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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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10:04 pm
There is a common misperception in Pakistan that India’s IT success is the result of Indian government’s grand vision and smart policies. Based on my knowledge of the situation, nothing could be further from the truth. The Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley have succeeded in promoting IT in India, in spite of the government, not because of it. It was their own desire to improve profits by taking advantage of India’s lower costs and availability of skilled engineers and programmers. The essential role the Indian government played started back in the 1950s with the establishment if IITs which have produced a lot of very good engineers and technologists. If the Pakistani government wants to help he IT sector or any other sector, they must focus on improving education in Pakistan.
12:01 pm
Riaz Haq, you have a very valid point. But let me add something to your point regarding first the Education improvement in Pakistan. Thanks to Dr Atta-ur-Rehman (really a great man in my view) we got numerous Universities and thousands of graduating Pakistani men and women every year, with more going abroad for higher studies and some even managing Phds.
But in general there is this big issue, every time I post an advert on Rozee for job, I have to go through scores of useless CVs and when I interview I need to look at morons sitting right across my desk. It often makes me wonder if we are already short of “the skilled labor”!
Maybe if Govt needs to do something now regarding education, maybe they should work more on Primary and Secondary education – so that at least we can have a student enrolling in BSc course who knows what is the meaning of having a LOGIC!
Anyway to the other point of Indians helping the industry rather than Govt doing so. Very true! expat Indians are the one who have totally changed the face of India globally through their tireless efforts! India was the first country to have an IT outsourced project back in 70s when Tata’s Information Systems unit made a project for an American hospital. Even then Govt had no input and even 30 years down the line Govt of India had little or no Input at all!
Today in Pakistan sadly, Govt is trying to do something about what it knows nothing (the circulation mechanism of the above cited email might be taken as exhibit-A for that matter) and sadly Pakistani exapts are busy complaining how bad Pakistan is doing rather than trying to bring in something valuable…
8:41 pm
For those interested in learning about the role of India’s governments in promoting business and industry, I recommend watching the Bollywood movie “Guru” that shows the travails of Dhirubhai Ambani, the great but illiterate entrepreneur and industrialist who created the Reliance Group behemoth. Two of his billionaire sons, Mukesh and Anil, are now among the top 5 richest people in the world. The movie might not be totally accurate, but it does capture the essence of India’s socialist government’s anti-business attitudes. For others, who sing the praises of India’s democracy, I would suggest “Sarkar Raj” that portrays the Godfather-like criminal, murderous behavior of India’s powerful politicians.
2:49 pm
This shows how serious our gov. is towards IT. A general questions email, how are they planning to bring to bring any improvement… huh
11:04 am
I just tried the url above but could not connected
I personally feel that we need to focus on two items desperately
- Integrate IT education with industry
- Improve level of ethics amongst IT professionals. I guess the whole society is struggling in this area … IT professionals being part of it …