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Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), Bilal Bin Saqib, delivers keynote on inclusion, AI and tokenization at United Nations forum, held alongside the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly.<\/strong><\/p>\n The forum marked 50 years of microcredit and the Year of Social Business, bringing together political leaders, technology advocates and Nobel laureates to discuss the role of innovation in tackling poverty and unemployment.<\/p>\n Speaking at the Social Business, Youth and Technology Forum, held to mark fifty years of microcredit and the Year of Social Business, Bilal Saqib said that artificial intelligence and tokenization can become the developing world\u2019s most powerful engines of financial inclusion, provided they are built for the people the financial system has long left outside it.<\/p>\n An estimated 1.3 billion adults worldwide do not have an account with a financial institution, while about 900 million of those people have access to a mobile phone, according to figures cited at the forum.<\/p>\n The address argued that the challenge was increasingly about creating appropriate financial infrastructure and regulations rather than access to technology alone.<\/p>\n Chairman PVARA highlighted Pakistan\u2019s recent shift in its approach to virtual assets.<\/p>\n The country restricted the use of digital assets within its banking system in 2018. The Virtual Assets Act 2026 subsequently established a regulatory framework for the sector, followed by the creation of a regulatory sandbox and licensing rules for virtual asset service providers.<\/p>\n Independent global adoption indices place the number of Pakistani virtual asset users at more than 40 million, among the largest and youngest user bases in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cTechnology alone includes no one. Regulation alone includes no one. Inclusion happens where the two meet,\u201d Saqib said.<\/p>\n He also called for developing countries to play a greater role in designing emerging technologies, rather than simply adopting systems developed elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cFor too long, the Global South has been on the menu. Pakistan has chosen the table, with our own pen, writing our own destiny,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The forum brought together a high-level opening panel that included H.E. Dr. Khalilur Rahman, President of the 81st UN General Assembly; Jos\u00e9 Ramos-Horta, President of Timor-Leste and Nobel Peace Laureate; Dasho Tshering Tobgay, Prime Minister of Bhutan; Minister Wellington Dias of Brazil; and Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, whose pioneering work on microcredit the forum was convened to honour.<\/p>\n The keynote closed on the generation the forum was designed to serve, calling on young innovators across the developing world to build without waiting, and framing the goals of zero poverty and zero unemployment not as distant aspirations but as objectives that today\u2019s tools make possible to design.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n