Women’s Leadership Conference brings together 150 businesswomen

On June 25 as I walked into the conference room of the Avari Hotel in Lahore and found myself in a room predominantly full of women, I realized that this was a very different experience from what I was normally  used to. I am more at home hob-nobbing with men than with women. I didn’t quite know how I should behave or what I should say.

Having been a part of the IT industry for the last 16 years, where most CEOs are men, I have begun to understand how men operate professionally, how they react, how they network. But women are a tothttp://jehanara.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/room-full-of-women.jpg?w=300ally different animal!

As I looked around slightly unnerved, I noticed that Shahida Saleem was just as much a fish out of water in these surroundings as I was, and so we quickly exchanged notes on how to increase our comfort level and learn from some of the most amazing women business leaders in Pakistan.

The event I am referring to is the Women’s Leadership Conference that was organized by the Center for International  Private Enterprise (CIPE). Why had CIPE organized this conference? Their rationale was simple. In a country of over 170 million people with over 50% being women, only 3% are said to be involved in economic activity according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics. In addition, the Global gender gap report marked Pakistan 128th out of 10 countries followed only by Saudi Arabia, Chad and Yemen.

I am a little shaken by these statistics I must admit. There must be something wrong somewhere. I see a lot more working women today than there were five or ten years ago and the numbers are growing. In the IT industry alone the percentage has grown from 3% to 13%. Granted the glass ceiling has kept many of them from senior level management positions but even that is changing. Perhaps it is just not being documented to the extent that it should.

Anyhow, so CIPE decided to assist and has been very much involved in helping set up Women’s wings and resource centers in various Chambers of Commerce across the country resulting in bringing about 600 women entrepreneurs into the network of business associations. They have also helped in setting up women’s chambers in the Punjab. The purpose simply is for these business assoications to act as change agents and draw more women into economic activity. A noble mission indeed.

Mr. Moin Fudda, Country Director of CIPE, started off the proceedings by introducing CIPE, the concept of the Conference and by introducing some of the participants including yours truly.

Maha Rahman of Nur Concepts followed with a presentation about the women of Pakistan. This included women like Fatima Jinnah, Rana Liaquat Ali Khan, Benazir Bhutto,  etc. She quoted Quaid-e-Azam M.A.  Jinnah who said: “No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are by your side.” According to Maha, there are at present 20% women in the workforce.

The Chief Guest was Seema Aziz who is the Chairperson of CARE and Bareeze. She is a modest and graceful woman who has achieved a great deal through hard work and because of her passion to excel. She told us that Bareeze started with the concept of creating a quality product in Pakistan. People said it couldn’t be done & even if it was, who would buy it? Such skeptics I tell you! Well, they sure were proven wrong. They now have 75 stores in Pakistan and operate in 5 countries including the Middle East and the UK. The quality of their material was so good that people questioned its authenticity – some asked if it was Pakistani, why was it so expensive; others said that it probably wasn’t Pakistani at all – that they were probably importing foreign fabric and selling it as Pakistani. Talk about conspiracy theories.

Seema said their commitment had always been to quality, to the customer and to being a “Made in Pakistan’ product although the manufacturing could have been done in China at a much lower cost. Bareeze has won the Best Quality Fabric outlet Award in the UAE and are proud of what they produce and the positive image they project of Pakistan.

As she wound up her talk, Seema Aziz was asked by CIPE to launch the CIPE Business Guide for Women – How to Start a Business. I have a copy and I think it would be equally useful for our young entrepreneurs – men or women. It was distributed to all the women who were present. If any of you would like a copy, send me your email address and I will email it to you. I am sure CIPE won’t mind. Their purpose is to assist entrepreneurs.

The next speaker was Dr. Muhammad Azam Roomi who is a senior lecturer on entrepreneurship and is on a wide lecture circuit across the world.

His presentation was quite extensive but some quotes that he mentioned stuck with me – things like:

• Leadership is accepting whatever goes wrong is my fault. Leadership is acknowledging that whatever goes right is our success.
• Leaders should be good listeners and followers.
• Leadership is being a good servant
• Leaders must inculcate a feeling of trust, a feeling of belonging
• Transformational leadership should have self-awareness, social skills, self-regulation, motivation and empathy

I wonder if our leaders are aware of all this. Perhaps a lecture could be arranged for all parliamentarians .

Dr. Roomi also said that Social sciences research proves that women have more self-awareness and social skills and men can never have the kind of empathy that women have. Therefore women are likely to be better leaders, he said.

Ms. Despina Pascal, an International Consultant and trainer, then talked about the role of Business Associations in leadership development. She gave examples of the kind of things that had been achieved in other countries due to initiatives that were started by Business Associations.

Her talk was very comprehensive and it is impossible to replicate it all here. I am hoping that CIPE will put up the videos so that many more people can hear Despina’s talk as well as that of Dr. Roomi who interspersed his comments with poetic recitations as well as excerpts from the Quran.

Eric Hontz, one of the few men at the event, talked about some of the major initiatives that CIPE has been involved in internationally and their impact on the business sector. Some of the case studies in themselves provided food for thought.

Then followed the most interesting part of the event – the Q&A session. This gave a lot of the women present there an opportunity to comment, to share and put questions to the panelists.

I was amazed to see that the room was full of high calibre women, many of them at the top of their professions. How had CIPE been able to get them all together in one room. There were women from all over the country – Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Mardan, Multan, Faisalabad, etc.

There were also women like Daniya who is working on the USAID Empower Pakistan program. She spoke about the Gender Program and how women could benefit from it. There would be a focus on Jobs and on Performance. The program is also expected to help women in the area of Product Development. She also said that economic development and expansion is about value addition, it is about innovation, it is about product development.

Shamim Akhtar of the Lahore Chamber was in her element and absolutely delighted at the turnout. She made an offer to non members of the Chamber to come and use the Women’s Resource Center and to benefit from the advice and the facilities provided there.

Hers was not the only offer. Several women – bankers, consultants, trainers all offered their services to the women who were present at the conference – some of these were voluntary services. CIPE will circulate the offers to all participants. There was a fitness consultant who provided some useful advice to women who have multiple roles in society. They were told they had to take care of their bodies and that breakfast was fuel for the day and should not be skipped under any circumstances.

The MC for the entire conference was Sheherbano Burki, Lead Consultant at Nur Concepts, and I must say she did a terrific job. She was clear, concise, witty and in control but yet did not offend anyone – a very difficult task to achieve.

She intercepted with relevant comments and introduced as many of the diverse people in the audience as she could and yet the conference was concluded within the set timeframe. Sheherbano and her team should be congratulated for a job well done. I would like to use them for some of the things that we do in Lahore. Wonder how expensive they are . I guess one has to pay for quality services and should not grudgingly do so.

Before I forget, I must mention here that Badar Khushnood, Country Consultant for Google, was also at the event. Google was mentioned by several of the speakers, as being a useful tool. Of course he wasn’t allowed to sit quietly and was asked to share some stories of how technology empowered women to work remotely and thereby be a part of the economy. He quoted examples from Pakistan of young men and women who were earning considerable sums of money by harnessing the power of technology

The unique thing about this conference was that the participants constituted only professional women. They were there because they wanted to network, to create linkages. One person rightly said “We are each others markets. Why not start here?” There were many inspiring stories of women who were leading organizations in the automobile space, in shipbreaking, in banking and financial services, in the health sector, in education, in technology, in training and development, in jewellery, in fashion and textiles and in businesses like Bareeze. It felt good to be a part of such a dynamic group and to listen to some of those women talk about what they had achieved and how much further they had to go. This was not just another event to show the “soft image” of Pakistan. It was a high powered gathering of women who were there with a purpose and I feel honoured to have been a part of it. I microblogged the event and was happy that there was a lot of interest in the proceedings from bloggers and tweeples alike. I missed our live blogger Fariha Akhtar. Next time i must remember to take her along.

ITLoW webcasts under the spotlight!

Babar Bhatti of Telecompk.net has put us under the spotlight! In a post he wrote a short while ago, Babar talks about the series of interviews that we have done so far (I say we because without Rabia Garib, Salaina Haroon and the WebStudio team, I would never have thought of starting the series – and they continue to provide the facilities, the coffee, and also take care of the production work). And without our guests opening up and talking about their lives and experiences , the webcasts couldn’t happen.

Babar talks about the benefits of having such a series and highlights some of the recent interviews that he obviously liked. Thank you Babar. It feels good to have our work appreciated. Watch out for some great interviews that we have in the pipeline. And if you are ever headed our way, let us know so that we can turn our cameras on you

Zafar Khan, CEO of Sofizar, tells his story on ITLoW

Zafar Khan is a person I have not known very long and yet, in this short period of time, he has impressed me with his sincerity, his passion for technology, his hard work, his integrity and his strong belief in Pakistan. Of course the fact that his company is literally a money-making machine that generates revenue for him while he is asleep, makes him an interesting person to talk to;).

Zafar is the CEO of Sofizar. He is a highly accomplished engineer from Caltech with several electronic advertising related patents under his belt and is very passionate about
performance marketing.

As you will hear for yourself in this interview, Zafar worked at various organizations such as Nexiant and Gemstar in the US, Hong Kong and China before he moved to  Pakistan and set up his own firm in 2004. He has made several mistakes and willingly talks about them so that others can learn from his experience.

Sofizar is a Carlsbad, CA based internet marketing company with development and operations based out of Lahore. The company has been aggressively pursuing a very rapid growth path since its inception in April, 2004. With annual sales of around US$20 million, they continue to look at a 800% growth rate. Sofizar’s excellence was recently recognized by its recent signing of a deal with one of the largest telecom companies, Korea Telecom. Korea Telecom has been selected by Sofizar to market Sofizar’s technology in Korea.

This is a photo of Zafar in Karachi at the MITEF Business Acceleration Plan competition which Sofizar won in 2007 (he is the one in the green checkered shirt). You may recognize some of the other people in the picture including Ken Morse, Hussain Dawood, Farroukh Captain, Junaid Iqbal, Jawwad Farid and Imran Zia. Some of us actually came to know Sofizar and Zafar better only after his participation in the MITEF BAP activity.

His excitement about what he does is truly contagious and many have commented about the fact that his eyes light up when he talks about making money . He thinks businesses need to create wealth and employment in addition to creating value. Innovation in technology is one way to do it. He also believes in making a difference to the community in which you live. That is why he is usually a part of all activities which involve sharing of knowledge and experience. He is currently also a member of the P@SHA Central Executive Committee.

As a consequence of the MITEF BAP competition, Zafar went to MIT and hobnobbed with a lot of VCs and technology entrepreneurs. It is also where he met Carlos Cashman who has now become his partner. He says he feels honoured that three members of the MIT Sloan School faculty are now on his board of advisors – Ken Morse, Imran Sayeed and Bill Aulet.

In addition to interviewing Zafar, I spent some time talking with the Sofizarians – a team of really bright kids who realize that they are part of an exciting young company headed by an individual who is bound to scale the heights.

Sofizar is looking to revolutionize e-commerce, and is hiring “the best” to meet its growth and profit objectives. These include engineers, SEO specialists, analysts and content writers. It is one of those companies that is growing despite the recession and is certainly one we should watch over the next 12 months.

I didn’t have to ask Zafar Khan too many questions in this episode of ITLoW. He usuallydoes not talk too much about himself but once I got him started, he was thrilled to share his experience and the latest about where the company is headed.

In conversation with Kubair Shirazee, CEO of Ikonami

I met Kubair Shirazee a couple of years ago and was immediately impressed by his commitment to the quality of work that he does, by his professionalism and by the faith that he places in the Pakistan talent pool.

Kubair was born in the UK and considers Pakistan his adopted country. He has a BA Hons in Business Studies Services from the University of Westminister, an MSc in Business Systems Analysis and Design from the City University in London and a BGP from the Cranfield University Cranfield School of Management.

Kubair has over 11 years of experience working as a technologist  designing and managing the development, roll out, enhancement and support of cutting edge applications for the management of Human Capital.

He is the CEO of Ikonami, oversees the ikonami Group and works on selective engagements. One such engagement for the past four years has been managing the rollout of the world’s largest electronic performance management implementation at the National Health Service (NHS) of the United Kingdom, the world’s fourth largest employer. The NHS is undergoing a change programme called the Agenda for Change which is the largest change management programme of its kind not only in the United Kingdom but across the globe.

The implementation of the national competence framework for the NHS is built upon ikonami’s flag ship product: the AT-Work™ branded within the NHS as the e-KSF online tool. The implementation target is to reach over 900,000 employees of the NHS who are affected by the NHS Agenda for Change. The programme has been hailed as one of the major success of IT in the NHS. Kubair has been responsible for the project since its inception.

In my conversation with Kubair Shirazee on ITLoW, he talks about his interest in Talent Management, about the growth of Ikonami and about the need for a more supportive environment for enterprise. Kubair is adamant that Data Protection and Privacy legislation are essential if the Pakistan IT industry is going to continue to grow and take advantage of the opportunities that are out there.

There is much more that Kubair talks about as he enjoys his coffee – some of it you may agree with, some of it you may not. One thing is for sure though – this is a young man who is gung ho about Pakistan, about what his company is doing here and in the future of the Pakistan IT sector. His advice, his opinion is all geared toward helping the industry to move forward.

Why is it?

I was chatting with a friend the other day and he said something that made me think. Why is it that we get quite agitated and haggle with fruit and vegetable grocers to reduce a few rupees on products we buy from them, and yet we don’t give it a thought when we casually leave a couple of hundred bucks as tips after a meal in a restaurant. Ever gave this any thought?

Jahanzeb Sherwani shares his story on ITLoW

Yes that is my MacBook Air and yes I did let young Jahanzeb Sherwani use it. No that does not mean that any of you can even dream of having access to it. Jahanzeb is special. He is the magician behind Jaadu VNC – the product that lets you access and use your laptop from anywhere in the world with your iPhone. And I did it for all of you out there – so that Jahanzeb could actually show you how Jaadu VNC works!

Anyway, on with the post. When I heard that Jahanzeb who is the Founder and CEO of Jugaari Inc,  was in town, there was no way I was going to let him escape without getting him to the set of ITLoW. He had very little time but he was sweet enough to agree – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Jahanzeb went to school in Karachi at Karachi Grammar School and then went onto LUMS for his BSc in Computer Science. Once he had done that, he played around with technology for a year while still at home (details regarding the tinkering are revealed in  his conversation with us on ITLoW). In 2003, Jahanzeb applied to, and got into, Carnegie Mellon for his PhD in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Speech Recognition. He has just completed his Phd so you can all call him Dr. Jahanzeb Sherwani. He is still grappling with the reality of that title.

This interview was one of the easiest that i have done to date. Jahanzeb is so excited by all that he has done, and is involved in, that i didn’t have to nudge and  poke to get him to talk about it. I just sat back and listened and enjoyed every bit of the story he had to tell.

Some of the important things that came out in the interview included the need for cross-disciplinary interaction at University (yes I know we have discussed this before – just shows you that it is so relevant that it keeps coming back). There need to be projects that CS students, Business students and Social Science students work on together – each will bring their own strength and ideas to the table thereby resulting in solutions that benefit the community and business. At the moment young people don’t work in the area of ICT4D because they believe that it cannot generate revenue for them. Nothing is further from the truth. ICT4D initiatives have to generate revenue to be self-sustaining.

Jahanzeb also told us that students at Carnegie Mellon have the option of which professors to work with on their PhD projects. Professors present their projects and students choose the one that excites them. Of course I am sure there is more to the process but the fact that it is the student who chooses which professor he/she wants to be attached to, is in itself amazing..

In this episode of ITLoW Jahanzeb emphasizes that any idea you have, should be tried out, especially when you are still at university – you never know which one will take off and become a huge success. You should not be afraid of failure – especially not at this stage. Jaadu VNC started life as a weekend project because J liked to  play around with technology. It has ended up as a good business which he will take forward in a more structured fashion now that he has finished his doctrate. Click here to go to  the original post and the first video that Jahanzeb uploaded to YouTube which, to his surprise, was picked up by Engadget and Gizmodo and got a 100,000 hits. At that stage the product was called Touchpad Pro.

Over the time I have known him, I have found that Jahanzeb has been more excited about the HealthLine PhD project that he has been working on with Hands, an NGO. Speech recognition is, he believes, the equalizer, the ultimate enabler. It doesn’t matter if you are illiterate or if you speak a different language. Anyway, I am not planning to give the whole show away. Go and watch the episode and listen to what Jahanzeb has to say about all of this – and more. And don’t forget to check out the demo that he exclusively made for ITLoW viewers.

The iPhone application that he developed made it to the #19 spot on the iTunes App Store and was amongst the Staff Favourites.

He has an open offer for the brightest and most talented people out there:

If you’re looking to work on innovations in an exciting new space, whether you have a business, marketing, technology, or customer support background, get in touch.

By the way, Jahanzeb is not simply a computer scientist, an entrepreneur and a social scientist, he has other talents too. Watch this video and see for yourself:

Don’t miss the t-shirt!

Zaheer Kidvai was the center of attention when he walked into Sabeen Mahmud’s birthday party this evening. No it wasn’t just his amazing personality but this t-shirt that he was wearing that drew a smile from everyone who was there.

Farzal Dojki – a technologist with a speciality in economics

When I first met Farzal Dojki, I thought to myself “What a serious young man! He hardly ever smiles”. But over time, I have got to know him better and although he is serious about a lot of things (which is a good thing), I have discovered that he also has a great sense of humour as you will see in this episode of “In the Line of Wire”.

After getting his Intermediate degree in Pre-engineering from Adamjee Science College , Farzal opted for a dual Bachelors in Computer Science and Economics  from UT Austin (not something we hear much of in this country although it really makes such great sense). He then went on to do his MS in Information Systems from NYU while he was working with Merrill Lynch.

To truly understand what goes on in the mind of this young man, one only has to read what he says on  his LinkedIn profile:

Life is too short to be doing boring and ordinary stuff. Let one of the 6 Billion people work on that. I want to use the privilege of having university educated parents (a novelty in Pakistan during the 1980s), excellent schooling, and 7 years spent in Austin and NYC to produce extraordinary stuff!

He says he is passionate about delivery channels – from Branchless Banking and 24×7 direct insurance to mobile multimedia and social networking.

This can be seen from the kind of companies he has chosen to work with in Pakistan;

1. amaana: amaana is the payment platform for emerging markets that bridges the gap between the banked and the unbanked population and helps to digitize transactions being conducted at the bottom of the Pyramid.
2. PixSense: A pioneer in mobile media solutions.
3. Trakker Direct Insurance: Employee 001, at the first direct insurance company in Pakistan, along the lines of Geico in US and Direct Line in UK.

Farzal is also Visiting faculty at the Institute of Business Administration in karachi and is teaching IT/MIS/CS related subjects to BBA/MBA students. One of the things that Farzal does very effectively is use the internet to connect with his students. He posts course work, assignmnts, notices, information regarding guest lectures and exam notices and reviews online and maintains an open communication channel with the young people he teaches. I wish more teachers would use the power of the web so effectively. It doesn’t take very much technical expertise to set it up and maintain it.

In this episode of ITLoW, Farzal talks about a host of topics including education, internships, the lack of sufficient innovation in the business sector and the tendency of IT companies to develop technology solutions for the sake of technology and not really as an answer to innovating the way business is done.

We also talk about how mobile solutions can help connect the rural parts of Pakistan to services and benefits that are not available to them at the present time. As you will see throughout the interview, Farzal is a bright young Pakistani who is intent on being a part of the solution to whatever ails this country. We have many such young people here, and with their participation in the overall development of business and of the society, there is every reason to hope that we will continue to progress.

Nadeem Elahi MD of TRG under the spotlight

Nadeem Elahi is the Managing Director and Country Head of TRG (The Resource Group). Armed with a BA from Brown University, he unwillingly joined the family business “Tanveer Textiles” because, as the eldest son, that is what he was expected to do. But textiles was not his calling. He was bored but didn’t quite know how to squirm out of the situation without upsetting his dad. There seemed to be only one solution – to join an MBA program. No parent would say no to education. So off went Nadeem to Harvard Business School.

His intention was never to come back. But little did he know that his destiny was to head the largest BPO operation in Pakistan. After having worked for Lycos and FTA Direct, he was drawn into TRG by Zia Chishti, the founder. The plans were actually drawn out on the Back of a Napkin at a coffee shop in Singapore and voila Nadeem joined TRG. Since then he has been in and out of Pakistan and, at present, he is MD and Country Head of the Pakistan operation.

Nadeem strongly believes that the BPO sector can grow tremendously in Pakistan, that we have so far only scratched the surface. We have the talent pool, we are heading towards better and better infrastructure, the professionalism has developed over the past few years. All that is needed is a bit of focus both from the government and the private sector and a large number of employment opportunities can be created and a lot more revenue generated for the country.

In his conversation with me on ITLoW, Nadeem talks about the early days of TRG, about how it came to be listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange, their acquisition strategy, bringing back work to Pakistan and now extending their expertise to the domestic market.

TRG is no longer just a BPO operation. They also have a large division called TRG Tech. Their capacity building programs are innovative and the career growth is clearly mapped out so that young people know what to look forward to when they join the organisation. They also have a very successful work-from-home program which helps to draw in young men and women who prefer to spend limited time in the office.

One of the newest TRG initiatives is their MBA Recruitment program which is meant to groom fresh graduates by providing opportunities for them in TRG offices around the world. Once they have that experience in hand, they are either brought back to Pakistan or slotted into positions in international offices.

In this episode of ITLoW, Nadeem also talks about what the government needs to do and how we can work together to increase the size of  the BPO pie. Let us go and hear what he has to say.

A conversation with Sabeen Mahmud, Director of PeaceNiche

Sabeen Mahmud, COO of Beyond Information Technology Solutions and Director of PeaceNiche, dropped in on the set of ITLoW last week even though  she is quite busy these days with the launch preparations for T2F version 2.0. It gave us a chance to have a conversation. We discussed a whole range of topics, went down memory lane for a bit, had coffee and ended up with a Bounty (the chocolate that is) or two.

One of things that many of you may not know about Sabeen is that if her O Levels Computer Science  teacher had had any influence on her, Sabeen would not be doing what she has been doing for the last 16 years. The computer science teacher had told her that technology was not the right field of study for her, that she was not good at it and would never amount to anything. Well, the lady couldn’t have been more off the mark!

From the age of 16, Sabeen has been using technology for Desktop Publishing, Marketing, Multimedia Development, Interactive training, Content development and much much more. And what’s more, she is extremely good at it. What do you have to say for yourself now Madam CS teacher?

In this episode of “In the Line of Wire” Sabeen talks about “falling in love with the Mac”, about how she ran Mac Hardware and Software Sales, Maintenance and Support at “Solutions  Unlimited”, her experience as a New Media Architect at Enabling Technologies, setting up BITS with Zak, and finally visualizing and creating T2F – a space for culture, discourse and creativity.

Much of what Sabeen has achieved has been due to her passion and her need to get it right. The fact that she started working while still at college, had a lot to do with her career choices once she left college. By this time she had a clear idea which path to tread. This is something that is absolutely essential if youngsters are to avoid selecting careers which bore them to tears, or which they are not cut out for. Hence career guidance, and relevant internship and apprenticeship programs are an absolute must.

Cross disciplinary interaction between design, technology and business students cannot be emphasized enough if we are to produce graduates who are well-rounded human beings and not just coders, designers, project managers or business development executives.

In my conversation with Sabeen, she also talks about how she has used technology effectively to create and promote the T2F brand without spending a cent (or should that be paisa). With the popularity of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, etc. there are even more things to consider when you are designing and developing your campaigns. T2F only used online media to market and promote itself – and they have been very effective. Sabeen shares some of the simple things that she did to make it happen in this episode of ITLoW. Don’t miss it!

Adnan Agboatwalla busy at work!

I have been feeling really sorry for Adnan Agboatwalla, Co-Founder of PixSense, the last month or so. He has been going back and forth to Jakarta every few days. It seemed he was always on a plane. He looked tired each time I saw him and I remarked to a lot of common friends how worried I was about him.

This is a picture of ‘Adnan at work in Jakarta‘ at the launch of PixSense PSP – PT Excelcomindo Pratama Tbk (XL) has just introduced “XL funbook”, the first mobile media sharing service in Indonesia, which is the customized version of PixSense PSP.

Here we see Boat at the launch of XL Funbook. Now come on Boat, are you trying to tell us that this is a tough job? You don’t look very unhappy my friend.

Learning to Spell

If you are irritated by the incorrect spellings, or use of numbers in place of words, on email, on SMS or any of the messengers, then you will releate to this parody that I picked up from entertonement.com.

This is a parody of All-American Rejects’ “Gives You Hell”.
Keyboards and drums by Jude Kelley; guitar, bass, and lead vocals by Dan Amrich.
Learning to spell – link to the audio file

Quote
I wake up every morning
And I head to my PC
To read about PS3
But when I check the gaming forum
Your mistakes are all I see
A grammatical catastrophe

I would like to chat but you just can’t spell, you should learn to spell
It’s not spelled like that, you should learn to spell you should learn to spell

I’d like to make suggestions…but I can’t read what you write, and I’m trying with all my might
When I posted some corrections, I didn’t mean to start a fight, but the thread flamed on all night

Well maybe you’re dyslexic
Or maybe you’re a moron

When you’re talking games you know who to blame if you just can’t spell
At your favorite site you should spell it right you should learn to spell
This goes for Wii and 360 and PC as well
It’s all hard to read so you simply need to learn how to spell
Gotta learn to spell

I know you’re probably thinking to yourself, that it’s just words on a screen
Everybody knows what I mean

But numbers aren’t letters
And U and R are words

Well your NeoGAF message made them laugh cause you could not spell
Over at GameSpot reputation’s shot cause you just can’t spell
And they agree at Quarter to Three and GamersHell
You might try again at IGN once you learn to spell

So it’s I before E except after C
And sometimes “its” does not need an apostrophe
But you don’t even care about “they’re,” “there,” and “their”
It’s like you learned to speak from texting on your cell

When you’re talking games we know who to blame if you just can’t spell
At your favorite site you should spell it right you should learn to spell
If a dictionary’s kinda scary, what the hell?
Then you’re a fool, go back to school and learn to spell

On the internet, this is what you get, people who can’t spell [you should learn to spell]
On the gaming boards, you will be ignored if you just can’t spell [you should learn to spell]
Do only fools use grammar rules where the gamers dwell?
The written word seems so absurd when you can’t spell [you should learn to spell]
I wrote this song cause you typed it wrong and you couldn’t tell [you should learn to spell]
It’s not much fun as the only one here who can spell

OPEN Forum 2009: a must-attend event!

If you happen to be in the U.S. or can get there easily on June 13. 2009, the Organisation of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America’s (OPEN) Annual event in Silicon Valley would be the place to be.

The theme of this year’s event is “Winning Tomorrow”. In a message on the OPEN website, Dilawar Syed, the President of OPEN Silicon Valley, and someone many of us met at the launch of CIO Pakistan in Karachi last year, says:

OPEN Forum ‘09 presents an expanded and arguably the richest program to date, a diverse audience, and a new home at the Computer History Museum. It is a moment of great pride for the entire OPEN community in the United States that OPEN Forum is now recognized as one of Silicon Valley’s leading business events.

This year the Keynote Speaker is Tom Campbell who is a noted educator (former Dean of the Haas School of Business at Berkley), economist and an experienced public servant presently on the council of economic advisors to Governor Schwarzenegger).

The other distinguished keynote speaker is Masood Jabbar, a 16-year veteran of Sun Microsystems who led global sales for Sun, and served as President of Sun Microsystems Computer Division. In addition OPEN Forum 2009, is also going to host a compelling line-up of more than 55 speakers.

I remember going to an OPEN event in Silicon Valley a couple of years ago and must admit to being impressed at the calibre of speakers and the quality of the audience. The networking alone is worth it. I met a lot of Pakistani Americans who were there to learn from each other, to mentor, to talk about issues and opportunities and to generally create an impact.

Several IT professionals from the Pakistan IT industry are regular attendees at this event – Adnan Lawai of Folio 3 and Faraz Hoodbhoy of PixSense (Faraz of course lives in the US, whenever he is not on a plane) and Monis Rahman of Naseeb Networks to name just a few. Our friend Anthony Mitchell will probably be there too. This year a little bird tells me that Syed Azhar Rizvi, CEO of the Technology Angel Network and Vice Chair of MIT Enterprise Forum Pakistan, will also be attending the event and meeting with the Charter Members of OPEN before flitting across several cities in the US to meet with other OPEN Chapters. We hope that Azhar and all those who are flying from Pakistan to the OPEN Forum, will have a productive event.

The Conference Agenda seems quite comprehensive and interesting. I wish Mountain View wasn’t so far away. I would have definitely attended the event.

There is an element to this event that I think is particularly useful – it is termed Entrepreneurship Idol. This is where entrepreneurs will get to present a three minute pitch to a panel of judges who will provide quick, honest, and insightful feedback.

For more information regarding the event, do visit the OPEN Silicon Valley website.

This year CIO Pakistan is a media partner of the event. Rabia Garib has been interviewing some of the speakers and making the videos available on the CIO Webstudio. I am sure she will be making much more rich content available to us from the OPEN Forum 2009 leading up to, and during the event. Good luck friends at OPEN. We wish you a successful conference.

Unusual meeting spot

Nothing stops us IT types when we want to hold a meeting.  Something that happened last week reminded me of the truth of this statement. Saqib Mansoor, Senior Manager of HR at TPS, had made an appointment to meet up with me at my office at 9:30 a.m. He wanted to discuss some capacity building issues that the industry faces and to make effective suggestions to counter them. He was also bringing over a cheque for the P@SHA Swat Relief Fund from the TPS team. So of course I said yes.

I was running late that morning but I got there 15 minutes before he was supposed to arrive, only to find that there was no electricity. The generators in our building run the lights, fans, airconditioners and all the computer equipment but NOT the elevator. At any other time I would have walked up the 5 flights of stairs grumbling and panting all the way (I am totally out of shape). But I have hurt my knee and my orthopaedist has warned me to avoid going up and down the stairs for the next few weeks if I want the knee to heal. So I phoned Saqib. He was unperturbed – said it was okay and that if I didn’t mind, we could just meet in his car or mine. We would have the airconditioning on and it should be no hassle. I said okay I was game. Then I went and settled down in my car, listened to music on FM, while I waited for him.

It was good to see that the young man arrived on time. Having been brought up in Hong Kong, I have always been a stickler for punctuality. He joined  me in the car and we started our conversation. Twenty five minutes later Maria, who is the Marketing Manager at P@SHA, messaged me on my mobile to let me know that the elevator was working again so Saqib and I moved upstairs for the rest of our discussions.

It was an interesting discussion and we are going to follow it up with some decisive action mid-week. But what has stuck in my mind is the unusual meeting venue and our unwillingness to give up on the meeting despite the hurdles. Thank you Saqib.

The Readers Club – serving a real need?

Usman A.Siddiqui dropped in to see me some time ago to talk about a project he was working on in the education space. He is still working on that but in the meantime he has launched what is an online library – “The Readers Club”.

Before he launched the site, he sent me a link to ask what I thought about it. I was happy to see that someone his age was concerned about the dearth of libraries in this country and the cost of books in general which made reading an expensive proposition. Of course there are bookshops selling old books but those don’t always have a varied collection.

The Readers Club remedies the high cost of purchasing books with a Book Rental Service that allows unlimited rentals on a monthly subscription plan. Purchasing even one new release a month can cost more than most of the rental plans they have on offer.

Though, The Readers Club plan-sizes are based on how many books a subscriber may hold at any given time, ALL of the plans offer unlimited books each month. You can read as many books as time allows, during any given month. The idea was for it to function like a Netflix style service for books.

When I asked Usman if he thought this was a sustainable business model, he responded that the idea  was born simply out of his love for books and did not start of, like most businesses, with just pure commercial interest in mind. Of course he wants it to be profitable and self sustaining so that he can keep expanding. But the foremost goal is to get people in the habit of reading by giving them easy and cheap access to quality and relevant books. He says they don’t want to make a quick buck.

Usman himself is an avid reader, he says and so are some of his closest friends. Reading and discussing books  on varied topics is passion for them. They have often been frustrated by the lack of access to good public libraries and no big collection to choose from. He says they are fortunate to be able to just walk into Liberty or Paramount or OUP and pick up any book they like. But unfortunately not everyone can buy books costing hundreds or thousands of rupees. The purpose of The Readers Club is to remedy that situation.

Usman also emphasises that that they are paying very close attention to the collection they make available. They are not just offering old second hand books that you can buy at any used book shop. They are making available the latest Bestsellers.

The technology driving the service is also pretty involved, says Usman. Users signup, browse our collection, and select books which they like. These books are added to a queue and are automatically delivered based on the priority chosen, availabilty and plans etc. Significant resources have also gone into developing and refining these details.

Usman and his mates believe they are offering a service which addresses a real need. And if it doesn’t work out what the hell? He says he will end up with a few thousand quality books to read!:-)  I hope to have Usman as a guest on ITLoW next month once he has gone through the beta launch and got some initial input from local customers.

Meantime go visit the site, become a member, borrow some books and tell us what the experience was like. I am very possessive with my books but I don’t really want to keep most of the best sellers and novels that I read so perhaps The Readers Club can solve the problem I face with the lack of space on my bookshelf. And I won’t have to buy the novels in future. I can just get them from The Readers Club and return them. So Usman I wish you luck with this venture and i hope to see those other projects materializing soon.

If you are interested in finding out about the activities of The Readers Club and get information on the new books that they are adding on, visit their Facebook page.