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General
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…
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Events General
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…
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General
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…
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Coffee Session General
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…
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Coffee Session General
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…
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General Mobile Apps Software & I.T.
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…
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Events General
‘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…
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Announcements Events General
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…
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Coffee Session General
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…
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11:17 am
Well I dont agree with you..
Reason: I m taking a project management course these days, and only thing i have been told or i have learnt is that the developer i.e. coder is not fit for the senior positions like project managerr cuz they have different approach towards SDLC.
When in university i m being taough that being coder is not a good thing or i might say not much respectable…. then why should i look forward to career in it..rather do some non-techi job …
young grads are not to blamed its the senior ppl in our industry whom brainwashing is required.
12:17 pm
Nausheen,
Your perspective is valid, and I’m glad to see more people atleast see it in a practical way.
Consider this tho: So what if everyone brainwashed you guys into believing that coding jobs are bad — now that you know they were wrong you should think about giving it a serious look.
The problem is people create an image as if “Project Manager” are higher in the company hierarchy than “coders”.
That’s completely false — project managers hold greater liability than coders, but they are equal people with just different roles.
It does happen that PM typically need some good experience in the market with actual SDLCs before they will be asked to manage software projects.
That experience is better learnt on the front lines, where you can atleast understand the coders perspective of the SDLC, and then learn the PM techniques of optimizing it.
Other than that, “coding” as a career is still bright — you have coding -> design -> business analysis / architecture -> Director Engr -> VP Engr -> CTO.
That’s the entire “coding” / Technical career stack. Even if there isn’t too much respect in “coding”, why give up on the chance to become someone respectable like Architect / VP Engr?
That’s what I mean when I say the youth are giving up too early by seeking an easy way out.
Project Management, on the other hand, is a completely different field altogether.
That said, I do agree that it is the responsibility of teachers in college to instill this bigger picture of career paths, but dont me started on how much that is lacking.
12:32 pm
Also one thing you should always remember is that core asset for any technology company is not the project managers it is the coding or technology people.
1:15 pm
osama u r right, Another reason for this is there is no career counciling of IT grads and no one tells them what are various career paths to follow. they just do what might be their seniors doing or some of their friends.
and qazi Although coders+tech ppl are most important asset for working of the company not for the company impt decision making process.
they are treated like 3rd world countries are treated by western world.
1:38 pm
Nausheen, I think engineers are in many cases the important decision-makers
1. Manage schedule keep track of projects.
2. Manage Resources risks hire fire people
Project managers rarely become technology experts the Coders/Engineers are the ones who after experience dictate or architect how some thing is to be done. also they are also the ones who tell the Project managers how long it will take to do some thing. Project managers are the ones co-ordinating.
putting it better. Coders/Engineers are the artist/creator, Project managers is the agent who sets up sale of their art work and collects the money acting as a interface between the artist and the customer
And believe me I have seen more times then less a Coder/Engineer being paid more than the Manager
2:11 pm
Qazi, I think that’s what she meant.
Engineers are the backbone of the company, but I have seen many companies where their input is not considered in the decision-making / planning process for the software.
Unfortunately there DOES exist a precedence that says the Project Manager inherently are better and know more than coders — this type of a culture is very negative for an engineering environment, and precisely what I wrote about in the “Why engr are afraid of becoming coders…” post.
3:19 pm
Well in my opinion
Most of the times the Managers ar ethe person who are in lime light
i m talkign specifically about the IT culture in pakistan not in other countries
the coders are back benchers in this case
only clapping on the “successful project” their Managers done and grabbed all the praise.
My only issue is the coders/developers must get their due respect and share in the lime light as well.
4:24 pm
I think Nausheen points out a culture problem in Pakistan – very valid.
On the contrary, in US for example there are many developers who started their company by writing the code for their product.
The one thing which I learned: smart people can adapt to do anything, all they need is motivation. As long as coders dont have a narrow focus they can be effective managers and leaders.
10:30 pm
Working around with corporates and getting my hands dirty with startups, I have managed number of projects and had to involve in ‘coding’ some time or other. So I would definitely say that coding isn’t bad at all. In fact, to me, “code is poetry”