July 21st, 2005
Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) has teamed up with Pakistan’s leading job site, Rozee.com.pk, to organize a job fair of proportions never before seen in Pakistan. The job fair will feature company booths, exposure to high quality professionals and workshops that will give you the edge you want.
Over 500 companies have been invited. This is a once in a life time opportunity to test your career’s marketability. This fair will be advertised to more than 80,000 job seekers. Companies can find the best available talent from a huge pool of mid-level and high-level employees.
The P@SHA Job Fair 2005 is scheduled for August 16, 2005 at the Pearl Continental Hotel in Lahore. The job fair will feature company booths, workshops, and counseling sessions. The P@SHA Job Fair 2005 will be advertised to over 80,000 professionals and executives in Pakistan.
The workshops are aimed at improving local human resource skills such as resume writing, interviewing and professional development. These workshops will provide valuable practical insights to help enhance Pakistan’s talent pool.
Please follow the link (P@SHA Job Fair - In Partnership with rozee.com.pk ) for more details.
Ed: We covered PASHA’s previous June 2005 job fair here. It was disappointing in terms of turnout due to lack of advertising, looks like this time it will be better.
Posted in Business, IT | 5 Comments »
July 15th, 2005
Dawn reports, The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) has been assigned a special task by the government to set up 13 new nuclear power plants to generate 8800 MW of power in the next 25 years with a view to meet growing requirements of the industrial sector.
Informed sources told Dawn here on Thursday that when work on the 300-MW Chashma Nuclear Power Plant-2 had started in May last, the PAEC authorities were directed to accelerate their efforts to install 13 more nuclear power plants both with local and foreign financial and technical support. Each plant would roughly have a capacity of 600-700 MW.
Chashma-2 will be completed in 2011 at a revised cost of $850 million for which Chinese were mainly providing financial and technical support. Chashma-1 was also built with Chinese assistance and was currently producing about 1400 MW of electricity at 95 per cent plus capacity, which sources claimed, was one of the highest in the world.
Sources said that PAEC was expecting to establish 13 new nuclear power plants mostly through indigenous efforts, especially due to the transfer of technology being received from Chinese for Chashma-2. The PAEC is expected to be self-sufficient in all aspects of designing, installation, construction and operations of the proposed nuclear power plants.
Can someone please tell me, where the heck is PAEC getting all this pull for financial credit from all these foreign countries who are helping set up our so called future civil infrastructure. What’s the catch here? What are we giving back to China that they are helping us out like this?
Posted in Energy, Government | 5 Comments »
July 12th, 2005
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) has the go ahead from the government to updrade the laboratories of Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (Pinstech) in a 5 year plan, costing Rs. 2.5 billion. Dawn reports:
Under the programme, laboratories and facilities of Pinstech will be established and upgraded for economical study of irradiated assemblies of the Pakistan Atomic Research Reactors I and II, the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant and the Karachi Nuclear Power Project to determine their performances at different burn-ups.
Posted in Government | Comments Off
July 12th, 2005
Dawn reports that the ISPs, Long Distance and International (LDIs) call centres are seeking compensation of $43 million for the 10 day internet outage, while PTCL claims that legally they are not obliged to pay anything at all. The LDIs which bring on average 10 million minutes of international traffic per month claimed losses of $7.35 million, ISPs claimed $7 million and the IT industry $3.6 million (although these figures don’t add up to $43 million).
The enraged also claimed that PTCL, instead of spending $10 million on satellite backup every year could have simply invested $20 million in an alternative fibre-optic cable.
Sucks to be a call centre in Pakistan.
Posted in Business, Government, IT, Internet, Legal, Telecom | 1 Comment »
July 10th, 2005
The Dawn reports that the Karachi Electronic Dealers Association (KEDA) has agreed to cooperate with the police in controlling the trading of stolen mobile phones. According to the article, the chief of police Karachi says that 80 percent of trading of all stolen mobile takes place in Karachi’s Saddar electronic market, which the KEDA represents. This partnership is a positive move by the KEDA after April’s violent encounter with the local police that ended with KEDA’s top leadership being taken into overnight custody.
Mobile phone snatching incidents are getting more frequent and violent in Karachi. The Police and KEDA’s joint initiative, the m:track mobile tracking system has not had much of an impact on the crime rate, maybe because it relies on the mobile phone seller’s voluntary participation into the program.
Can technology be used to eliminate this dangerous trend without having to rely on the local police’s brute force or the local mobile sellers’ honesty?
Posted in Government, Legal, Telecom | 3 Comments »
July 8th, 2005
CSIDC (Computer Science International Design Competition) is held every year in Washington D.C. for three days - it provides an opportunity for undergraduates from all over the world to participate in a design contest, and invites the top ten teams to D.C. to present their ideas to a panel of international industry judges. For the three years, Pakistan (e.g. LUMS, SSUET) has continually been selected as one of the top ten teams. This year (’05), “Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology” (SSUET) was selected for the top ten, but unfortunately they couldn’t participate in the final round due to visa difficulties. Last year, two team members made it to D.C. on the 2nd day of the competition and one member wasn’t able to get a visa at all. It’s quite irritating that our country can’t do anything to expedite the process. Are there any ideas that how to prevent this situation from happening again? These past experiences are not going to encourage new teams to participate for upcoming contests.
Posted in Academia, Government | 7 Comments »
July 7th, 2005
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority [pta.gov.pk] is ramping up efforts to introduce 3G technology [wikipedia.org] for mobile phones in Pakistan. The PTA recently gave a presentation [pta.gov.pk] on moving current networks from 2G to 3G technology to PTA officials, representatives of PTCL, mobile and fixed line operators, telecom experts and students.
While explaining the importance of 3G technology, Gen. Shahzada (ed - Chairman PTA) said that PTA was putting every endeavor to bring home latest cellular mobile technologies including the 3rd Generation. He said that it has always been difficult to introduce new telecommunication methods and technologies but like in the past, PTA would facilitate all operators to switch over to the latest technologies.
Pakistan currently has 2.5G based networks and according to the PTA and this [wikipedia.org] the switch to 3G will require a lot of effort and money because of the underlying infrastructure change. The main benefit in moving to a 3G network is higher data transmission rates. The increase in bandwidth is substantial, from a maximum of 128kpbs in existing 2.5G networks to up to 2mpbs-10mpbs in 3G networks.
Posted in IT, Telecom | 1 Comment »
July 4th, 2005
A story running on NewKerala estimates some figures on the impact of the internet outage in the range of 40-60 million dollars (revised to 1.5 million dollars). There are 40 call centres with 3000-3500 people in their employ. One of the call centres claimed they had complete outage for 3 days and 10% bandwidth on the fourth day. The best bit:
The paper quoted Wahaj-us-Siraj, an IT and Telecom expert, as saying: “It has been a criminal negligence on part of the PTCL as well as the government. They knew about the likelihood of such a fault in the cable that was the sole provider for the entire country’s linkage to the outside world.â€
A class action lawsuit seems to be in order here.
The current status is that the repair work has started. The repair is being performed by a Etisalat which won the PTCL bid (overbid actually by more than $1 billion, coming out ~80% on top of next highest bidder) for a 26% profit sharing stake and 58% voting rights just 9 days before the outage. Wierd coincidence. Could Etisalat have something to gain from this outage? Doesn’t a bid topping the competitor by more than 1 billion dollars seem conspicuous?
Update (5 Jul, 2005): Dawn reports that the actual repairs have not yet started. Currently the repair crew aboard Niva are still trying to localize the faults (initially localized to a 5 kilometre using sonic testing and electroding). India, Djibouti, Oman and the United Arab Emirates will be affected by the repairs and have agreed to a 2 hour downtime during repairs.
Posted in Business, IT, Internet, Offshoring | 9 Comments »
June 28th, 2005
I came across an interesting entry at a blog which refers to issues dealing with IP losses and job insecurity in Pakistan. The author talks about how people are quickly employed at new start-ups, they work hard, and when the time comes for a pay cheque, they are fired and their intellectual property consumed by the “saab’s” that run the business, essentially, for free. The author then leaves us with the dillemma of a) leaving the country and working elsewhere causing the country braindrain, or b) being patriotic, and staying in the country and finding menial work elsewhere.
His arguments for what is and isn’t patriotic are also worth reading.
What are the legal ramifications for the case that he mentions? Is there any avenue of escape for the hard worker who simply wants his paycheque at the end of the day?
Posted in Business, IP/Copyrights, Legal | 4 Comments »
June 27th, 2005
2 months ago, we covered the youngest MCP, Arfa Karim at age 9. One of her wishes was to meet Bill Gates. Didn’t think her wish would be granted this soon. She will be visiting Microsoft headquarters in Remond, Washington, to meet with CTO, Bill Gates.
We raised the question as to what can be done to promote the youth and intellectual capital in Pakistan. Granting her wish and generating more press around this seems like a good start.
I might be meeting her on July 12 to give her words of encouragement. If you have any questions or would like to relay words of encouragement, post them here.
Posted in Academia, IT | 7 Comments »