At a moment when Pakistan writhes under economic strain, one resource stands both underappreciated and indispensable: talent. That which cannot be drilled from beneath the earth or pumped from rivers, but must be grown, shaped, and protected. The notion that education is a mere social policy: charity, aid, or goodwill is a fallacy. Rather, education must be recast as economic infrastructure, the foundation upon which growth, innovation, and resilience rest.
Many observers lament that Pakistan’s education system feels divorced from the marketplace: graduates queuing for unfit jobs, industries complaining of a shortage of relevant skills, and universities pursuing theory while the world demands application. Yet without capable, disciplined, and creative minds, no factory, no startup, no global export chain can succeed. The compelling case is this: talent is Pakistan’s only renewable resource, but it must be nurtured early, disciplined ethically, and seamlessly linked to industry.
Muhammad Ahsan Tahir, CEO of Walee, speaks of talent as national infrastructure, rejecting the narrow framing of it as social welfare. Under his leadership, Walee has grown not only in reach across Pakistan’s creator economy but also in asserting a model: that education and employment can integrate. “We must produce individuals who can contribute meaningfully to both local and global industries,” he argues. In this vision, the nation’s competitiveness hinges on what its schools and private actors do today.
Cultivating Talent from the Soil of Childhood
Children arriving at school cannot wait until age 25 to be “fixed.” The roots of ambition, discipline, ethics, and curiosity must be planted early. In Pakistan, many reforms aim at undergraduate or vocational levels, but too few shape what happens between ages five and fifteen, when attitudes solidify. Without nurturing behavioral learning: habits of diligence, perseverance, respect, and self-direction, raw academic content can never translate into industrial or creative success.
Psychologists and educationists now stress that character building and cognitive skills must coexist. A student who can code but lacks perseverance or integrity may fail when faced with real-world pressures. If the education system does not embed behavioral learning alongside subject mastery, it is building infrastructure with cracks. By contrast, nations that have succeeded, where children learn to lead, cooperate, and stretch, show that early character formation multiplies returns for decades.
When governments or private actors ignore early talent development, they force later remediation at far greater cost. The real economic tragedy lies in wasted human potential: students who could have led an enterprise or built global exports, but who exit schooling uncalibrated for the rigors of industry. The message is clear: build ambition, ethics, and discipline early or suffer lifelong deficits.
Marrying Academia with Industry’s Pulse
A surplus of graduates whose skills mismatch market demand signals systemic misalignment. In Pakistan, only a small fraction of graduates are deemed employable by industry. One analysis via Data Darbar suggests that although Pakistan may produce 25,000–30,000 IT graduates annually, the tech industry needs many more and finds quality lacking. Many companies explore hiring external talent or outsourcing abroad because they perceive the local output as ill-suited.
To close the gap, universities must embed practical, outcome-driven programs: internships, co-design with industry, labs with real problems, and feedback loops that force curriculum revision. The dialogue must shift from “what we teach” to “what graduates can create.” If academia remains aloof, talent becomes a misfit stock. If it engages deeply, education becomes a pipeline of productive human capital.
Walee, under the leadership of Ahsan Tahir, exemplifies that link. The company has engaged with national universities, mentoring students in data science, digital media, and monetization. “Education is an economic infrastructure,” Tahir states, collapsing the divide between theory and enterprise. By anchoring talent in purposeful exposure, Walee signals that corporate entities can play more than a funding or philanthropic role, they can become co-architects of capacity.
Corporate Citizenship as Nation-Building
If education and talent are infrastructure, business must be a builder. Walee itself is not only a tech and media platform; it is a living experiment in integrating education, employment, and enterprise. Founded in 2019, Walee now spans influencer marketing, enterprise SaaS, social commerce, fintech, and media rights operations across Pakistan and into the MENA region.
Through these ventures, Walee touches multiple verticals, generating spaces where young professionals can practice, lead, and scale. The model is part infrastructure and part apprenticeship. Tahir often frames his role as a nation-builder: “We must produce individuals who can contribute meaningfully to local and global industries.” Through credibility, discipline, and systems, he positions Walee as a platform raising the bar for what talent ecosystems can achieve.
Critics may argue this burden should rest on governments alone. But when states falter, private actors must carry weight, especially in Pakistan, where fragmented educational systems and intermittent policy interventions have left gaps. The corporate sector can step in, adopting parts of the pipeline, testing pedagogy at scale, and demanding reciprocal standards from academia.
Through Walee’s investments, partnerships, and talent programs, the enterprise sends a signal: that profitability can align with capacity building. Better, that such alignment serves as a competitive advantage. In a country where brain drain looms large, this anchoring of talent matters for retention and intelligent growth.
From Promise to Persistence
Talent, properly developed, disciplined, and connected, becomes an engine of growth. Pakistan cannot depend on exports of natural resources; it must export ideas, software, creative work, and it must raise citizens capable of doing so. The contention that education is social welfare must yield to recognition that education is infrastructure: as fundamental to GDP as roads, power, and the internet.
The task is not simple. Schools must reform, curricula recalibrate, behavior learning embed, and academia and industry weld together. The responsibility falls on entrepreneurs and leaders like Ahsan Tahir, who see national impact through the lens of human capacity. If the talent pipeline flourishes, so too does resilience: our cities hum, our exports climb, our youth remain invested.
The next decade in Pakistan will be won by educated, ambitious minds working within systems built for their success. And in that fight, education and talent will be the infrastructure of possibility.
