Technological innovation is becoming one of the primary sources of development for nations, especially in developing countries with limited resources. Pakistan is also striving to find its way in the technology dimension along with conventional agricultural and industrial growth. The government of Pakistan has been increasingly focusing on providing a conducive environment for technological innovation. The question of the effectiveness of such policies, regulations, programs, projects, and initiatives persists though. Fortunately, there are success stories available in the academic as well as non-academic recent literature from countries that have leveraged technological innovation to the best effect with governments playing a key role to facilitate the innovators. This paper aims to review government policies, regulations, programs, focus, and challenges in the context of Pakistan and compare them with technologically advanced countries like the US, Japan, UK, France, and China for the sake of learning from international best practices. The findings reveal some challenges ahead for the Pakistani government that are same as for technologically advanced countries, but with more severity. It also highlights a few problems that are more specific to Pakistan such as political instability, corruption, mal-governance, brain drain, startups funding issues and lack of intellectual property rights protection. Pakistani government can take a leaf out of the book of technologically advanced countries where governments have taken significant measures to counter those challenges.
