When a 19th century romantic French writer by the name of Victor Hugo said “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come” he obviously could not envision Pakistani bureaucracy. Not only can it reduce an idea to nothing more than its meager skeletal remains squirming in its own vile, it too often does.

Come 2004, the IT bubble is about to burst in a military run, democratic, American influenced politically independent subcontinent country by the name of Pakistan. It is here in our story that along comes an idea. It is a simple idea yet revolutionary in every way, the idea to prepare this country for the topsy-turvy world it exists in is to inject it with private equity, in essence jet fueling it into prosperity, whether it likes it or not. Let’s just ignore the fact that the literacy rate is so low that it might actually have to rise to hit rock bottom and where skilled labor seems to be playing hide and hide with the feeble corporate sector. Also lets ignore the fact that governmental policies are almost all geared towards the public sector especially defense but you didn’t hear that from me.

So with this minor socio-eco-political environment in the discarded footnotes of an otherwise brilliant idea, its full steam ahead to launch Pakistan’s first incubation center. And what better place than a visionary academic institution that is known for its creativity, risk taking and freethinking environment, the National University of Sciences and Technology. It was a match made in heaven, pairing the private sector hatchling companies with the full might of a military run academic institution. Because everyone knows that the military is a breeding ground for creativity, stuffed with free thinking and deep fried in risk taking. Oh I did mention NUST is run by a serving lieutenant General and while great effort was put to show NUST as a non military entity, the beige color buildings and commandants did little to stir confidence in the façade.
At this point I would like to categorically state that I am not a pessimist, my psychiatrist may disagree but what does he know.

But let’s give TIC a chance here. They claim to be the first incubation center to be established in academia in Pakistan, but then again there are 5 other incubation centers active in Karachi and Islamabad as well.
For TIC – their website and list of incubated companies has not been updated in nearly 2 years – I’ve been following it closely. I do not know who’s actually getting incubated, and neither does any of the NUST students that I’ve spoken to… was the comment of a reader, Osama A, on an article on TIC on April 18, 2008… and alas! it still holds true for the current state of affairs. Their website fails to provide an iota of clarity, apart from a general manager and assistant manager coordination they have no staff. Also, and dear reader please indulge me, after almost 8 years their long list of three incubate companies speaks volumes of efficiency.

Now at this point most of you will expect me to say something like “they’re either just a promotional gimmick or a way of exploiting the entrepreneurs into giving away major shares for minor work” but you’re wrong, I say “they’re just a promotional gimmick”.
To me its way too painfully clear that it is an attempt, no matter how insincere or crude, is a whim of a certain high ranking –let’s say a creative freethinking and risk taking ruler of NUST.

The past whole week I was really excited about going to the exhibition on 5th and 6th at expo center Lahore since the theme read “home expo and super car expo”. I was counting on seeing some innovative home solutions, fancy cars and a lot of appliances for both. As I entered the arena, an ear piercing heavy bike engine race greeted me. Oh wow nice, we have bikes here too… and lots of them, but let’s see if we have the actual products that are expected.

First cars!! Honda Launched its new City Aspire at the event. This attracted a lot of young crowd who wanted to check it from every angle before its production started which owes to public response at the launch, which was quite enthusiastic on both days. Young boys and girls stormed in and out of sports cars (including Nissan, old Ford Mustang, BMW, Mitsubishi,) and taxi Rickshaw taking pictures and making videos. All cars’ accessories of different companies were there with friendly staff, discount cards and special offers for customers who placed their orders on the spot. Heavy bikes looked heavier with a cheap display of prices on them ALL! I love heavy bikes and I hated that sight. The salesmen sat on them themselves (since they also carried a sign on them of “DO NOT SIT” along with the price tags) and after every 5 min made a heart pumping ear piercing noise that some loved and other like me found despicable.

Coming to the home appliances; there is Haier, and there was Haier. No Dawlance or Pel or Mitsubishi or any other electric home appliance stall. There was ROBAM though for kitchen appliances with a nicely arranged stall that spoke volumes about their quality and professionalism.The best products were at Swat Wood Gallery. Intricately carved tables, stools, chairs, footrest, wall hangings and other decorations greeted and soothed the eye with fine taste and skillful handicraft. I was really interested to see Green Heritage Upvc windows and doors. Home expo was predominated with interior designers. I am not going to name them all; many were classy but the funniest I found CASAHAMZA. Although its tagline reads “We don’t sell furniture, we design spaces”, and to boast that they have a very nicely put together brochure to give but the ugliest designed space at the expo, protected by “please don’t take pictures here” with a lot of hand-waves in the air.

To top it all off we went through the exit door with paintings on our left. All framed in white giving an impression of theme and exclusivity, which on close inspection fell apart.

   NOTE: This is a sponsored post

Football. The most popular sport in the world. That may be hard to believe, we being a die-hard cricket nation, but there are many amongst us who get their blood pumping whenever our favorite team kicks some balls (pun intended).  There’s excitement in the air, and the airwaves for that matter, when Spanish rivals Real Madrid and Barcelona are about to have a face-off on the field. Manchester United or Chelsea? The answer could incite either jeers or cheers, depending on who you’re surrounded by. It feels like you belong to an exclusive club really, not to mention how convenient it is to strike up a conversation with a stranger knowing you have mutual respect for the same team! Although football has only just begun to break into our hearts, it’s easy to fall in love with the game.
Pepsi is keen on promoting the sport in Pakistan. Combining the ecstasy of music, the passion of football, and our delight for the drink, they’ve really scored a hat-trick (yes that term is also used in football). And now Pepsi wants you to take part in a contest that could win you a trip to remember! For all you fanatics of the 90 minute game, if you had thought meeting a football legend in your lifetime was just fodder for your daydreams, think again. You are getting a chance to realize that fantasy! Pepsi Pakistan wants to send 3 lucky fans to Miami, Florida in the USA to watch reigning footballer of the year, Lionel Messi!
Messi, FC Barcelona’s forward, is a true hero. Three-time consecutive FIFA World Player of the Year, and breaking records as soon as he began playing in clubs, it’s no wonder the whole world is in awe of him. The 24-year old broke through all obstacles in his way to become the legend that he is today. Diagnosed with a rare growth hormone deficiency at the age of 11, almost everyone he knew thought his dreams of being a professional footballer were over. But passion drove him to become one of the world’s greatest players of the game. Shy, humble and an incredible teammate, the guy is just a feast to watch when he’s dancing with the ball on the field.
Now you can watch him live in action, a privilege many would kill for! Pepsi Pakistan is running a competition on its Facebook page to test your knowledge of football. Answer as many questions as you can, and for each question, the first 2 winners will be chosen.   After the week-long activity, a pool of 22 finalists will enter a lucky draw at the end of the competition.  The lucky draw will pull out 3 very fortunate winners, who will get to see Messi in the flesh! A concert, beach parties, and a Miami cruise are just some of things planned for the 4 nights, 5 day all-expenses paid trip , making it one to remember for the rest of your life.  Stay tuned to Pepsi’s Facebook page and get in position to attack whatever comes your way.

Let’s play ball!

https://www.facebook.com/pepsipk

There are two main things that are currently causing out growth in ICT to stall. One is the lack of original ideas, so most of the entrepreneurs either copy what is already around internationally or locally (same ideas of online shopping, online bidding) we still have not hit the jackpot with someone creating some thing like instagram or drawsomething and being acquired by one of the big names.

The second issue always lamented by entrepreneurs is lack of any funding sources in Pakistan. Over the years we have seen efforts being made to create funds which would help but what ended happening that most of these funds either did not like any one to fund or had such a lengthy process that people shied away from them.

One of few funding sources in Pakistan is National ICT R & D Fund which has loads of cash sitting around idle, but not a lot of it being utilized in projects of worth. The process to acquire funding can take more than a couple of years (probably a time long enough ti extinguish any flame of entrepreneurship ). I have personally known a lot of people who applied for funding with brilliant ideas, only to be faced with red tape process and sessions and sessions of interviews and presentations. But very very few of those actually got any thing in return for following the process.

If you look at the projects which got funded it shows a number of government funded projects ranging from PKR 6.14 million to PKR 31 million without the project complete submission (while it states the project is completed and submitted) and in fact leading to broken links. One such example is of the project named ‘Agriculture Decision Support System Using Agri Data Warehousing, Data Mining & Web based Online Analytical Processing’ .
For the details of the project the author gives us the link of a website which is trying to sell its domain . The project is surprisingly got PKR 31million in funding and neither the author nor the supervisor has put in the little effort of giving the final submission report. I am sure a small amount of the acquired 30 million could have been used to pay domain registration and hosting fees for the project which would definitely be less than 10,000 rupees per year.

Moreover, the status, cost and number of proposals submitted since 2007 also leave us dumbfounded under the funded proposals heading. Since 1997, proposals worth of PKR 2612.33 million were withdrawn and PKR 1399.33 million have been rejected which is definitely a heavy blow for the economy which is sinking in its debt and highest inflation levels. Whether the right screening of the project proposals at initial levels is to be blamed or the overall authenticity of the whole government investments are a complicated area requiring research on its own

In short, the total lack of accountability of government’s funded projects in the name of country’s R&D and technological development is clearly evident and is obvious enough not to throw dust in the eyes of the viewers who can easily figure out the level of corruption and deception on this level.

We all know about the 7 layers of the OSI model. This is the framework by which computer networks are defined. Starting with the physical layer, going through the transport layer and finally culminating in the application layer where end user applications reside. I believe that this should be redefined to include and additional layer – the Social Layer. From the current vantage point, the Social Layer lies right above the Application layer – hence it is served by the Application layer.

The 90s witnessed a boom in what is now referred to as web 1.0. This consisted of static applications hosted over the web. Static applications meant that an end user could go to a page and get information off the page, but could not modify it. Examples of this would be the earliest versions of Yahoo.com, Excite.com, Lycos.com etc. The first inkling of systems that users could interact with came as internet email came about.

Hotmail.com was seen as a wondrous product that shrunk distances and connected people living in far flung places. Email also marked the end of an era in the corporate world. In the world before email, most tasks were completed by faxes, postal mail or by physical manipulation. Even minute tasks such as walking over to people to check up on a task or simply see if they were free for coffee were instead relegated to email. This need for instantaneous communication led to advent of instant messaging.

The very first instance of instant messaging was on the network layer – pinging a connection and receiving an acknowledgement. That gave way to corporate IM. The flood gates really opened when regular end users were given access to IM through AIM (AOL IM) and MSN Messenger. AIM IDs became so entrenched in urban speech that even to this day; many people from Asian countries tend to ask for your Facebook ID which is a play off of the old AIM ID or MSN ID! Modern day social applications were spawned from these instant messaging tools.

The early part of last decade saw the arrival of social sites like Friendster and Orkut. People took to these sites with much aplomb given that now they could easily occupy a space on World Wide Web that they could call their own. It was a place to share pictures, articles and interests. As social networks widened, they became a tool to connect with friends, both that were nearby and those that had moved out of your life. The full effect of these networks became apparent when people found out that they weren’t socially limited only to the area they lived in, nor by the strands of time – they were pleasantly surprised to find long lost friends living on the other side of the planet and started reminiscing and reconnecting despite all the time and space separating them.

Myspace.com took this fascination to the next level and introduced the concept of hanging out on people’s pages. Creative types started using myspace as an avenue to showcase their talents to virtual audiences and solicit instant feedback. Musicians tried releasing new videos on the site and struggling bands tried commercializing their work by sampling and selling their wares. And this rolled into the Facebook we know today.

In addition to incorporating features from the social evolution described above, the likes of Facebook took a page from Apple and Google and brought forth a new dimension of web 2.0. This was opening up their platforms to outside developers. This move single handedly spawned millions of jobs across the world and brought forth an app culture that other technology titans may not have thought of in a million years. This app culture took social interaction between the system and its users to a whole new level. Now, users were not limited to just what a social platform had to offer, but were open to play with the data, formats and constructs that were part of the platform itself. Nowadays, it’s almost a given that if any new web-based application also offers their APIs to outside developers. A historical comparison could be drawn from the birth of the operating system in the early 80s.

There was a digital hacker culture in the 60s and 70s but it was limited to government and academic institutions. When Microsoft brought around DOS, it opened up the computer to millions. Now anybody could access a computer through a simple GUI. If so inclined, anybody could develop software that they could run on the OS leading to all the wonderful programs that we have been using for the past 3 decades. And now, the social phenomenon is trying to break down the doors in the corporate enterprise.

The new angle to being social on the web now is local. In a twist of irony, after conquering the globe through their networks, social networks are trying to become local now. Apps like foursquare and FacebookConnect allow people to walk into an establishment and ‘check in’ letting everybody in their networks know where they are. Some startups are mashing this location data and pooling people who have similar interests or backgrounds (based on their social network profiles) and notifying people of each other’s presence in the same location – allowing people to make further connections. While end users have utilized the Social Layer to their benefit, it’s corporate enterprises that are still resisting.

While some forward looking corporations have integrated social aspects into the systems and software that they use, most of them are trying it out just because one person in senior management may be interested, or it’s being offered as a bundle with something else that they’re buying. Companies like Salesforce.com and Yammer are offering software solutions with a social element but these are only limited to small chunks within the company and don’t really benefit the broader workforce. There are startups that are trying to break into the enterprise by offering social project management tools that are also available as mobile applications but face stiff opposition from management processes that have been around for decades and management that doesn’t deem it necessary for everyone to be connected via mobile. Companies like Cisco are trying to revolutionize how institutional as well as individuals customers are serviced by providing state of the art, socially integrated technologies only to find out that they have to compete with (and lose to) executives still afraid to use corporate IM, let alone the video/audio components available through IM.

In conclusion, the Social Layer is upon us and needs to be embraced. This is not a fad or a passing fancy of somebody in marketing. It is not all fun and games limited to Facebook and Pinterest. This has real business value. I implore executives to look beyond terminologies such as knowledge management, which sounds drab and conjures images of hulking main frames that hold and process data. The Social Layer is not just collaboration – it as an opportunity to connect people and link silos. Enterprises need to shed their fears and be willing to share data in an open space. Socialize the data, share it and most of all, make everybody part of the process and then reap the benefits that come from fresh perspective. Resistance and/or passiveness will not stop the Social Layer from establishing itself.

Indonesia is a relatively poor, conservative Muslim country. Yet Facebook penetration is such in their society that they don’t refer to the internet as the internet any more. For Indonesians, ‘Fesbuk’ (term used to describe facebook in the local Bahasa language) is the internet. It is the web. And that is the importance, effect and power of the Social Layer.

Pakistani IT industry has been progressing rapidly over the last few years. It is heartening to see that the industry players are innovating and working in different areas to establish their expertise.

Recently, TenPearls, one of the leading IT companies of Pakistan, launched “Carumba!”, a 3D car racing game for iPhone and iPad. Carumba! has been designed and developed by TenPearls’ innovation labs. Launched as a free game, Carumba! allows users to earn coins during the race, and redeem them to unlock other cars and tracks or to get additional nitro boosts. It has also been integrated with Apple’s Game Center.

The game has received very good response from the users, resulting in 30,000 downloads in just 15 days. More details about the game can be viewed at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/4/prweb9333931.htm

Efforts like these would have a very positive impact on the local IT industry. It would result in increased knowledge base of our local resources, and help establish Pakistan as a solid provider for IT services for customers with diverse needs.

‘Rethinking Pakistan’ [and my expression goes LOL and I will explain why] was the theme of the conference which took place at margalla hills Islamabad on March 31st 2011 organized by TEDx, lets just summarize here what TEDx is; before we further dig into the “theme” and happenings of this conference.

TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) and ’x’ denotes the independently organized events under the TED umbrella, mission is “Ideas worth spreading” and this events basically brings together individuals, communities and organizations with the opportunity to excite dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level (geographically). The programs combine live presenters, performers and pre-recorded talks from some of the most brilliant and successful people according to the theme. The program promises an inspirational journey (as per the creators) to all the attendees and live viewers (live broadcast was arranged too)

Coming back to subject of current happening at margalla where some great professionals and entrepreneurs were invited as speakers, I would like to mention a few names like Prof. Adil Najam (Vice Chancelor – LUMS), Asad Umer (Chairman – Engro Ltd.), Flora Mehmood (Educationist) and Sami Shah (Pakistan’s first stand up English comedian); an event worth attending for the way it was organized and arranged, perfect audio visual arrangements, dazzling lights and glowing intellectuals and yet one gets confused about the theme….

Why exactly are we rethinking Pakistan? No body mentioned the need (none I heard of), and where did the concept/theme come from? I thought the mission was ideas worth spreading and I disagree with the idea of re-thinking Pakistan, for the Love of GOD we are not even thinking about Pakistan and yet spending millions from a so called non for profit to organize such a confusing event? Who are we trying to inspire here and with what? Or are we saying that those who gave the idea of Pakistan and sacrificed their lives in thinking and executing this idea were wrong? This takes me to the comedian Sami Shah, exactly why wouldn’t we need a comedian for such an event? After all when the whole world is making a joke out of Pakistan why not doing it locally as well? All the event organizers want their events to be famous and well attended and what better ways are there to do that than having comedians and theater performers at such a noble theme.

Nobody at the event mentioned any outcomes from the TEDx event which took place in 2010 and I doubt anyone has any idea about the outcomes of this event either, so if we have to just simulate dialogues and present inspirational speeches, why cant we just listens to our politicians (who are by the way good ONLY at doing so), why wasting time of such brilliant (and busy) people along with all the attendees (who will only get inspired and later on do nothing)? All those shiny cars, red carpet arrangements, flowers and smiles…. For rethinking Pakistan! What a waste of time….

How about a theme where we actually start feeling, thinking and most importantly acting like Pakistanis (without getting licensed by a western organization) and take hold of some courage to do something about how we feel, OR…. we can wait for another couple of years to attend another such event where we will get inspired again with delusional words only.

Related Links

http://www.ted.com/pages/about

http://tedxmargalla.com/

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=308032299243598&set=a.127597500620413.10056.127597413953755&type=1#!/TEDxMargalla

  ICT R&D Fund aims to provide graduating students a chance to really make their final projects counts. I have always felt that students in their final year some times product excellent products which due to lack of any infrastructure and proper guidance plus funding just go in the Universities Libraries.

Seems ICT R & D fund is giving these students a chance to take their projects to the next level by acquiring funding, if you are a final year student doing a project all you need is to get this form filled and submitted through your head of department .
Last date for submission for forms is 31st March. 

Details can be found here, text from the site is also added for your convenience.

http://ictrdf.org.pk/ngiri/main1.htm

This initiative aims to promote, enable, and encourage R&D culture at the grassroots level by funding relatively high caliber R&D projects initiated by students under the mentorship of faculty members in chartered universities of both Public and Private sector.

Through this initiative the Fund will provide financial support to selected Final Year Projects (FYP) of undergraduate students enrolled in ICT related disciplines like Computer Science & Information Technology, Electrical, Electronics, Telecom, Computer, and Software Engineering.

The financial assistance under the initiative will enable students undertaking Final Year Projects (FYP) in building prototypes and working models to showcase their creativity and innovation by applying hands on engineering and development skills. The funding under this initiative covers the cost of purchase of equipment and other miscellaneous costs associated with the development of the prototype or working model.

Recommendations for currently ongoing Final Year Projects (FYP) should be submitted to the Fund through the respective Head of Departments on the prescribed Recommendation Form. All the recommendation received will be evaluated by a committee of experts constituted by the Fund. Final decision pertaining to the selection of any project for this initiative shall be taken by the National ICT R&D Fund.

I wanted to discuss the Thiel Fellowship and sort of run the idea among our readership to figure out if it was justified or not. Bay Area hedge fund manager Peter Thiel started a Fellowship program in his name about a year ago trying to capitalize not on start ups, but the smart kids who may actually come up with the next billion dollar idea.

Let there be no mistake. Innovation solves problems. Bankers, lawyers and hot shot executives are good for only one thing: managing an existing infrastructure. It is the innovators who turn existing ideas on to their heads and enable breakthroughs. Considering the point above, it makes absolute sense to dole out money to innovators irrespective of anything instead of expecting business school drones to come up with new ideas.

I’m sure Thiel had this very idea in mind when he announced that he was going to give $100,000 scholarships to highly motivated kids for dropping out of college and working on start ups. The Fellowship would run for a period of two years and would include mentor ship from various entrepreneurs, visionaries and investors in Thiel’s network.

Now a little bit about Mr. Thiel. He is a Stanford educated lawyer who co-founded PayPal and took it public making millions in the process. Currently he manages a multi-strategy hedge fund in the Bay Area with around $700 million under management. He is also a managing partner of the $275 million venture capital fund Founders Fund. His master stroke was making a $500,000 angel investment in Facebook for a 10.7% ownership stake in the social network’s infancy. That stake is now well over $1.7 BILLION!! With academic smarts and street cred like that, why should anybody doubt Thiel? For three reasons:

First, the world of start ups is cruel. For every sexy profile you see on TechCrunch, GigaOm and Green & White – there are hundreds, nay, thousands of failures. Even the companies profiled often run out of business. Either the founders lose interest, teams fall apart, funding dries up, Google brings out a similar product etc. – the odds of start up success are unrealistically low.

Second, there are more than 6 billion people on the planet. Companies like Facebook and Google may rake in the dough, but they only impact the population that is literate, has access to the web, a computer, electricity and ideally, cash to spare. What if, instead of targeting the 20% of the population that has access to all of the above; start a scholarship for kids to figure out a way to make life better for the other 80%? For example, if Thiel would offer money to the brightest minds on the planet to figure out a low cost way to light up a village, or bring clean water to an arid area- I think we’d have some fascinating results. The revenues may be low, but I think the sheer amount of customers would be large enough to make a tidy profit.

Third, without a doubt, Peter Thiel is a whiz kid. He started out as a childhood prodigy and went all the way to become a hedge fund manager. There is a possibility, though, that if he hadn’t taken a stop at Stanford for his degrees, he may still be toughing it out at a struggling start up. I think his education gives others the confidence to take a chance on him – be it by making him a CEO of an explosive start up or investing money with him.

Bottom line is – this is a valiant effort by Peter Thiel to find the next big start up. But instead of offering kids to drop out of school to do start ups, maybe he should focus on programs within schools where kids can develop concepts and keep on working on these projects after graduation. In addition, maybe he should really challenge the limits of imagination by asking these kids to solve a social issue while remaining profitable. Simply asking kids to drop out of school to be eligible for this scholarship may just be a little presumptuous.

Particularly, from a Pakistani view point, this is even tougher to do. Pakistan has been blessed the some brilliant minds. But we are also bound by social and cultural norms unheard of in the Western world. We are expected to get an education even if we later go on to start a company. I think if we take the more positive elements from Thiel’s experiment and give it a Pakistani spin by focusing on entrepreneurship labs in universities – we may have an attractive model.

Thoughts?

It gives a sense of pride and achievement to hear the news about Pakistani retailers entering UAE market using LumenSoft Candela RMS, a software solution primarily designed for the retail management from a small store to huge business chains. Best part is the fact that it’s a home grown solution and was completely developed in Pakistan by LumenSoft Technologies (Pvt.) Limited. The solution is currently working at 70+ chain store organizations and more than six hundred fifty (700+) stores in forty six (46) cities of Pakistan and has been awarded by (APICTA 2011, P@SHA ICT Award 2011, 2009 & 2008)

In the current situation where our country’s economical conditions are poor and being effected by lots of diseases like terrorism, budget cuts, closure of 80% industry and other government policies, it’s a pleasant news that we are not just exploring international markets but we are doing it in a way which assures the authenticity of our brand’s image and business growth with a homegrown management solution being the cherry on the top.

For people who do not have an idea what RMS really is, it’s a system developed with the help of computers and other devices like EPOS (electronic point of sales system) to ensure a smooth flow of product development, supply chain and sales. Retail management systems are far more effective in business growth than the conventional manual order/accounting procedures, these can not only track all the business activities but also predict and project future business growth; overall it is essential now a days for efficient yet effective management of any retail/wholesale business.

There was a time when people used to go to UAE for the sole purpose of seeking jobs (mostly odd jobs) and it was mainly because of Pakistani’s efforts/hard work that their economy growth reached an extent where they became world’s focus; such an astonishing state which is treasured with OIL and many other facilities yet no enthusiasm in people towards skills, abilities and hard work, inviting the whole world to come and take benefit from what they can offer, I say it was a brilliant step towards exploring another dimension of business opportunities of all kinds having the focus on developing and growing our own business and economy with home grown talent and systems.

Reference Links

http://www.lumensoft.biz/

http://www.pseb.org.pk/bulletin/Nov11/Bulletin_Nationalnews_Nov11.htm

http://pasha.org.pk/