In the Line of Wire

Vodafone announced yesterday that it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten of its markets around the globe. Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.

When will we have an official iPhone service being offered in Pakistan? We have been hearing for quite a while that most of our telcos have applied to sell the iPhone in Pakistan. Are they making any headway, I wonder?

No this isn’t another story of me nearly falling off an escalator. It is actually the title of a new book released under a Creative Commons License by two experienced software technology professionals. Authored by Ansar Muhammad and Rahim Hasnani, this book tries to explain, in a story-telling style, the key concepts of managing large software development projects.

Ansar Muhammad holds a BCS from FAST-ICS and an MS-IT from Hamdard University. He has been developing and managing large information systems for more than a decade. He has worked on both sides of the fence as a software vendor and a software customer. Currently he is working at a large healthcare institution.

Rahim Hasnani has more than 14 years of experience in the software industry most of it relating to large software projects. He is currently working as Chief Technology Officer at Itim Systems in Karachi. He holds a BCS from FAST-ICS and an MBA from IBA.

Although I have yet to go through the book, the mere fact that our entrepreneurs and technologists are now beginning to publish their experiences, is a good sign for the industry. The first daring dive into authoring was taken by Jawwad Ahmed Farid when he wrote The Blue Screen of Death - a book regarding new venture failures. The book has been used to run workshops at various universities in the country and is available as a download from the BSD website.

Risking Life & Limb has taken a few themes and specifically focused on just those areas. Some of the themes include Dividing a project to manage it better, Managing scope creep, Managing productive teams, Writing good requirement specifications, etc.

The authors say that you should be able to read this book in a few hours and that is exactly the idea; to keep it short and simple. It is part of a series so if you like this one, watch out for the next. Fawzia Salahuddin has already started the wait.

The Qatar Foundation has announced a worldwide competition - the Stars of Science Competition - to find and support the development and funding of original, creative new inventions (in any field) by young inventors of Arab origin and others. The website actually says only young Arabs but in the information leaflets and emails that they have sent out, they state Arabs and non-Arabs.

The 16 finalists, once chosen, will be put through a specially designed 10 week workshop in Doha with state of the art tools and equipment, to further develop the idea. They will then be tutored by experts to develop their business skills so as to enable them to turn their inventions into reality.

The winner of the competition will receive a $100,000 cash prize plus $100,000 in business support, counseling, and marketing of the idea. Four international experts will be on the jury.

I don’t know if this is worth a shot for some of our young wanna-be inventors and innovators but just thought I would put it out there. If nothing else, it is nice to see how foundations are promoting science and technology in our region.

My visit to any city is incomplete unless I am able to visit the main hub of gadgetry in the city. That would be unforgiveable. So the first chance I got, I took the train to Low Yat Plaza and Imbi Plaza - both within a few metres of each other and rumoured to be havens for tech lovers.

Obviously I wasn’t the only one with the idea of rushing off to the computer hub of KL. I was not surprised to run into most of the delegates who had been at the WIPO conference. Although none of them would really admit why they were there - most of them vowing they were only trying to satisfy their curiosity about the place - I suspect it was something more. One of the participants at the conference had said that it was the place to go for “pirated” software and movies. Wonder if that is what drew them there?

I didn’t really have anything on my list that I needed to get. Just wanted to browse and see what was available. I finally saw the MacBook Air. Gosh what a sexy looking laptop. I wanted it so bad but just couldn’t justify getting one. But one day! For those who are unable to access WiFi and need to be wired, Apple’s USB Ethernet Adapter enables your wireless MBA to become a bit more wired by adding an RJ-45 that supports 10/100BASE-T at a mere cost of $29.

I did get myself a new rollable keyboard because the one I have has been used and abused for too long and some of the keys don’t work anymore. You get them in Karachi too but not this cool blue that is much funkier than the black and dark green that you get in Karachi.

I spent several hours in Low Yat Plaza looking at all the new mobile phones and the different types of laptops and peripherals that were on offer. Almost bought a few things but better sense prevailed and I headed back to the hotel without weighing myself down with things that I could easily get back home - and possibly at a better price.

It was a good outing though. Met a young man from Pakistan (who was with his Malaysian teacher - someone I had met at the WIPO event). He is in his final stages of completing his MS degree. Has been here for 6 years. Excited about the possibilities of joining the workforce back home. I asked him to look me up once he returns so that I can connect him with some people in the tech industry. Another example of the reverse brain drain that is taking place.

I went out last night. Needed to get out of the hotel where I have been cooped up for the past few days. The Roundtable is in the Ballroom of the hotel where I am staying - the Seri Pacific Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

I decided to take the Light Rail instead of a cab. Always a lot more fun to use public transportation when it is available. Walked to the terminal armed with my street map feeling like quite the adventurer. First stop was Times Square where the Borders Bookstore sign attracted my attention. I was going up the long escalator when a young child (must have been 3 years old) whose parents and uncle had decided to let him ride totally independently on the escalator (they were slightly ahead of him), tripped and fell.

We were almost three quarters of the way up and if I hadn’t blocked his fall and grabbed onto his legs, he would have gone all the way down. Of course by trying to block his fall, I nearly fell backwards. Dread what could have happened if I hadn’t been able to stabilize myself. As it is I am scared of heights. These bones would have taken quite a hit!

Anyway, all’s well that ends well. The young man bawled away but was not really hurt. All he lost was his ice-cream cone, half of which was all over my jeans. His wailing stopped when the cone was quickly replaced for him by his parents, who were very grateful for my intervention.

IP is being created within the Pakistan IT industry as more companies are developing products and there is an ever-increasing number of idea entrepreneurs who are making their mark on the technology scene. Hence when I was invited to attend the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Roundtable which focused on Software Copyright, I felt it was important for P@SHA to be represented here in Kuala Lumpur.

It was good to hear the different perspectives of delegates from the region as they spoke about their industries, the legislation, enforcement and growth. I was happy to see that there was also a focus on Open Source. Several delegates from Malaysia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia felt that Open Source was the only viable option for countries in this region as the price of international software was just not in line with the purchasing ability of the regional economies.

What surprised me most were the stories from the Japanese speaker who was from the Association of Copyright for Computer Software (ACCS):

1. Apparently the software developer who developed Winny (a Japanese peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program) - Isamu Kaneko, a research assistant in graduate course of computer engineering at the University of Tokyo in Japan - was arrested for suspected conspiracy to commit copyright violation by the High-tech Crime Taskforce of the Kyoto Prefectural Police. Kaneko originally anonymously announced his intent of developing the software on the Download Software board of the popular 2channel (2ch for short) Japanese bulletin board site.

Kaneko’s arrest caused an uproar in communities on the Internet citing it as an unjust arrest. A website set up to raise money for his defence raised over 11 million yen (about US$97,000) within two weeks. Kaneko was released on bail on June 1, 2004. More details on Wikipaedia.

2. The ACCS speaker also moaned and groaned about the sale of second hand computer games saying that it should be stopped because it impacts on the gaming industry and developers of games! I asked how this was different from the sale of second-hand books, clothes, bags, software, etc. Hadn’t there always been a separate market for second hand products? His answer surprised most of us. Apparently, because there is no degradation of computer games because they are on DVD unlike books which may have dog-eared pages and covers missing and clothes that are faded etc, computer games should be treated differently. The onward sale of the games by the first purchaser has negatively impacted the sales of the gaming industry in Japan by about one third. Amazing stuff!

More later!

Met a gentleman from the Bangladesh Government yesterday who, while talking with our local Malaysian host, said something to the effect “What is the program for the afternoon of the 27th instant?” Isn’t that the form in which letters were written in the old days?

Departing from Karachi last night I went through a mixture of experiences that I just had to share.

THE GOOD - great customer service

1. The porter was polite, amicable and whizzed my baggage through security, check-in and x-ray with amazing speed and acumen.

2. The guy at the security desk in the departure lounge was very helpful and told me not to pick up my hand baggage but to let him bring the security stamp to it. Then he advised me to remove the baggage sticker from the boarding pass and keep it safe somewhere else because i would need it when i landed in KL. He even asked me to have a safe and pleasant journey.

3. The check-in team gave me the seat i wanted right in the front of the plane

4. Flight was on schedule

THE BAD - easily fixed if they had the will to do it

1. The immigration queues were long and slow moving. Why don’t they get tech-savvy young people to man/woman these computers? Of course, as usual, the queue that is marked “For Unaccompanied women and children” was full of young and middle aged men. They can’t read I guess and no-one asked them to move. Why put up signs like these if they are not going to be adhered to? It’s really irritating.

2. The departure gate was changed at the last minute and no announcement was made until much later after we had gone from one gate to another when the flight departure was announced.

3. The smoking that continues in the departure lounge despite large signs that clearly state “No Smoking”.

4. If you have an electronic ticket, you are sent to make a photocopy of it for the check-in staff for their records <sigh>

5. The facilitation charge (meaning trolley charge and porter) is now Rs. 200 (up from Rs. 100). I wonder if it has gone up from Rs. 50 to Rs. 100 at the domestic terminals.

Those are the immediate raves and rants. I am sure I will think of more later :-).

I realize that different people find different things amusing so when one is organizing an event it is very difficult to cater to all tastes. It is therefore possible that some of you may think I am being over-critical with this post. I usually try not to judge but I am just so cheesed off about this, that I need to get it off my chest.

I went to an IT event in Karachi earlier this month - was really looking forward to it because events like these are always a great opportunity to meet up with some people who may not be part of one’s usual network. I am not going to mention the name of the organization that hosted the event because the purpose is not to criticize but to try and understand why things like this happen. Is it just that no thought goes into the planning?

The evening started off well. The hosts were welcoming, the ambience was nice. It was outdoors and it was a pleasant Karachi evening. Met a number of old friends and associates whom I was able to chit-chat with before the beginning of the proceedings.

It was at this stage that things started to go southward. Two lovely young ladies were MC’ing the event. Their idea of humour was to show how totally non-tech they were, how technology was something that went way above their aheads - our versions of the ‘dumb blondes’. The sad thing is that both the young ladies are actually quite bright and I know that at least one of them is tech-savvy. So why did they feel the necessity to be-little themselves and their gender? Is that really funny? Well, people laughed so I guess they thought it was. I was seething because we spend so much time convincing parents and young women/girls that there is no reason they cannot choose any profession that interests them - whether it be design, engineering, computer science, architecture, film, you name it. When women portray themselves as less intelligent and totally flaky, they do all of us a disservice and it annoys the hell out of me.

As if this was not bad enough, the evening actually got worse when a comedy troupe came on stage and cracked the most vulgar, crude and annoyingly un-funny jokes that I have heard in a long time. Risque humour can be funny but these jokes were not risque - they were blatantly crude, not amusing and totally unsuitable for the type of mixed audience and familes that were there. I actually squirmed and kept my eyes focused on the ground when some of the worst ones were uttered. I was sitting with colleagues and friends - some of whom had their spouses with them. There were kids from universities present.

Apart from the filthy, gutter humour that belonged in a boys’ public school, there was a joke about suicide bombers with one chap coming on stage with dynamite strapped around him threatening to blow himself and everyone else up because life in Pakistan was not worth living. The punch line was that the device didn’t explode because it was cheap Chinese technology. I found it all quite sickening I am afraid and was quite glad that the host was busy when I slipped out. I would not have been able to compliment him on a delightful evening.

I don’t understand why people believe that crudeness, violence and vulgarity is funny. Or am I simply being a prude?

When we refer to someone as “disabled” what are we really doing? Are we sayng that that person is less than us in some way? Are we feeling sorry for him/her? Patting ourselves on the back for our compassion and sense of humanity if we take the time to hang out with someone whom we have labeled as disabled?

How do we define a disability? Isn’t it merely the absence of an ability? Aren’t all of us then disabled in one way or another? For instance, if I were living in Japan and was unable to speak Japanese, would I not be disabled from communicating effectively with the majority of the people living there? What if I found myself in the midst of a group of financial experts who were discussing some complicated financial issue that went over my head, wouldn’t I be disabled from understanding the context of that discussion?

Recently I met a young woman by the name of Lozina in Rawalpindi. She is confined to a wheelchair and, for her, pain and discomfort are synonymous with living. But chatting with her was an amazing experience. She has done her Masters in Computer Science and is at the moment working on a PhD. She has been physically challenged since she was born. Her parents decided at the outset that her condition would not be allowed to restrict her from doing anything that she wanted to do in life. I met the parents too and never have I met a couple who are as proud of their daughter, of the person she is and of her achievements. It was wonderful to see. The next step she is taking is to start on her PhD program and I must commend Dr. Arshad Ali and his team at NUST for encouraging her and providing her with whatever direction she needs to pursue this program. Vickram Crishna and his partner Dr. Arun Mehta have been asked to be her supervisors alongwith two NUST professors.

Meeting with Lozina reminded me of a person I met in Ahmedabad years ago. I had been invited to be a panelist at a conference there. Walking into the workshop area, I saw a gentleman sitting and working on his laptop, headset on, talking on his mobile while he was typing away - a really hi-tech dude. He was the moderator of the session - Dr. Dipender Manocha. A terrific guy, great sense of humour, very knowledgeable about a diverse number of subjects. I sat and chatted with him for about half an hour before I realized that he could not see. Dipender has since been to Pakistan several times. We (P@SHA and Rotary) have organized seminars for him and he has assisted six institutes to form the DAISY for Pakistan platform in Pakistan. These institutes have been given equipment and training and have now started converting books into DAISY format thus making books much more accessible to those with visual challenges. The Holy Quran and some  books from the school curriculum have already been converted.

I remember something that Dipender told me when we first met. He said those who can see will never know what it’s like to always have everything read to you, to never be able to ‘read’ and send email, to pick up any book one wants to and ‘read’ it. He said when he first discovered technology, it empowered him to be who he was, to communicate and share what he knew and to simply have the pleasure of ‘reading’ a book at his own pace.

It is experiences like these that make me wonder why we think of people like Lozina and Dipender as ‘disabled’ and why we do not spend more time developing technology to empower the broader segments of society - or as my friends Vickram and Arun often say, why do we not work with people with various challenges so that they can develop the technology they need to make life better for themselves? That was what led to the workshop on Intelligent Choices. More about that later.

… you walk at great speed straight into a glass door.

Yup that is what happened to me yesterday. I drove early in the morning to the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi for an event that was being held at the Pearl Continental. As soon as I had handed over my car to the valet and walked into the lobby, I realized my mistake and headed straight for the exit. I don’t know what I was thinking but I sure woke up with a bang when I walked straight into the glass door.

I was too embarrassed to think about the extent of the injury and hurried off across the street to the PC so that I would not be late for the session. By this time the lump on my forehead had increased in size and was hurting quite a bit. Zahid Jamil was one of the speakers for the session and he immediately got one of the hotel staff to get some ice-cubes in a napkin. That certainly helped ease the swelling. The pain still persists but the worst is over. As I see it, it is the Sheraton’s fault for keeping their doors so clean

I am glad I was able to make the trip to Rawalpindi on April 4 to co-host SI # 8 with NIIT and Atif Mumtaz of Brightspyre. This is the second time that an SI session has been held at an Academic institution. The last one was SI # 6 at LUMS in Lahore. The NIIT team, headed by Dr. Arshad Ali, did a fantastic job of making all the arrangements.

There had been some pre-event jitters with a few people wondering whether holding it at a university would dilute the purpose of SI. I really wish the negativity would cease. We need to be realistic but upbeat nonetheless. SI is just a name. The purpose is to provide a networking platform for the support, mentoring and coaching of young entrepreneurs and wanna-be entrepreneurs. This was missing and the gap needed to be filled. People got together. It is the collaboration, the selfless giving up of time on the part of busy entrepreneurs, to help build an ecosystem, that is making these events successful, in addition to the young people themselves who are the key.

They are the ones with the passion, with the innovative ideas, with the zest to move ahead and change the world. We are only the guides, the sounding boards who may or may not always have the right answers but whose intent is to be there for them and provide whatever it is of value that they need from us.

There have been suggestions that perhaps it would make sense to split up these events into SI and SI Junior because the needs and requirements of the two segments does vary. This is worth thinking about and we would appreciate everyone’s input on this.

Now back to SI 8. A roomful of maybe 75 participants - mostly students, some young alumni and a dozen or so entrepreneurs - some startups, others more seasoned. As usual, the evening started off with introductions. It is always important to know who’s who and what they do - to put a face to a name. Then there was a barrage of questions from the youngsters present. All the questions were answered honestly and openly.

Atif and I then had a brief pow-wow and we decided, that as had been done in Karachi at SI # 7, we should split the kids up into smaller groups with one mentor each to thrash out ideas. Very quickly teams were formed and Rashid Khan of Ultimus, Amir Jahangir of CSF, Vickram Crishna of Radiophony, Atif Mumtaz of Brightspyre, Osama Hashmi of CDF Software, Adnan Shaukat of Capital Radio, Nadeem Sahab from the Jang Group/GEO CSR Initiative were surrounded by enthusiastic young people.

When the representatives of each group came back, they were all raring to go. One after another they came up and shared their ideas and the input they had received. The audience, the entrepreneurs and the students fired questions, made suggestions, agreed or disagreed and discussed possible business models. There were even a couple of offers of “come and see me and we will assist you in making it happen.” There were also suggested tie-ups between a couple of teams whose ideas appeared to have synergy. All in all, a real buzz was created.

I have moderated most of the SI sessions in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad - and I must admit that I continue to be amazed and heartened, both at the contribution made in terms of time, thoughts, ideas and advice by entrepreneurs but also by the innovative ideas and the enthusiasm that the young people exude. The fact that some of these young people are also looking at using technology to provide solutions for social and operational problems, warms my heart.

SI sessions will continue in all 3 cities and there is some thought that we should take them to other cities - Peshawar, Quetta, Multan, Sukkur. I look forward to continuing to work with various people and organizations on the SI initiative. There will be shortcomings, as there usually are when things are evolving. As long as all of us continue to do our bit, we can overcome all these challenges.

With the growth of the technology business, many of us have begun to realize that we should be looking at extending the reach of technology to provide solutions for more than the 20% that live in Pakistan’s cities.

On Tuesday April 8, from 2 pm to 5 pm, Vickram Crishna will be facilitating a discourse on the world of fascinating opportunities that have opened up in applying Information and communications technologies inclusively.

Addressing the needs of communities currently less well served, such as rural dwellers, urban persons who do not use computers, and persons for whom computers are unaccessible primarily because of physical design issues. Accessing business needs in such circumstances can be rewarding in many ways – both commercial and non-commercial.

Come and join us to discuss:
Intelligent Choices - Opportunities in non-traditional IT areas

Date: Tuesday, April 8 2008
Venue: Mahnoor Room, Pearl Continental Hotel, Karachi
Time: 2 pm - 5 pm