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Islamabad, December 14, 2025 — Google Developer Group (GDG) Islamabad successfully concluded DevFest Islamabad 2025 at Ramada, Islamabad, bringing together over 300 participants from across Pakistan, including developers, entrepreneurs, tech enthusiasts, students, media representatives, and government officials.
The event focused on Artificial Intelligence, Google technologies, and the future of digital innovation, addressing critical questions around trust, security, productivity, and the ethical and responsible use of AI in Pakistan’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.
The conference was graced by Mr. Zarrar Hasham Khan, Secretary IT & Telecommunication (MOITT), as the Chief Guest, highlighting the government’s strong interest in strengthening collaboration with the developer community. He also elaborated on the government’s efforts at both the provincial and national levels to upskill the workforce in emerging technologies, enabling Pakistan to participate in the global economy actively.
Key Discussions and Insights
The event kicked off with the GDG Islamabad Co-Managers, Sarwat Rizvi, Muhammad Umar Nazir & Ali Naqi Rizvi, extending their gratitude to the sponsors, partners, and attendees for making the event possible. Umar Nazir further amplified the atmosphere through interactive energizer activities and giveaways that kept the audience engaged and enthusiastic.
Following the opening keynote, Chief Guest Mr. Zarrar Hasham Khan, Secretary IT & Telecommunication (MoITT), highlighted the broader national significance of such platforms, emphasizing how events like DevFest enable the government to engage directly with the public and gain valuable insights into the priorities and perspectives of the private technology sector. He underscored the importance of informed AI adoption and digital trust in Pakistan’s transition toward a knowledge-based economy.
He further shared details of the government’s ongoing efforts at both the national and provincial levels including training programs, skill-development courses, and capacity-building initiatives, aimed at bridging the gap between academia and industry, equipping the workforce with future-ready skills, and supporting Pakistan’s entry into the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Building Businesses, Going Global
Aziz Kassamali, Founder at BogoLiv, delivered an inspiring keynote emphasizing that personal initiative is the foundation of national progress. He highlighted how individual actions contribute to the country’s growth and outlined the strategic role BogoLiv is playing to help Pakistani businesses scale and succeed in the global market.
What’s New at Google: Gemini 3.0
Ali Naqi Rizvi, Senior Technical Consultant at Teradata and Co-Manager of GDG Islamabad, delivered a deep dive into Gemini 3.0, describing it as the world’s strongest AI model. He explored its state-of-the-art capabilities in creation, automation, and reasoning, detailing how the model uses advanced “Deep Think” mechanisms to handle complex, multi-step workflows. Ali demonstrated how Gemini 3.0 transcends traditional LLM boundaries, acting as a true agentic partner that can plan, execute, and verify tasks to drive next-generation automation.
Google Antigravity: Experience Liftoff with the Next-Generation IDE
Daniyal Khalid, Software Engineer at Google, introduced Google’s work on Antigravity (AI-Powered Development Platform – IDE), focusing on building trustworthy AI agents. He highlighted existing limitations in the reliability and consistency of AI agents’ outputs, emphasizing the importance of trust architecture, verification mechanisms, and structured workflows such as plan, act, and verify to ensure reliable AI-assisted decision-making.
Introduction to NotebookLM
Mahnoor Salman, Co-founder & Senior AI Engineer at atomcamp, presented insights on the role of AI in education and research. She shared that over 51% of users now rely on AI tools for productivity and highlighted how NotebookLM enhances research through summarization, mind maps, and multi-language support, catering to diverse learning patterns and democratizing access to knowledge.
Prompt to Production: Building an AI app
Shajeel Afzal, Founder at UpAlerts, spoke on transforming AI ideas into real-world products. He emphasized that AI can now be used not only to build applications but also to create revenue-generating tools. Shajeel outlined a structured journey from preparation to deployment, stressing the importance of starter templates and essential Model Context Protocols (MCPs) to accelerate development workflows.
Building a RAG App with Gemini, Imagen, Veo & Cloud Run
Mughees Awan, Data Scientist at Teradata, discussed Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications for industry, explaining how organizations can leverage AI models for internal use cases. He highlighted advancements in multimodal AI, including improvements in newer models capable of handling text, images, and video simultaneously.
Testing, Evaluating & Securing LLMs
Marium Aslam, GDE (AI, Firebase & Google Cloud), addressed the challenges of hallucinations, prompt injection, and jailbreaking in large language models. She emphasized the need for robust testing strategies, including functional, safety, and regression testing, and encouraged the use of open-source frameworks to ensure secure and reliable AI deployments.
Synthetic Truth and Digital Responsibility
In a thought-provoking session, Imran Ghazali, Founder & CEO of Optimize Digital, and Aiman Rafiq, Program Manager at Mobilink, explored the concept of synthetic truth, discussing how AI-generated content blurs the line between fact and fabrication. The speakers emphasized the need for verification from authentic sources and raised important questions around accountability in cases where AI-generated information causes harm.
Workshop: Zero Syntax, Just Vibes
Running in parallel, Ibrahim Khan, Product Designer at Arbisoft, led the technical workshop titled “Zero Syntax, Just Vibes”. The session focused on leveraging design thinking and AI tools to build products without complex coding, proving that creativity is the new syntax.
Networking & Giveaways
The event featured a vibrant networking lunch, providing a perfect backdrop for attendees to connect and collaborate. Participants were treated to exclusive giveaways, including premium earbuds, shoulder backpacks, and discount memberships courtesy of the event partners.
Partners and Support
DevFest Islamabad 2025 was supported by Google, with BogoLiv as the Title Sponsor and LMKR as Silver Sponsor, while Ramada Islamabad served as the official Hospitality Partner. Media and ecosystem partners included Suno TV, TechJuice, Optimize Digital, Digital Pakistan, DeafTawk, NIC Islamabad, Innovista, and Bookkaru.
DevFest is part of a global initiative by Google Developer Groups, aimed at fostering innovation, collaboration, and learning within developer communities worldwide.
For more information and future updates, visit:
https://linktr.ee/GDGislamabad
