Microsoft Awards Warid Pakistan

Warid Telecom (Pvt.) Ltd. the country’s most reliable service provider has always been on forefront in deploying the latest technology, partnering with the Worlds top class vendors like Oracle, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft.

Warid has recently commenced an outstanding project of implementing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution based on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. This initiative was taken as part of Microsoft’s early adoption Program for this cutting edge virtualization technology. Warid Telecom was amongst the pioneer customers in the MEA region in implementing VDI solution under this program.

Microsoft held a commercial launch of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 in Pakistan. The event was held in Sheraton Hotel Karachi on 22nd October 2009. It is the largest outreach to IT Decision Makers, IT Professionals and Developers in Microsoft’s history. Warid Telecom is awarded with Gold Sponsorship and an honorary shield was given to Warid’s Chief Information Officer. Microsoft has also developed a case study taking a detailed account on Warid Pakistan, and it will be published on Microsoft’s global website.

While speaking on the event Javed Mushtaq, Chief Information Officer, Warid Telecom said , “We expect a 20 percent drop in our capital expenditure and a 62 percent drop in operating expenses by cutting power, support, and hardware costs with the Hyper-V solution.”

Microsoft Country Head Kamal Ahmed said “The launch of such a powerful product portfolio showcases Microsoft’s commitment to our customer’s top priority and seeks to enhance cost savings, IT efficiency and business productivity. Companies in Pakistan can use these products to not only drive costs down but also drive down their risk profile through better security and compliance, while maximizing the productivity of the workforce they support”

With this project, Warid Telecom taken a leap forward in carbon emissions, honoring its part in keeping the planet greener thus takes another initiative for environment friendly green technology. Total Power Consumption is reduced by 180% with annual saving of 215,280 KW/Y from power and Total Air Conditioning Saving per Year: 160,030 KW/Y, also Carbon Emission Saving per Year: of 581730 Pound.

Source: TelecomPK blog

Pakistan’s Mindstorm Studios launches world’s most sophisticated Cricket game (PC)

Mindstorm Cricket Revolution is OUT (no pun intended). As will be amply evident from all the screenshots I’m posting here, the game looks absolutely amazing. There is great attention to detail, a rich team selection, multi-player....

Read full story at TechLahore

Google Map Maker - Top contributors from Pakistan

Google LatLong Blog recognizes efforts of two volunteers who have contributed hours to make the Pakistani Map available for us all to use.

Name: Faraz Ahmad (farazilu)

Day job: Web programmer

Region mapped: Pakistan

Name: Jabran Rafique (جabran)

Day job: IT administrator

Region mapped: Pakistan

Faraz and Jabran are both Pakistani-born, high tech workers living in the United Kingdom. They both learned about Map Maker on the Internet, and they have formed a virtual team with a mission to map Pakistan. Although they live 400 miles apart and have never met in person, they collaborate on mapping Pakistan and providing other mappers with advice and tips on mapping the region.

Time lapse video of Gujranwala, Pakistan:

Faraz started using Map Maker shortly after it launched in 2008, and he is now the top mapper with more edits than any other user. Jabran found Map Maker a few months after Faraz. Both mappers started with their home towns and have subsequently mapped many cities in Pakistan. 'It's like mapping your own world -- describing your world to other people. In the UK, we use Google Maps to find directions if we want to go somewhere. But we couldn't do that in Pakistan. This is a big opportunity to help other people find things,' says Faraz.

Time lapse video of Karachi, Pakistan:

'I spend so much time on the Internet looking at new technologies. It's like a hobby for me to develop maps -- time spent positively because I know it will help others. In Pakistan, using Map Maker to find an efficient way to get somewhere can save a life in an emergency situation,' says Faraz.

Experienced and accomplished mappers with more than 70,000 map edits between them, Faraz and Jabran collaborate with many others to map the region as well. Jabran explains, 'I post on the group when I finish mapping a city. A fellow who just joined recently is making some edits near Lahore, adding names to streets and local businesses. So we help each other. If one can map it and another can name it, that's great. Someday I will open Google Maps and see all of Pakistan mapped!'

In areas of Pakistan that the virtual team knows less well, they use the satellite imagery on Map Maker to draw the roads. When they meet people from Pakistan, Faraz & Jabran ask them where they are from and what areas they know. "Then I drag them to Map Maker and ask them the names of roads, shops, hospitals, whatever. We're trying to make the maps more and more elaborate. Together we can make a difference."

Jabran recalls that, one weekend, a couple of guys with local knowledge of an area sat with him as he edited the maps -- here's one small example of an addition to the map he made based on their knowledge. 'Great thanks to all those many people who agree to help in such a way,' says Jabran.

Living in the UK, Faraz and Jabran use Google Maps extensively, particularly on their mobile phones, to find their way around and explore new places. Through their contributions to mapping Pakistan with Google Map Maker, their goal is to help all Google Maps users in Pakistan to find their way, too. We wish both of these Map Maker 'power users' all the best in their efforts to map their worlds, and look forward to seeing their goal of completing the Pakistan map fully realized!

Source: Featured Map Makers: Faraz & Jabran

Pakistan Ranks 9th in Global Mobile Markets – 1H 2009 Update

The Global Wireless Markets continued to grow rapidly especially in India and China where the carriers (together) are adding around 20M new subscriptions every month. China crossed the 700M subscriptions mark in July while India’s total went past 450 in Aug. Overall, the global subscriptions penetration is above 64%. During 2009, services revenues further tilted towards data services, increasing 21% from 2008 EOY.

For some leading operators, data is now contributing over 40% of the overall revenues. However increase in data ARPU is not completely offsetting the drop in voice ARPU for most operators. From the true and tested SMS messaging to the new services such as Mobile Advertising, Social Networking, Commerce, Mobile Wallet, and others, different services helped in adding billions to the revenues generated in 2009. US continues to lead Japan and China in total mobile data revenues by a healthy margin.

The top 10 nations by subscriptions are: China, India, US, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Germany, Pakistan and Italy.

Read the full report here or download PDF from here or Power Point presentation from here

Thanks to ProPakistani blog for this post.

Pakistani IT companies expanding in the ATM software business

Some of our companies have been making good headway into this niche market of developing server-side and ATM-side software for banks in Pakistan as well as in MEA region.

Here are three recent stories posted at PASHA website regarding TPS and Avanza:

http://pashanews.org/?p=250

http://pashanews.org/?p=247

http://pashanews.org/?p=249

[Update: September 29, 2009] Another achievement of TPS here: http://propakistani.pk/2009/09/28/tps-scores-yemeni-bank-contract/

Pakistan’s Higher Education Funding Holds Many Lessons for Developing Nations: Nature

Massive funding for Pakistan’s ailing universities holds many lessons for other developing nations”, states the editorial of this week’s edition of Nature, published today. Nature, which is one of the most respected scientific journal, highlights the successes of Pakistan’s higher education reforms initiated in 2002, citing the free national digital library, high-speed internet access for universities and the foreign scholarship program as examples of successes. The editorial, which accompanies an opinion article by lead author Athar Osama, however calls for more accountability and oversight of these reforms by a body comprising of academics and parliamentarians not affiliated with Higher Education Commission (HEC). While not accusing the HEC of any serious mismanagement, the editorial points out to lack of investment in the social sciences as an example of a ‘blind spot’ that public oversight may have been able to avoid.

The more detailed opinion article in the current issue of Nature is co-authored by a distinguished team, including the lead author Athar Osama, a science and innovation policy researcher, former minister of education, science and technology Shams Kassim-Lakha, the director of Boston University’s Pardee Center, Adil Najam, Christopher King of ScienceWatch.com and Syed Zulfiqar Gilani of the Institute of Education and Research, University of Peshawar and a board member of Seneca College.

The article, titled “Pakistan’s Reform Experiment“, overall takes a positive view of HEC’s reforms, stating that “the HEC seems to have changed the culture of Pakistani academia considerably over the past 5 years”. Using data from Thompson Reuters, the authors show that the impact of papers from Pakistan, relative to the average of the field, has improved significantly in Mathematics and Engineering over the last five years. In fact, papers from Pakistan in Mathematics have 20% higher impact factor than the world average! In comparison, papers in fields other than engineering and mathematics have not seen a significant improvement in the relative impact, which may be consistent with more HEC money targeted at technical disciplines.

At the same time, the article points out some potential pitfalls that the HEC needs to avoid. HEC cannot be the “initiator, implementer and evaluator” at the same time. Accountability of HEC initiatives by academics is necessary. The pace of reform has led to resistance by the universities, (a fact acknowledged by HEC Executive Director in our earlier interview), and HEC has not been fully successful in winning over that resistance. The attempt to produce too many PhDs in local universities may have compromised the quality of the PhD degree significantly. And leaving behind certain disciplines in the favor of others, especially critically important areas such as the social sciences, has not been the most prudent of policies.

We feel that the article is a well-balanced analysis of HEC’s performance. There is no doubt that the landscape of higher education has changed for the better, in a very short amount of time. However, it is also clear that higher education reform is a long term agenda. What is important is not how many grants are funded, but whether scholarship is thriving in the country or not. The conclusion of the article aptly makes this point:

The HEC has, over the past few years, made considerable progress. Its success, however, must not be measured by the number of grants made or PhDs awarded. Rather it should be judged on whether it is creating a culture of research — one driven not by financial incentives, but by a genuine desire to create new knowledge and to enable the broader society to reap the benefits. While that remains to be seen, Pakistan’s experience has useful lessons for other countries.

The article comes at an appropriate time, as the new Chairman of HEC, Dr Javaid Laghari takes over (see our posts here, and here). It provides an objective analysis to the new chairman, as he will take on the review of the previous policies and initiatives.

Source: Pakistan’s Higher Education Funding Holds Many Lessons for Developing Nations: Nature

pakistani tweeters rejoice! mobi2weet comes to our rescue!

A lahore based software house, uraan software solutions, has developed a twitter-to-mobile gateway for Pakistan, mobi2weet.

Sign up online and send receive messages directly from twitter via sms. The service has dedicated local numbers for all mobile networks (e.g. for warid its 03219600395) for sending messages, and coupled with a sms bundle isn’t heavy on the pocket either.

Go check it out: http://www.mobi2weet.com/

Thanks to greenwhite.org for the post.