LAHORE: A high-level delegation from the Gates Foundation visited the Office of AI Punjab, where the prospects for a long-term partnership in artificial intelligence, technology and development were discussed in detail.
The delegation was led by Anita Zaidi, President of the Gates Foundation’s Gender Equality Division, and Kalpana Kochhar, interim President of the Global Policy and Advocacy Division.
Detailed discussions took place between representatives of the Office of AI Punjab and the Gates Foundation delegation on the province’s AI agenda, technology, and the practical application of artificial intelligence in the public sector.
Ali Dar said the aim was to broaden existing cooperation with the Gates Foundation and convert it into a durable and productive strategic partnership. The use of artificial intelligence in maternal and child health through the Awaz-e-Sehat pilot, he said, was an important example of collaboration between the Office of AI and the Gates Foundation.
He said the focus was on developing practical, effective and scalable solutions to problems facing the public sector through AI and technology, and that public service delivery would be further improved by drawing on the Gates Foundation’s global expertise and experience.
Mr Dar said artificial intelligence was being deployed to improve public services under Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz’s AI Vision 2029.
He added that a memorandum of understanding between the Office of AI and the National AI Hub would further strengthen cooperation in developing AI solutions aligned with local needs, while the partnership with the Gates Foundation would create new opportunities for innovation and joint initiatives in artificial intelligence, health and technology.
Through partnerships with international institutions, Mr Dar said, the Office of AI was making artificial intelligence an effective vehicle for improved government service delivery.
Provincial Health Minister Khawaja Imran Nazir and Secretary AI Ahmed Rajwana were also present on the occasion, along with other officials.
The maternal health application named in the briefing points at a well-defined problem. Pakistan’s maternal mortality ratio remains among the higher figures in South Asia, and a substantial share of preventable deaths occur where danger signs in pregnancy go unrecognised or where a referral is made too late.
Voice-based systems have particular relevance in this context because they route around literacy barriers. A pregnant woman in a rural union council who cannot read a text message, or navigate an app, can respond to a voice prompt in her own language. Where such systems have been deployed elsewhere, the measurable gains have come less from diagnosis than from triage and follow-up — prompting an antenatal visit, flagging a symptom, closing the loop on a missed appointment.
Any deployment of artificial intelligence against citizen health data raises questions that belong in the public domain from the outset: where the data is stored and under what legal authority; who may access it; what consent is obtained; whether the model’s outputs are audited for accuracy across dialects and districts; and what recourse exists when the system is wrong.
Pakistan’s data protection framework remains a work in progress, with legislation having been in draft and consultation for several years. Projects that move ahead of a settled legal framework carry an obligation to publish their own safeguards.
The Punjab government has made artificial intelligence a signature element of its governance agenda, spanning e-service delivery, agriculture advisory services, traffic management and health. The National AI Hub referenced in the briefing is intended to coordinate capability at the federal level.
The measure of the programme will be whether pilots survive contact with scale — the point at which most public-sector technology initiatives in Pakistan have historically failed.
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