Business Recorder is running a story about a private company in Islamabad that wants to introduce broadband over powerlines. According to the article, DZD Communication’s (no link available) CEO said that operations could start as early as the next three months and that connections would initially be given to multi-story buildings, though negotiations with WAPDA have yet to be wrapped up.
Archive for May, 2005
Internet through power lines?
Sunday, May 8th, 2005Pakistan moving toward e-procurement with Korea’s assistance
Thursday, May 5th, 2005As part of the e-government vision, the government of Pakistan is seeking Korea’s assistance with e-procurement. Currently a feasibility study is proposed for 3 months. The key upside to e-procurement is transparency, competitiveness and managerial efficiency. The World Bank has an interesting report on Korea’s e-procurement model (PDF Format. HTML format here) . From the report: staffing requirements fell from 1058 to 935, procurements increased by one-third to $17.1bn. The e-procurement system managed $20bn in goods and services between Sep 2002 and Sep 2003 with the participation of 25,000 public agencies and 87,000 companies. The four factors from Korea’s experience: strong leadership, nationwide e-government reforms, information and communications infrastructure and comprehensive process reengineering. The toughest of those for Pakistan might be process reengineering. Korea began it’s e-government reforms under President Dae Jung Kim (1998-2002).
This is somewhat contradictory to our previous story: Pakistan ranked second last among ‘e-ready’ nations.
FIA cracks down on piracy
Thursday, May 5th, 2005Looks like someone [image] in the government took notice of the US Trade Representative’s recent IP infringement report (we covered it a few days ago). According to The Daily Times the Federal Investigative Agency seized over 80,000 pirated CDs, DVDs and audiocassettes during 6 separate raids in Karachi. 10 arrests were also made during the raids. This time the FIA means business: instead of going after smaller shops who sell to the end consumers, they went after factories
involved in producing pirated media. It’s interesting to see what a little motivation can do.
Pakistani girl sets record for youngest MCP at age nine
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005Arfa Karim Randhwa of Multan, Faisalabad, Pakistan has been accredited as the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) at age 9. The requirements for MCP are by no means trivial. No details on which exam she wrote but Desktop Support Technician seems like one of the easier routes to MCP with 4 courses requiring installation, management and troubleshooting knowledge of the windows environment (hardware, filesystem, networking etc) and applications (office, outlook, etc). She studied through Applied Technologies (APTECH) (whose website is a disgrace) in a single summer vacation. She comes from a rural, agricultural background with her father working for United Nations in Congo and her mother acting as the landlady in his absence. She also won a national singing competition. Not an astonishing story, but it does set an excellent precedent for Pakistani youth — a little encouragement goes a long way. Pakistan could use a lot more intellectual capital. What can be done to promote the youth and build intellectual capital?
Pakistan on infringement of intellectual property rights watchlist
Sunday, May 1st, 2005Not suprisingly, the Daily Times reports that Pakistan has been left on the US Trade Union’s 2005 intellectual priority rights watchlist. According to the USTR’s ‘Special 301′ report Pakistan has made progress during the past year by proposing legislation to form the long awaited Pakistan Intellectual Property Organization (PIPRO), which is designed to centralize enforcement but has been disappointed by lack of legal action against counterfeiters:
An example of Pakistan’s ineffective IPR enforcement occurred in 2004, when four optical disc plants closed voluntarily, but reopened when it became apparent that the Government of Pakistan did not intend to impose any penalties for continued activities related to piracy.
Is protecting foreign granted IP in Pakistan a good thing? Should Pakistan limit itself to curbing piracy (both foreign and local) but stay away from the more restrictive measures (DMCA, software patents) that the US wants the world to adopt?
(* It must be noted that US IP losses stemming from China, Russia and Brazil outweight the rest of the world)