Tania Aidrus , Chief of Staff and Head of Strategic Initiatives on the Next Billion Users (NBU) team at Google has resigned from her post to lead the Digital Pakistan Campaign initiated by Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan.
She is back after 20 years to lead the country into the digital age. At the Government initiative ‘Digital Pakistan’ inauguration on Thursday in Islamabad, the former Google executive shared her plan to lead the country’s digital transformation.
In her own words, she wants to “put Pakistan on the map” as far as technology and innovation were concerned. On social media, many young entrepreneurs are hopeful and expecting a lot from her, many are hopeful about she will give a new direction to Pakistani startup culture.
“A person I knew told the prime minister about me and he forwarded an email to his reform team to contact me,” she said. “Over the next course of months, I was in contact with Mr Jahangir Tareen and members of the federal cabinet. I even met the president before I met Prime Minister Imran and discussed the project,” she said.
Thank you PM @ImranKhanPTI and @JahangirKTareen for giving me the opportunity to contribute back to Pakistan. With everyone’s support we will inshallah make #DigitalPakistan vision a reality.
As the PM says “ghabrana naheen hai” 😁
— Tania Aidrus (@taidrus) December 5, 2019
“I spent 20 years outside Pakistan,” she said. “I went abroad with a very strong message about Pakistan. People say that I am politically connected to some people. That is not the case, I don’t have a relationship with anyone in the government. My objective is simple–I just want Pakistan to succeed,” she added.
Tania holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BSc from Brandeis University. Prior to her appointment as a Google executive, Tania co-founded a mobile health diagnosis company called ClickDiagnostics which connected rural patients in emerging markets to doctors around the world.