire world go into Digital Incubation Ecosystems. The work from home has led to an increase in all levels of digital consumption across all strata of the society."

He said the question for policy makers and other stakeholders was that once the economies will recover from the COVID quarantine and isolation the world will see a new way of interacting, communicating and consuming content in the digital sphere, that all revolves around e-commerce solutions and if Pakistan was ready for that.

The participants also emphasised the need to have a watchdog on the performance of the regulatory bodies and the government for better, effective performance.

Puruesh Chaudhary, president of 'Agahi', said technology related businesses should be concentrating on more public policy strengthening to ensure the actions of today become the habits and norms of tomorrow.

"This means more people will be investing into their possible futures which are tech and digitally enhanced," he said.