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Updated 06 Dec, 2019 11:26am

Who is Tania Aidrus and how she plans to implement PM’s Digital Pakistan Initiative

ISLAMABAD: Tania Aidrus has created quite a buzz for quitting her job as an Executive of Google to join PM Imran’s Digital Pakistan Initiative.

Tania Aidrus thanked Jahangir Tareen and Prime Minister Imran Khan for giving her the opportunity to contribute back to Pakistan and everyone else supporting her to make #DigitalPakistan vision a reality.

Aidrus while addressing the launch of 'Digital Pakistan Vision' said that with the premier's assurances she had the confidence to "take a leap of faith and contribute to Pakistan".

She also applauded the youth of Pakistan for being tech-savvy in limited opportunities provided to them.

Aidrus then introduced the five strategic basics which will form the basis of the new digital initiative:

  • Access and Connectivity that ensures every Pakistani has access to the internet that is a fundamental right that we need to make available universally and especially to underserved populations.
  • Digital Infrastructure that creates the ability to do most daily tasks using smart-phones in a secure and faster manner.
  • E-Government that digitises intra-government operations and processes towards a paperless and efficient environment and also digitises government services for citizens and businesses for better delivery.
  • Digital Skilling and Literacy that enables our tech graduates to secure relevant jobs. A majority of our tech graduates today cannot compete globally because our curriculum is outdated and barring them from monetising those skills.
  • Innovation and Entrepreneurship that provides an enabling environment for startups to flourish.

In an interview given in 2018 Aidrus shared the best choice that she made in her career: "I decided to enter tech almost 10 years ago after graduating from business school, it was the best career decision I could have made - the internet is an incredibly powerful democratizing force and it has lowered barriers to information in an unimaginable way. That has the ability to change lives and economies at scale."

Tania Aidrus was the Chief of Staff and Head of Strategic Initiatives on the Next Billion Users (NBU) team at Google which is focused on building new products and services that are aimed at addressing the emerging trends and needs of users in growth markets.

Prior to this, Tania was a leader in the Global Business Organization at Google in the US and then in Singapore where she was the Country Manager for South Asia Frontier Markets at Google focused on expanding the Internet ecosystem, increasing product adoption amongs consumers and businesses and accelerating innovation.

However this not how she started her career in google as before that, Tania co-founded a mobile health diagnosis company called ClickDiagnostics, focused on connecting rural patients in emerging markets to doctors globally. She also spent a portion of her career consulting for Fortune 500 companies and the US Government at Booz Allen Hamilton.

She holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BSc from Brandeis University.

 

https://youtu.be/GwWs5VCrbus

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