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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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2:18 am
I found TIE to be a very effective organization in the past. I was not associated closely with Lahore chapter but have attended a few networking and presentation event in Canada.
Its very good to see such events happening in Pakistan. Dr. Khalid must be a busy man but I will encourage TIE to arrange for more mentoring events so young entrepreneurs can get good guidance and hopefully seed/startup funding.
/Majid
5:53 pm
Hello,
Usman,interestng comments ..we are very interested in presentations to investors,especially when we discovered how small the chances are in getting funding…
We have spoken to many V”s and have included the ten years research/experience of discovery beach (AU ) to help us formulate an appropriate presentation..
It really is time for a revolution..in presentations and business plans….It’s as though for most investors the internet does not exist.
Our first attempt to start a fresh is to use animation
( more on the edu..of this if interested )You will laugh at our first attempt..which can be viewed by TMI link investor…then link investor intro…..
This is the start and even a drunk one eyed flea can see that future presentations will be multi media “on the fly”…direct to the investors inbox..
Every investor we have called has been at front of his monitor……The biggest single problem they have is the time it takes to find good projects…We are attempting to solve that problem for them as part of our strategy to help the poor…
Is the text of Asad Alam available ?
….Ian
6:11 pm
Majid
Your suggestion on mentoring does need to be taken up..if only because it would save an immense amount of hassle time money (own governments friends ) ,which could be avoided if only one knew how..
The current problem is few startups have the money to buy class mentoring..(although by research we have found the best online mentors
with excellent value for money)
It does suggest something obvious..perhaps an opportunity for students to startup a service to bring this about..wisdom can be found at places like elders wisdom circle..i have found them very understanding….
Regarding seed funding for startups .very few investors will be interested and beware of timelines and don’t jump at the first offer you get…..
Always try and “boot strap” your way forward if you can…….Ian
3:36 am
Ian,
Agreed. I was part of Technology venture capital/IT incubator back in 2001 in Pakistan same time as TIE was launched by Baber Ali and people like Kanwal Rekhi were in town.
The fund was in few million dollars however we were not able to find any good venture to invest in. The company was a launched by one of the biggest finanical insitution. Since we weren’t able to find a single good venture to invest in, the company was shutdown after an year of operation. A great contributing factory was dotcom bubble burst however we greatly felt that the IT entrepreneur weren’t ready. Good ideas were missing.
However, looking back at the last few years I feel things have been pretty good for technology entrepreneur however mentoring, angle investors and VC need to be all in place to take good ideas and make them a great idea!
/Majid
4:12 am
Majid..
In talking to many investors it also seems there is another problem which will not easily be solved..
Many seem to have “accountants minds”..this is the last thing you want when assessing a new innovation..
When i present my billion dollar idea to them thinking creatively presents a real problem…vision is required for something that is not yet there.
That’s why a mastermind body of students
have often been the ones to start the “googles “and “youtubes”……….
It’s only a matter of time before investor
entities are going to be side stepped by much younger university funding bodies ..or are they already being formulated ?
This is now ready to happen because of the much cheaper beta testing of startups on the internet…Many are not aware the sponsored links on the right hand side of pages on google include many testing their ideas..sometimes getting valuable stats/
results and revenue in minutes …..
ian