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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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4:02 pm
O yes, quite right… I am working as a team lead after roughly 6 months of industry experience in software dev. and looking for MBA now… thinking of starting it this summer.
But, I think that is the right move after Team lead as I think that path helps in managing teams effectively and climbing the promotion ladder in hierarchy.
Mansoor, you are quite right that most people have off shore project experience more because more work related to web dev. has become the part of life there, not in Pakistan. Think about this that how many companies in Pakistan are doing business via there websites. Mean while i have seen companies in Canada(affordableprogrammers.com) doing their soul business via their website and google Adwords.
But the trend is changing with competition between different DSL companies, internet trend is growing.
5:07 pm
Mostly true, but many old software firm (Systems Ltd. for example) do have Architect level positions, and some firms have more than 7-8 levels of heirarchy.
On the last point, I think that the educational institutes are churning out CS grads in greater numbers than ever before, and the people who qualify for managerial positions are mostly sitting (or plan to be sitting) outside of Pakistan.
So IMHO, the ratio of available manager monkeys to available code monkeys has not changed/will not change significantly – though the gap in experience between these two species will probably widen as “good” people still prefer to emigrate after a few years of experience.
11:52 pm
Great post Mansoor and most of the trends you mentioned are very true. We at Zigron have tried our best to change few of these trends but its not always that easy.
- We are addressing few of these issues by having an absolute flat structure. Within Zigron titles dont matter rather what your role is and that is up for grabs for anyone.
- We are trying to create an environment where every role has its own growth path plus better salaries. We are discouraging our team to not only think about being a Manager. For us “Management” is just a task.
- We are pushing hard to create Architects role and one such position is in play but again it takes time for all of us to realize the importance of such role.
Overall I think young resources who are not aware of Pak IT Industry are more adaptable to such new approaches thats why I think we as an industry need to reach out more to students and explain to them that you can have a big pay day even if you work in QA if thats what your passion is.
5:10 pm
Designers are missing from most of the companies, if you think designers are redundant compare Apple with Microsoft.
9:48 pm
@aa
You are right generally designers are not properly appreciated but I think its slowly changing.. you can look at firms like CDF software and us where User Experience is a very major core…
4:15 am
Let me add few things… people are preferring MBA over CS because for our industry it doesn’t matter you have done some good research … but ‘oh! an MBA can manager technological better?’ (wow) ..
Industry should identify their problem in order to motivate people to find the solutions of those problems by doing research in our local universities instead depending on others!
Surprisingly, most of the companies having very few posts of senior technical level like Architecture, whether I believe there should be one post associates with each project like PMs.
4:16 am
@previous post
‘oh! an MBA can manage technological people better?’ (wow) ..
8:18 pm
most of the graduates prefer fat salaries over actual learning. The problem is with the schools and people that influence them. They keep telling them (dictating them) to do THIS, because this ‘ll get ‘em THAT.
They hardly listen to what they are really passionate about.That’s why after 2-3 years they start realizing they’re stuck in the wrong places.
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish
Steeve Jobs
Increased collaboration between the schools and industry players is required for sharing knowledge which would help fresh graduate to think about the big picture.
4:58 pm
thanks for the input everyone. just a clarification, i did not write this article, just reposted it. it was originally written by Ahmed Siddiqi.
my next post is going to be on middle tier people, the ones who manage various aspects of development lifecycle rather than doing them.
these people form a necessary part of the organizational structure which is looking to expand beyond the 25 person glass ceiling most software companies seem to be hitting here.
11:11 pm
In Pakistan the sooner people realize this, the better it is. Those who are software engineers they should rather focus on building their coding skills. Learn different tools used in the industry, Learn different programming languages but should have deep understanding for one. Here in US, the software developers command very high salary. It is because it is easier to learn soft skills (project management etc) than technical skills. People with technical skills never go out of jobs. Software developers even with just BS can command salaries from $60,000 – 120,000. After 5-10 years of experience, you can be an Architect or Sales engineer and can command even higher salaries. So, don’t down play software engineering. Similarly, you can do well as database administrator, database developer, Linux system Administrator, Windows System Administrator, Quality Assurance Engineer, Project Management etc.
People should NEVER do project management after ONLY 6 months of developer experience. You will never be a good project manager and your skill set will remain mediocre. In US, my few friends are doing project management after spending many years as developer.
11:35 pm
I have a question for you guys.
What is the name of the company in Pakistan which builds the fleet/work force management software? I knew the name but have forgotten it. It was something like Tracker or tera data.
If you guys know please give me their correct name and web address. Thanks
7:40 pm
It is very easy to critisize. The thing is what an individual has done in this regard.
If we all produce good solutions then we will inshAllah beat the international market sooner or later so start working on it.
10:30 am
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