P@SHA – TiE – Sofizar Constellation Interactive talk in collaboration with LUMS

P@SHA, TiE Lahore and Sofizar Constellation are joining hands with LUMS to bring to all entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs an Interactive Talk with Imran Sayeed, a very distinguised entrepreneur and technologist from the US.

Imran Sayeed, a serial entrepreneur, a consultant, an engineer, a mentor, a rainmaker, and a great supporter of many initiatives in Pakistan including the OPEN-MITEF initiative is going to be in Lahore on July 29.

Imran is Senior Vice President, Global Architecture, Application Development and Management Practice and leads all commercial sector industry practices for Keane, a global BPO and IT Services company with ~14,000 professionals worldwide. Industry practices include Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare, Pharmaceutial, Manufacturing, Retail, Hospitality & Travel and Energy, and together comprise most of the key business lines and customers for Keane.

Imran Sayeed came to Keane through its acquisition of netNumina, a boutique technology strategy and consulting form that he founded and grew from a 15 person startup to one of Computerwold’s Top 100 emerging companies. netNumina won more than 30 of the leading financial services & pharmaceutical institutions in the world as clients, raised more than $25MM from venture capitalists and strategic investors and received more than 20 industry awards for its work.

Imran has over fifteen years of experience in software and services. Previously, as a founder of Open Environment, Sayeed helped pioneer multi-tier client server technology, and grew the company from a 10-person startup to an IPO and leadership in the middleware market.

He has written and spoken extensively in leading industry conferences and trade journals over the last 13 years on entrepreneurship, e-business, financial services, insurance and technology. Sayeed serves on the Advisory Board of several software and private equity companies.

Imran Sayeed also holds a patent on technology for providing secure financials transactions over the Internet that he jointly developed with Citigroup. He is currently a visiting faculty member at MIT’s Sloan School of Management where he teaches in the MBA program on technology business strategy.

He attended Brown University where he majored in Engineering, and Harvard University, where he did post-graduate work in business, marketing and product development.

The interactive talk is being held at the NIB Auditorium at LUMS from 5:30 – 7:30 pm on July 29, 2010. It is a free event but you must register so we know how many to cater for.

Oh btw pizza will be served in the Courtyard after the event.

See n Report & Jaroka Tele-healthcare win mBillionth Awards

When Osama Manzar first contacted me (through Shahzad Ahmad of BytesforAll) and asked that I encourage mobile application developers from Pakistan to send in their nominations for the mBillionth Awards 2010, I thought why not. We have young companies developing some great applications and it is always good to try and benchmark your products against those being developed elsewhere.

So I put up a blog post, put up links on Facebook and Twitter and sent out emails to all the mobile application development companies that I knew. People are generally so caught up in work that only 5 companies nominated their products. I told Osama that it was at least a beginning – and maybe next year we would start promoting the event a lot earlier so that there would be more entries.

The mBillionth secretariat at Digital Empowerment Foundation (http://defindia.net/), New Delhi reached out to all of South Asia region to solicit nominations across 10 categories: Business, Culture & Heritage, Education, Entertainment, Government, Health, Inclusion, Environment, News and Travel & Tourism.

More than 200 entries were received and after rigorous scrutiny 175 nominations were successfully accepted and presented to the 14 Jury members of which there were 5 from Pakistan.

The Grand Jury of the mBillionth South Asia Award 2010 comprised of 14 experts including Zaheer Alam Kidvai from Pakistan. They struggled for 3 days in Colombo from June 9 – 13 to find 24 best practices across 10 categories hailing from 8 South Asian countries.

The winners for the mBillionth were announced at at the South Asia Mobile Congress, Exhibition & Award Gala yesterday July 23, 2010 in New Delhi. The Indian Minister for Rural Development was one of the VIPs at the event.

The great news is that of all the 200 entries that were submitted 2 of the 24 winners are from Pakistan:

See N Report won in the m-News & Journalism Category,

Jaroka TeleHealth won in the m-Health Category

Congratulations to Sharjeel Ahmed Qureshi, Adil Saleem, Yaser Awan and Dr. Umar Saif of See N Report and to Atif Mumtaz of UM Healthcare Trust and Dr. Arshad Ali DG of SEECS who are collaborating on the Jaroka project.

I think it is extremely important for our companies to continue to benchmark what we create against ICT products being developed within Pakistan by participating in the P@SHA ICT Awards and other such activities, in South Asia through programs like the mBillionth Award and in the Asia Pacific through the APICTA Awards. The recognition is important as is the sharing.

Android Bootcamp – addressing a need!

Many companies working in the Mobile Applications space have often expressed a need for trained resources for different platforms including Android, iPhone, Blackberry, etc.

Since universities don’t seem to have taken on the challenge of offering extensive courses on the subject, some professionals in Lahore have come together under the umbrella  of Celexica Technologies – Institute of Emerging Technologies, to develop a practical training course – The Android BootCamp.

This training course is intended to bridge the gap between demand and supply of technical expertise on Google’s Android™ open-source platform and is specifically designed for professionals and students wishing to excel in the competitive mobile application development market.

It is an eight week “From Concept to Delivery” course on mobile application development using Google’s Android™.

By the end of the course, each participant will write, build and publish their own complete Android application incorporating most of the key aspects of the platform and on successful completion placement officers from Celexica Technologies will work with employers and agencies to secure suitable employment in leading companies.

This training has the support of both P@SHA and PSEB.

Course Fee: PKR 30,000 (Eight Week Course)

Course starts: July 26, 2010

Last date of Registration: July 24, 2010

Training course will be held twice a week: Saturday and Sunday from 9:00am to 5:00pm.

Special 10% discount for all staff of P@SHA and PSEB member companies.

Course Details and Registration info can be found here.

Download the Registration form to apply for this course if you are interested in learning how to program for the Android platform.

The iPhone Antenna Song – you gotta love it!

What is this strange looking item?

I love conversation pieces that are based on new technology – and gadgets are my thing. So when I walked into my brother’s office in Hong Kong and saw this unusual item sitting on his desk, I was naturally filled with curiosity. I asked him what it was and he said “What do you think it is?”. I couldn’t guess. He turned it on and i could feel a cool breeze but couldn’t see where it was coming from.

I examined it, put my hand through it and said “Well it seems to be a cooling device but how does it work?” He pressed a switch and it started to swivel like a fan. It could also be tilted. Amazing!

On further probing, I was told it was a Dyson Multiplier fan. But it didn’t look like a fan. For one thing there were no blades. But a fan it was indeed. According to the website, Dyson Air Multiplier™ fans work differently from conventional fans. They use Air Multiplier™ technology to draw in air and amplify it – from 15 to 18 times, depending on the model. With no blades or grille, they’re safe and easy to clean. And they produce an uninterrupted stream of smooth air, with no unpleasant buffeting. Here is a review on the Dyson Air Multiplier on CNET. Sir James Dyson, the creator of this bladeless fan, explains how it works.

So gone are the days when a child’s hand could be caught in a fan, or someone’s long hair or dupatta. Here is the solution and a neat one.

Naturally I had to have one right away. Since they aren’t available off the shelf in Hong Kong, I had to grab the one my brother had. It wasn’t easy believe me. My brother is generous but his staff put up a lot of resistance. This was a unique item. They hadn’t had a chance to even look at it properly and here I was ready to run off with it. But run I did and it now holds a prominent position on my office table. Come check it out if you like. It is so cool.

P@SHA LaunchPad: the Karachi event

After the successful launch of the Lahore event, we were a little more relaxed that the Karachi one which was scheduled for the next day, would go off without a hitch. However, force of habit meant that I was there several hours before I had to be – just to see that everything was going according to plan. I had also scheduled a meeting at 12 noon with someone who was visiting Karachi from Lahore even though it was a Sunday so I had to be there early.

Everything was under control. My team was already there and so were most of the volunteers. The backdrop was being put up and everything else was being done. Some minor changes needed to be made with the stage setting and the seating but things were under control otherwise.

So when Khurram arrived for our meeting, we went down to the Nadia Coffee shop at the Marriott to have our discussions over a cup of coffee. It was only when people started to arrive that I was summoned upstairs.

The judges in Karachi included:
Amin Hashwani, director of the Hashoo Group
Yusuf Jan, Founder of Mixit Inc & Chairman of P@SHA
Ashraf Kapadia, MD, Systems Ltd
Jawwad A. Farid, CEO, Alchemy Technologies
Nauman Sheikh, Director, Credit Chex
Rahim Lalani, Director, TRG Tech

The ideas presented in Karachi included:

ArziRehaish.pk, a web portal focusing on exclusively on bachelor accommodation. The theme of this portal was to facilitate bachelor community of Pakistan who travel from their home towns for educational and employment purposes.

People Capital, an online human resource management software as a service (SaaS) model, through which organizations (SMEs) would have their own online Human Resource Development, Management and Information system, orientation and knowledge resource without the need for setting it up, maintaining it and worrying about hosting it.

Kitabain.com is Usman and Jawwad’s latest initiative towards making books accessible to a wider audience in Pakistan. About a year ago they started out The Readers Club, Pakistan’s first online book rental service in Karachi (www.thereadersclub.com). Very often they get requests from members for the option to purchase books that they’d like to hold on to and also a way to give away books that might be lying around.

They have tried to put the two requests together along with other ideas to come up kitabain.com. They envision it as a platform to enable individual sellers or independent bookstores to instantly make their inventory available to a much wider audience than they can typically hope to with a geographically constrained brick and mortar establishment. For Buyers; Whether they are looking for the latest releases or something hard-to-find, the hope is that they can find it at drastically reduced prices on kitabain.com.

A simple idea that immediately resonated with the judges.

Foot Mouse: Basicly Ahsan had been thinking of some design Innovation in the Mouse for a long while and one day he thought why shouldn’tt we use this mouse with our feet. Naturally he google searched for existingproducts and found 2 major Foot operating Mice worth around 12000 to 30000 Pakistani rupees, none of them as simple as the one he had in mind. So he brainstormed with teachers, his brother and his friends and voila, the Foot Mouse.

Why a Foot Mouse? Well, Ahsan thinks it can be used by people with physical challenges, it can be used by gamers and by musicians. He gave a live demo of the product and judges actually examined it. Price is estimated at Rs. 700. One of the judges asked Ahsan what he would do if he got an order for 100,000 pieces tomorrow. How long would it take for him to deliver? Where would he get the money to buy materials, etc. Valid questions to get him thinking. Interestingly enough the judge also said that he was part of a large NGO initiative dealing with physically challenged individuals and he asked Ahsan to meet with him so that they could explore the idea of turning this into a commercial product and getting him his first big order. Yay!

Pak Polling – Ali Naqi says this is a better and more efficient way of National Elections Voting through an SMS based service and Finger Print Scanning alongwith Automated camera snapshot and Live camera monitoring of Voter on the day of Polling.

RenSoy is the “the search assistant you need”, says Adnan Muzaffar. The idea behind RenSoy is simple.  We all use Google as a search engine. Why? Because we get relevant, reliable and accurate results quickly, with a simple GUI.
However, Google has advanced searching capabilities through different commands. But only the smartest people or the IT/Tech related people know how to use them effectively.

That’s where RenSoy comes into play. It offers web, image, blog, news and books search all in one place – and all of the searches are legally powered by Google. So quality is assured, its fast, ajaxified and has 30 different ways of searching and the GUI is sleek and simple.

Reflex 360 – A research house that would be a setup, foundation or a unit where IT personals, IT-base companies and educational institutes will come together under the umbrella of ‘research work’. This research work for example could be based on discovering new technologies ( write down your technical wordy stuff here). On financial front and to sustain it, Reflex 360 could sell out newly discovered ideas and prototypes to interested companies. It could even invoke foreign investment in aspect of off-shoring research material. It would help give a culture of ‘research’ a base in the country. People with vague ideas and concepts about ‘the next big thing’ could come together with people with IT- genius and research and develop it. The house would publish research papers, materials and develop piloting systems if the idea is worthy.

Wi-track – Taimoor Zubair says that this is a GSM/GPRS based tracking system which uses cellphones to track users. He says that it is a novel concept which provides an alternate to GPS based tracking and is much more flexible and cost-effective. The location of a user is determined by using nearby cellphone towers and applying the principle of triangulation. This location information can be sent in real-time to the server using GPRS or sms.

SEO tool – Sadia Abdullah said that their tool provides optimization services to increase web page ranking on search engines especially Google. It performs Keyword Analysis and will suggest appropriate keywords with respect to pages. It determines Site Popularity and analyzes HTML Code for better optimization
and generates reports. They are planning to offer SEO outsourcing services to customers domestically and internationally.

Dhaaba, says Ali Iqbal Khan, is the first implementation of a ‘data-aggregation’ idea of Enroi. Basically it will enable consumers to order food online or through SMS. Right now it is not possible to order food online, consumers need to remember the phone number and make a call. Few restaurants have their websites and they are seldom well-maintained. Dhaaba is envisioned to fill this gap.
Features:
-Portal with data aggregation from restaurants
-Consumer can view/search/compare dishes of various restaurants at one place
-Consumers make order through website or SMS
-Dhaaba will communicate order to particular restaurant and food will be delivered to consumer
-Consumers don’t need to enter address details etc. as Dhaaba will save them.
-Consumers can save their whole week’s lunch plan, Dhaaba will make order appropriately on each day.
-Consumers’ money and time will be saved for making an order.

Interactive Learning for the Muslim world – To provide an online platform for students all over the world, especially Pakistan, where they can learn and play at the same time.  Apart from conventional classroom learning, children will now be able to enhance their creative and interpersonal skills on an online forum.  It would play a role of discussion board for students, teachers and parents. Online lessons, exercises, modules, chapters and one to one sessions on all subjects will be provided 24/7.  Because of this imitative, students will get out of the typical home tuition and academy system.

FYDest – The idea is to guide the people by telling them the shortest path to their destination. It is the same function provided by the GPS in cars. GPS can tell you to turn right or left to reach to your destination. Our idea is a little bit different. In addition to the service similar to GPS we want to provide additional information to the user. We inform the user that from all possible paths, which is the easiest, shortest and fastest. These goals can be achieved by giving the user the current situation of the path that he is going to take. Or at least inform the user the fastest path after analysis of all the possible ones.

Formal Shirts Online – Shahzeb Saeed brings together handpicked fabrics, light but durable, and meticulous tailoring in order to deliver the very best to you. The carefully proportioned collars, made of 18 individual pieces, are reinforced by removable collar bones to ensure durability and edge bones to maintain shape. Plackets help strengthen the cuffs and hide the wrists. The shoulder fit is perfect every single time, because of the use of a two piece split yoke at the back. The details matter here, and extra care is taken in the hand-stitching and finishing so that you never have to worry about your shirts, ever again. He is running this business online and has achieved some level of success already.

PakiPay – Ahsan Saleem sais that PakiPay is a small tool for bridging the Pakistan mobile world to the internet, by allowing users to share mobile balance to purchase small value items via the internet or phone. It currently works only in Pakistan. There was some discussion as to whether PakiPay would require a license from the State Bank of Pakistan as has been the experience of products like Amaana and Innovate.

Telecom Clicking GE – a web based application that binds the tools of Mapinfo into Google Earth, with facility to view  3D plots of sites. Mapinfo is the most widely used software in telecom. It plots the sites of the network in its window and has tools that display the frequencies assigned to the cells of site, and the adjacencies (neighbors for Handovers) created in the database. This allows the engineers to plan and audit the Radio Network of cellular systems. They also use  Google Earth for updated geographical info. As Mapinfo tools for displaying frequency/adjacency are not portable in GE, the engineer constantly switches between Mapinfo & GE. Telecom Clicking GE integrates the benefits of desktop application Mapinfo into web application Google Earth, while resolving the problems in usage of Mapinfo. The product displays height of site, hence allowing faster & efficient plan and audit of Cellular Network.

Help Me – According to Farzal Dojki, H.ELP.ME is focused at providing technology support – pre launch but mostly post launch – for technology products, primarily, mobile applications. HELPME staff is trained by product owners, and then the consumer support interactions are migrated to be handled by HELP ME staff. The expected client base is supposed to be small product companies with < 20 people and needing between 0.5 to 5 people in support role – and hence the necessity to outsource instead of building in-house team and managing it. Farzal was looking for ideas on how to scale his business. The judges were impressed with the niche he had selected and saw impressive growth. They felt that he needed to tap into networks of individuals whom he had studied with, worked with in different industry segments and people he had had as mentors. Those would be the ideal channels in addition to the referrals from satisfied customers.

Kidsconvent.com – Kidsconvent.com is Pakistan’s first customizable online/offline animated syllabus with Urdu Script. It supports and wants to promote activity based learning methodology of education. According to Ahmad Raza, animation and graffiti can help a child to capture & understand concepts more quickly than a regular notebook. Their idea is not to make the book obsolete, but to use animated syllabus as a supporting tool.

Tagit – This service attempts to create an easy way to communicate with your consumer in three simple steps:
1. Brand/ Blog/Organization visits the Tagit website and registers itself and receives a unique ID similar to brand name or a simple widget to integrate into their website.
2. Brand/ Blog/Organization asks their consumers to SMS their uniqueID to the given mobile short code for example “SMS Microsoft to 3456″.
3.  If the consumer texted Microsoft to 3456, Microsoft and the consumer are now connected, consumer can send any message to Microsoft by simply texting to 3456, and Microsoft can send notifications, updates to connected consumers.
Websites or blogs can integrate a simple widget on their homepage through which a reader can subscribe to their RSS feeds which he/ she will receive through SMS.
Internet users can interact with the brands through Tagit’s Brand Social Network by simply joining/ following the brand pages to get their latest updates. Possibilities are endless and the solution is simple.

The winning entries in Karachi included Kitabain.com for the product category whereas the winner for the idea category was a tie between Foot Mouse and Tagit. What was more satisfying was that in addition to the cheques, the winners had additional offers of assistance and collaboration. Khurram of Evolve offered to connect Usman Siddiqui of Kitabain with some of the main bookstore chains in Lahore and Tagit has signed a termsheet with a local technology company to work jointly on developing the product.

The participants were all pleased with the questions and feedback that they received from the judges but some people in the audience felt that the judges were very tough on the presenters. However, as one judge pointed out, “We wanted to be tough on them now because the opportunity cost of changing direction is low. We want to prevent them from the kind of heartache that we went through at a later stage on our entrepreneurial journey.” So there were questions like:

Have you had any user feedback vis-a-vis the utility of the product and the UI?

Okay so it is cool, but have you done some research on existing competitors and pricing?

Who is the customer? What will he pay for the product? What problem does it solve?

How will you market the product or service? How will you grow the business?

How is this different from what already exists in the market? How is it innovative?

Some of the kids made the mistake of using a significant portion of their time “educating” the judges regarding the internet or technology in general or about education. This cut into their presentation time and they were unable to talk about the innovation, the impact and the business viability of the product or service. However, some of the presentations were very good and it was generally a good start to the kind of activity that is needed to generate more and more ideas, and increasingly the setting up of new and successful businesses in the IT space.

A good beginning to the P@SHA LaunchPad activities

Planning any event is both an exciting and arduous task and when you are limited by time and resources, you sometimes wonder why you took it on at all (here is a picture of me praying that all goes well).

Standing in the Dome Room of the Royal Palm Golf Club and Resort in Lahore surrounded by 200+ excited young people on a Saturday afternoon, I had my answer. This was why. I was in a room full of talented and motivated young people. The energy was electrifying. It was these young people with their ideas, their passion and their commitment to excel that made it all worthwhile.

The volunteers (spearheaded and led by Rafaeel Akbar Chaudhry) had been there for hours. There wasn’t really that much to take care of but whatever needed to be done, they had taken care of it. This included having the backdrop and banners put up, lining up the presenters, copying and testing the presentations on one laptop to save time, preparing the badges, testing the connectivity so that tweeting would be possible, making sure the scoring sheets were ready for the judges, that the microphones and multimedia projector were working, that the huge cheques were placed in an accessible spot – in fact all the nitty gritty that goes into event management. All I had to do was hang about worrying for no reason at all until people started arriving. Rafaeel and I even had time to compare the Apple iPad and the Chinese made iPed. Not surprisingly there is no comparison between the two. The iPad is far superior!

I met a lot of old friends and made some new ones. Once the judges showed up we huddled and went through the score sheet discussing the criteria, the number of entries, time allotted etc. The judging panel included luminaries like:

Zia Imran, MD, PSEB
Zafar Khan, Founder of Sofizar Constellation
Dr. Umar Saif, Founder, Saif Center for Innovation
Ibrahim Qureshi, Director of Raffles
Nadeem Aslam Malik, VP Strategy & Business Development, Infotech
Badar Khushnood, Country Consultant, Google

A very high-powered panel indeed and their commitment to entrepreneurship in Pakistan was obvious from the fact that they had committed to being there for the next 5 hours assessing ideas and providing feedback.

I started with a very brief intro as to the whys and whereofs of the event and naturally mentioned the sponsor organizations PSEB, Microsoft and Sofizar Constellation who had made the event possible through their generous sponsorships. I also mentioned the CIO Pakistan team who was not present at the Lahore event but had provided online support by promoting the event.

The list of ideas and products presented included:

Max99 – a Chatroom oriented platform with some interesting Business Models. A  connected experience by aggregating various features like Unlimited Chat Rooms, MultiKicking Game Rooms, Private Chat, Color chat, Translation Bots, Voice Messages, Offline Messages, Flood Control,  Social Networking, Photo Sharing, Presence Based Messenger and strong Security Features.

Vcred.com – VCred is a unique web-based service that enables organizations to make smarter and more cost-effective decisions through instant online verification of educational qualification, employment history and references.

FaceXS – a 3D Face Recognition device that uses advanced technology capable of identification and verification of human Faces in less than a second and addresses all the problems that are associated with much hyped fingerprint and hand geometry systems. It even works with dirty and wet faces!

TouchSlate PC – a PC tablet

Exam Master – A web based application developed in .Net 2.0 Framework with C# as development language and MS SQL SERVER 2005 as database.
It separates Login and Control Panels for instructors and students. There is a Randomization of the algorithm to ensure the shuffling of questions, an Online Timer and number of questions prescribed by the teacher.  It is biometric enabled and there is a maintenance of the performance history and exam continuity in case of power failure.

BudEx – This group creates Web, mobile and Facebook applications that are primarily focused on solving everyday trivial problems. The idea they presented at the LaunchPad event was a recent Facebook app that they launched “BudEx” which  is a friends based parcel delivery service that uses social media for its purpose.

Green – a concept of packaging multiple solutions in one mobile application compatible with all kinds of mobiles developed in the MXIM Framework. Its biggest strength lies in its flexibility to customize itself with the personal needs and requirements of each and every type of individual. Green is an application ledge offering different mobile applications to use from. It also has the capability of upgrading itself without the manual download of a newer version of same application every time. Any new application can be added to the ledge and it will appear in the user’s mobile without any hassle.

Findnumber – When you change your mobile/home/office number, get it updated on findnumber. Now if someone needs to find your new number, they can enter your old number on findnumber and they will get your new number. Not only that they can also register on the site and share their new contact numbers with their friends, colleagues, etc. You can use settings to customize who can/cannot have access to your new number.

SchoolGuide.pk – A web based application that allows parents to search for schools in Pakistan, read and write reviews and interact with other parents via question and answers, stories and advice, and school groups.

PakReviews – Are you looking for the perfect dress for your cousin’s wedding but don’t know where to go? Do you want to hire the services of a professional photographer but aren’t sure which one to contact? Do you want to impress your in-laws by taking them to some fancy restaurant but are confused when it comes to deciding which one? Or do you simply want people to hear you out? If such is the case, then the creators of PakReviews says that it is the place to be! At PakReviews, you can find reviews on just about anything pertaining to Pakistan; be it fashion, education, business or entertainment.

Hozaa -  a group of computer vision researchers, enthusiasts, and professionals who share the common goal of developing next generation products that have automated understanding of visual content (images and videos) as their core building block. Hozaa, which is video search engine in the works, is a step in that direction. Hozaa makes large video repositories searchable by recognizing unlimited number of objects, concepts, and events in videos and by generating appropriate content specific textual tags that could be used for search purposes within existing text based search infrastructure.

naqshaBiz – a very powerful visualization tool, which uses Microsoft’s Bing Maps Silverlight Control enabling organizations to see patterns that would be otherwise invisible. It is often very difficult to ‘see’ patterns in a typical organizational database, but relatively easy to see patterns and relationships in maps and other graphical material. naqshaBiz makes it possible to  visualize  demand and supply separately as well as  together. . Such spatial and GIS analysis and databases provide visual results with countless business and operational applications.

CyberLancing – Freelancing portal in which the buyers will be from all over the world but the providers will be just from Pakistan.

http://teebuzz.designers99.com/
A garments designer application and initially the scope of which is custom design tshirts that people wear. Unlike the conventional way of buying, you can change the color of your tshirt, draw graphics on it, put your own custom text before you can actually buy the customized tshirt. This idea has already been initiated by a few service providers in US market but this is absolutely new in our local market.  We have seen a few shirts done is custom fashion, but no one is offering this service to those who will wear these shirts eventually.  Additionally, we want to compete US service providers by equipping our designer with easy to use garments designing tools. It would be a designing portal where not only people will design their tshirts, but they can also design dress shirts, ties, hoodies and their suitings in next phase.

Nibula – a web platform that connects organisers, attendees and sponsors while enabling organisers to create a network for their group, society or chapter and maintain events. It’ll be a one stop platform to subscribe events related to any field of life and share them with friends and colleagues at school with a built-in module to sell tickets. The organisers can see who the attendees are and what they are saying about it. Nibula is unique because it provides organisers with tools to create full featured event portal, with ability to sell tickets instantly though web and mobile app. The service will get the leverage of existing UGC sites like Facebook and twitter to share the events.

Cost per Acquisition (CPA) or Cost per Sale (CPS) marketing is emerging very fast in Western world and in Pakistan it’s yet to be introduced. Behind the CPA technique its very simple formula i.e. Credit will only be given to selling party when they generates any action (sale). We would be providing a state of the art platform to keep track of the progress for both Advertiser (Sales) & Web Master (Earnings).

The youngsters did a great job in presenting their ideas and products. The ideas that generated a lot of discussion included Hozaa (the winner in the Idea category). Several of the judges felt that if they delivered on the promise of the idea, it could be a billion dollar idea out of Pakistan. The challenges were however great and they needed to work on addressing them. A couple of the judges offered their assistance in brainstorming the idea that is already on its way toward beta. Not surprising therefore that Babar Khan who presented the idea walked away with one of the cheques!

Another idea that generated a lot of excitement was the SchoolGuide.pk presentation by Ahmer Mumtaz. He clearly said that they were not looking for investment; just ideas. And that is what Ahmer got. Judges felt that the product was well developed and that it had a lot of merit. Several of them said that if something like that had existed when they were looking for schools for their kids, they would have used it for sure. Suggestions were made on how to extend the idea to generate more interest and make it a revenue earner.

Farhan Masood made a very slick presentation of his product FaceXS which is still a startup although the product has been bought and is being tried by various industry segments in Pakistan. A hardware-software solution, it was judged to be a very sophisticated and extremely affordable solution that could be marketed locally and internationally. Farhan walked off with the cheque for the best product pitched.

What was also exciting about the event was the live tweeting that was taking place from the venue with feedback coming in from people who were not in Lahore or not present at the venue. Great job done by the Tweeples.

The networking that followed was of great value as many of the youngsters surrounded the judges and other experienced professionals, firing questions at them and asking for advice. Overall a very satisfying event that ended with some of the youngsters wanting to know when the next one was .

There are names & there are names :)

Would you have faith commissioning design work to this company?

Subliminal message?

This sign was spotted outside the Computer Science Department of the Hong Kong University. Are they trying to send a subliminal message to students of the CSD that hacking (haking) is in fact wrong (wong)?

Entrepreneurs can change the world

No doubt this video was created by an American and refers to entrepreneurs in the US but it can apply to entrepreneurs anywhere. Always try and remember when you were a kid and thought you could do anything. You still can. I love that sentiment. One should always give it a shot. You never know when something will fly.

P@SHA LaunchPad Lahore – exhiliration, learning & talent unlimited!

There were many who told us that no-one would be interested in such an event, that there were too many activities going on as it is, that we shouldn’t bother, that it would all be a waste of effort. I am happy to say that they were wrong.

The Dome room at the Royal Palm Country Club & Resort was full of energy, full of mostly young people who were there either to present or to watch and listen to the ideas being presented. Granted some of the presentations could have been more focused but the fact that people were thinking and creating and looking at opportunities that were out there, was in itself good to see.

In my book they were all stars – the nominees, the winners, the judges, the guys who tweeted the whole event live and all the participants and we must not forget the volunteers and the sponsors who made it all possible. Thanks everyone. It was a pleasure being in Lahore, it was amazing meeting many of you and talking about things affecting you, your businesses and the country.

The judges were absolutely amazing – their tough questions, their blunt comments, their suggestions and advice were a learning in themselves. A number of young people came to me afterward and said that this was more than they had learnt in 4 years of university. This was real life learning. So true.

Details, photos and videos will be uploaded in the coming days. This is a process that we have begun to generate ideas, to motivate entrepreneurship and to offer mentoring and advice that is so badly needed to steer some very good ideas into workable propositions.

Today we have the P@SHA LaunchPad in Karachi at the Marriott Hotel. See you there!

All shortlisted nominees for P@SHA LaunchPad – help with preparations!

With great difficulty the shortlisting processing process is finally over and all shortlisted nominees for the P@SHA LaunchPad events in Lahore and Karachi have been informed by email. If you haven’t received an email, you have not been selected. We will inform all others by email that they can attend the event by registering and benefit from the entire exercise, connect with people and ideas.

Jawwad Farid has put up a blog post to help the candidates who have been shortlisted to prepare for their presentations/pitches. Do check it out! See you on June 26th in Lahore at the Royal Palm and on June 27th in Karachi at the Karachi Marriott.

Remember the areas you have to focus on during your presentation are:

Innovation
Concept
Impact of your innovation on Society or Business
Delivery of your pitch
Commercial viability of the idea or product

Good luck guys and gals!

Amazing number of nominations for P@SHA LaunchPad!

All I can say is WOW! When we went into the exercise of putting out a Call for Nominations for this event, we thought it would be difficult to get 15 good entries per city – not because there is not enough innovation happening in the ICT sector in Pakistan but because people are very busy and the only vehicle we used to spread the word was the Internet – emails, blog posts, Facebook, Twitter.

Well, we received over a 100 nominations – and so many that are absolutely brilliant! A panel is going through them now and will notify by the end of the day those who have to present on Saturday and Sunday in Lahore and Karachi. Entries will be judged on the concept, the innovation, the impact, the delivery of the pitch and the commercial viability of the product or service. Judges have been lined up in both cities.

Whether you are shortlisted to present or not, you still win because we will be contacting you over the next few weeks and will help connect you with an online panel of mentors who can assist you in the areas that you have identified. Do come to the events in Karachi and Lahore and be part of the energy and the excitement.

Registration are still open – links are given below:

P@SHA LaunchPad, Lahore: Dome Room, Royal Palm, 2 p.m. – 6:00 pm, Saturday June 26, 2010 http://bit.ly/9KqXp4

P@SHA LaunchPad, Karachi: Ambassador 1 & 3, Karachi Marriott Hotel, 2 p.m. – 6:00 pm, Sunday June 27, 2010 http://bit.ly/bkeZJ

P@SHA LaunchPad gathers steam as CIO Pakistan comes on board

Trust Rabia Garib and CIO Pakistan to come up with a good promo for the P@SHA LaunchPad event.

Lots of entries received so far – many exciting ones. The shortlisting will be done as soon as the deadline for  call for entries expires tomorrow. Nominees will then be advised so PLEASE don’t panic! All of you will hear from us whether your entry is shortlisted or not. Meantime you should register to attend the event anyway because we are restricting the number of attendees to 150.

Registration links are given below:

P@SHA LaunchPad, Lahore: Dome Room, Royal Palm, 2 p.m. – 6:00 pm, Saturday June 26, 2010 http://bit.ly/9KqXp4

P@SHA LaunchPad, Karachi: Ambassador 1 & 3, Karachi Marriott Hotel, 2 p.m. – 6:00 pm, Sunday June 27, 2010 http://bit.ly/bkeZJt

Register to attend P@SHA LaunchPad events today!

The purpose of P@SHA LaunchPad is to create a platform where young people with great ideas, and early-stage companies with innovative products, have the opportunity to pitch their ideas in front of an expert panel who ask relevant questions, make suggestions to help develop the idea or product, assist with market identification, mentoring and possibly investment if it catches their imagination.

A good batch of entries have been submitted from both Karachi and Lahore with more coming in as we speak. Shortlisted companies will be informed on the night of the 23rd of June so do check your emails if you have submitted an entry.

For those of you who wish to attend the P@SHA LaunchPad events in Lahore on June 26th and in Karachi on June 27th, 2010, (this includes those who are participating in the events) make sure that you register early. Registration is free but we will be limiting registrations to 150 in each city.

P@SHA LaunchPad, Lahore: Dome Room, Royal Palm, 2 p.m. – 6:00 pm, Saturday June 26, 2010 http://bit.ly/9KqXp4

P@SHA LaunchPad, Karachi: Ambassador 1 & 3, Karachi Marriott Hotel, 2 p.m. – 6:00 pm, Sunday June 27, 2010 http://bit.ly/bkeZJt