Message in the Bubble Burst

49: Romair, Ata Ur Rehman has been reappointed S&T Minister

I can feel something in the air tonight . . .

http://www.lakenet.com/~drglenn/index.htm

Hello, my name is David Glenn. For the last 9 years I have been working in the Information Technology field. My career path landed me a position working for IBM as a contractual employee. It was a great job and I actually enjoyed getting out of bed and going to work. But IBM in their infinite wisdom, decided to shed 15,000 employees in April/May of 2002. When I got laid off I was in the midst of going for a college degree in order to make myself more marketable. I incurred a massive amount of debt (well it`s massive to me). Since being laid off, and with the economy the way it is, I am unable to find work in my chosen field.

To save money, and to keep myself from becoming homeless, I moved in with my aunt and uncle who live in Two Harbors Minnesota. My aunt and uncle are both retired and my uncle is disabled from a stroke he had 13 years ago. They asked that I start clearing out the brush and thin out some of the trees that had overrun their property over the course of the last decade.

Somehow I got the idea of using the trees I was cutting down to grow shiitake mushrooms. So I invested all of what was left (not much after the stock market crashed) of my 401K. So far I have raised a few shiitakes.

Here`s a few pictures of my endeavors so far . . . etcetc

Syed Ahmed:

I read your post twice and each time I was not sure on the tone of your post. I inferred from your post that you are opposed to technology focused institutes since they do not necessarily produced well rounded students and are only providing quick and dirty solutions. So, here are a few pointers:

- You cannot push students to pursue an area that they are least inclined towards. All the more reason those who are bent upon getting into Engineering or Sciences should have entry tests and interviews to determine their level of interest.

- Secondly, the ones who are not able to clear the test and interview should not be made to feel bad and left out. They should be routed or mentored towards other fields that are of interest to them. An area where a lot can be done is to provide guidance and options to students who do not want to land into engineering, business administration, commerce, medicine, law, and technology. For the above-mentioned categories, you do require a certain set of mentors, but the category is different from those who do not fall under the above.

- Obviously, when you start putting all the emphasis on your business students and technologists, the others will feel left out. What will they do? Join some madrissa or a jehadi camp. Now, is it fair to expect Dr. Ata to take those youngsters out of those camps ? I do not think so. But all the more reason, I strongly feel that you cannot determine the interest of the masses by the gait of your cream of the crop. You need to pick some samples from different economic strata. Pick the best students from villages, towns, small cities and big cities. Just meeting Zia Chishti or Safi Qureshi and following word by word what they suggest is neither the solution nor the end result. It`s just an approach.

- In my very strong opinion, people need to have options in life. Some are ambitious enough that they create those options themselves whereas others need assistance or guidance to learn how to explore those options. Each university and college must have a career development center & all the students must be asked to work in the field for a year or so during their F.A./F.Sc. year to gather some practical sense.

- We must not forget that for solid education, you do need an environment at home as well. Most of the times, it`s an observation that educated parents want their kids to do better. Not to say that uneducated parents do not want their children to do well, but in those cases, it`s a lot on the kids to strive hard and harder with little or no guidance from their parents. Again, I will go back to my point that I have repeated millions of times on Chowk that unless there is harmony in your social infrastructure, you will continue to have disoriented youth. Do you think people who get murdered and brutally wiped off have no families and kids ? Do you also remember that in one of the human rights` violation episodes in Multan, the victim desired to have a school built in her area ? What does that say ? The government needs to slightly change its strategy. It should reach out to the smallest areas in each province and get the 10-20 best students selected. Mentor those students in select fields and help them achieve their end point. People in the big cities have quite a few amenities to avail, whereas those who are far from the basic amenities need to be the ones to grow.

- On the same lines, each professor in a university/college should have 5-10 mentees.

- I have slightly diverted your concerns but I have not ignored them. Human beings require peace and harmony in order to function to the best of their abilities. People do not move to the US to only start putting dollars in their pockets. They like to be in sane, safe and systematic environment with some law and order in place. Being a woman, I have traveled so many times at wee hour for work both driving and flying from one place to another without a second thought except for being cautious. I am able to concentrate in a better manner on things that I need to focus on vs. considering the cab driver as a kidnapper or being waylaid. Hope I make sense.

- Now, rather than sitting and waiting for external contracts, if the Software Houses can assist the law and order agencies in putting together a robust infrastructure for the highways or the toll booths or the by passes and stuff that will be creativity. But to your point, since these students happen to have quick and dirty solutions under their belts vs. being able to see a broader and deeper picture therefore indeed they have their challenges.

More random pointers and thoughts will follow later....

Message in the Bubble Burst of Bush`s Believability is that --

the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES -- IS A MURDEROUS LIAR AND A PETTY THIEF –

WHO DESTROYED THE LIVES OF SO MANY AMERICAN FAMILIES – AND STOLE THEIR TAX DOLLARS TO FINANCE HIS DESPICABLE FAMILY’S WAR

Wonder why no one mentioned it yet, but did not pakistanis create the first virus called ...(ahem)...PAKISTANI BRAIN!?

re: arjun_m

calm down dude

Incidentally: If anyone here knows of anyone based in Islamabad/Rawalpindi or Lahore who is proficient in VisualBasic applications interfacing with either MS Access (Jet) as well as Oracle DBMS, I would be obliged if you could provide me contact info (email/phone). Thanks.

Re:36

Ms Zahra,

You are absolutely right on the mark. My comments were indeed a hyperbole... My outlandish style not withstanding... - education policy in Pakistan and primary in Science and technology has been a dismal failure for two reasons ( IMHO) -

Pakistan lacks a creative ``academic culture`` - public Universities are too politicized - and private universities are too busy following a core rigid curriculum which provides a steady supply of ``blue-blood`` operational- ``not creative`` managers to feed the local demand.

Forget Pakistan - lets look at the Pakistani Technical professional in the US - hopefully the cream of the crop - Having lived in the valley for a couple of years I can attest to it -

The majority of successful Pakistanis in the local industries here are the Savvy Sales/Marketing types..

One rarely comes across a Pakistani with strong fundamental engineering skills.... One can attend the local Pakistani networking group to see the difference ....- you can see a lot schmoozing sales types - one trying to out do the other . If one was to hold a rigorous technical standard as a prerequisite to membership - barely 2-3 dozen will qualify ......
Pakistanis are conspicuously absent in any of the Technical conferences be it IEEE, ICCAD, DAC etc etc ......- given the fact that there are at least a couple of thousand in the US...


Contrast that with the Indians ... - the majority of Indians in the valley have exceptionally strong technical backgrounds - with clearly defined tangible skills....- who eventually develop the soft skills required for entrepreneurial activity .... Therein lies the problem....

The basic school level curriculum in mathematics and sciences in Pakistan is quite weak... There are no challenger schools - so the rudiments of science and math are just not there - nor is there a culture of creativity - Contrast that with the Indians where academics are ``sincerely respected`` .... In Pakistan it is - and always will be about money ........- that is what defines the ``academic`` culture

---

Consequently to correlate the two - academia in Pakistan must be incentivized to be creative....

In many respects Pakistan is like Bihar in India... - the culture is remarkably similar ....

It can be further evidenced by the number of technical papers being published in Pakistani academia - The only EE papers that I saw from Pakistan were from a Professor at Punjab University in Lahore

---

Contrast that with the scores of papers being published from China, India - and now even schools in Malaysia & Singapore .....


Does that imply that there is no talent in Pakistan - certainly not - There are many creative people in Pakistan who lack the avenues to succeed where ability is often a liability. I happened to meet a couple of FAST graduates in Karachi - who were just as bright - but who lacked the right mentoring.

Ata ur Rehman cannot do everything - he has done two things which are absolutely essential - He has decentralized education - and attempted to incentivize science and technology if purely on the merits of ``voodoo`` techno-economics. It is not easy to reform the “paindoo” mindset – unless he sees the proverbial “pot of gold” at the end of the rainbow.


Thus Pakistan is poised to produce thousands of techno -donkeys instead of just ``unskilled`` donkeys ... Hopefully that will create the mulch needed to form the nucleus of a ``critical`` mass of skilled technologists ....

HHRehman:

``Did you know that Jesus Christ wandered the Himalayas and drew his inspiration from Hinduism? That a Hindu named Samundragupta built the Qutb Minar, originally known as Vishnu Sthambha? That the Taj Mahal was really a Hindu Temple known as Tejo-Mahalaya (Shiva`s Palace)? That the Red Fort in Delhi was a Brahmin palace? Or that the largest Holocaust in history was perpetrated by Muslims against Hindus in India? ``

WOW!! I didn`t even know so many facts about my own country. Thank you for enlightening me O Great HHRehman. How generous of you to acknowledge all these things.

faisulono #40: A friend of mine just pointed me to an article, in People magazine, which ranked Zia Chishti as one of the 40 most eligible bachelors in the USA, alongside Tiger Woods, Ben Affleck and others.

I met Dr. Atta on one of his US tours, and had a chance to talk to him. He seems to have things figured out quite well. However, he cannot do much without the other pre-requisites.

Also, now that Pakistan is enjoying the fruits of democracy, the IT minister is the son of Leghari, who recently graduated from a US university, with a degree in political science or something. He probably couldn`t get a job as an entry level web-designer in a company. However, due to his feudal backing, he is the Minster of IT. Dr. Atta probably wouldn`t accept him as a university candidate. I certainly wouldn`t.

During Nawaz Sharif`s time, the miniser of S&T was Abida Hussain, another feudal with just a high school education. As if these feudals have ruined enough things in Pakistan, now they are after IT. Why not give the feudal guy some useless ministry? Why IT, which is going to the driving force for economies? And then people wonder why Pakistan cannot progress in IT.

People can say whatever they may about Musharraf, but one thing stands out: He appointed the right person (Dr. Atta) as the head of S&T. And he gave him far more power and budget than any previous govt.

Tayyab: It is true that the dotcom bust has left without jobs many young people who attended one of the zillion IT training institutes that cropped up in Pakistan in the late 1990`s. However, education never goes to waste. Thus: these people have picked up the concept of improving their lot in life, and that is the first and perhaps the most important step towards a better life.

They have also picked up some analytical skills, even if the specific knowledge of programming languages may never be used by them in future. Given these two factors - a belief in improving one`s lot in life, and analytical ability - I have no doubt that most of these young people will ultimately end up making something of themselves.

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thankfully, zia chisti did not listen to the naysayers. that might be because he has some american blood flowing through his veins. and in the process of doing some good, he actually made some cash. and to his credit, when company decided to shut up shop in pak after sep 11, zia quit and started another venture. and this time, he was able to tap paki financial markets.

one of the harvard mba`s mentioned in the article is a friend of mine. and he only has good things to say about assistance offered by dr. atta and his dept as well the quality of workers he has been able to hire. and is`nt it amazing that for a country that causes us so much grief, so many people are still willing to give it all up to try and make a difference. and all my econ and finance text books said that humans are not suppose to behave like this. amazing.

http://www.pseb.org.pk/News/FindingOppor.cfm

Finding Opportunities in Post-9/11 Pakistan
Growing Economy Sparks Return of Capital, Expertise
Washington Post Foreign Service

LAHORE, Pakistan -- Terrorism, nuclear threats, a history of political turmoil and military rule -- when it comes to scaring off investors, Pakistan seems to have covered all the bases. Unless your name is Zia Chishti.

A U.S.-born Pakistani American entrepreneur who made a fortune in Silicon Valley while barely out of Stanford Business School, Chishti, 31, is now devoting his energies to building a new call-center company here that provides telephone services -- such as taking orders for merchandise -- for businesses in the United States.

So far, the bet is paying off. Operating from a seventh-floor office in this ragged, energetic city of 5 million people in Pakistan`s Punjab region, the company uses satellite and fiber-optics technology to handle customer calls for about 50 U.S.-based clients, including a major newspaper and a toy company. (Chishti asked that the clients not be named, citing confidentiality agreements.) Chishti`s call-center company, the first of its kind in Pakistan, employs about 150 people and is soon to be listed on the Karachi stock exchange.

``I`ve always had this glimmer in my eye about looking for opportunities back here,`` said Chishti, who wears his hair in a ponytail and divides his time between Lahore and Sunnyvale, Calif. ``The business opportunity here, in my view, is unparalleled.``

_ _ _``He attended the Lahore American School, then went on to Columbia University in New York, where he studied computer science and economics. After several years in investment banking, he attended business school at Stanford, where he developed an idea for a new product: clear-plastic teeth straightening devices.

Operating out of his dorm room, he founded a company, Invisalign, to manufacture the devices -- a process that relies heavily on three-dimensional computer modeling. To save labor costs, Chishti ``outsourced`` the modeling to Lahore, where he hired workers based partly on their ability to play the computer game Doom. The company went public and soon had annual revenue approaching $100 million.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001. Panicked at the idea of staying on in the country, the company`s board insisted -- over Chishti`s strenuous objections -- on moving the Lahore operation to Costa Rica. Chishti, who has since left Invisalign, described the pullout as ``a horrible business decision`` that left him with ``a flaming ash-heap situation`` in Lahore.

But out of the ashes has emerged a new company, the Resource Group, which Chishti and several Pakistanis -- two of them Harvard Business School graduates -- founded with $10 million in home-grown capital. (Chishti contributed $1.5 million.) To get things started, they acquired a controlling interest in a Los Angeles call-center company, Alert Communications, and began handling some of its clients through the same facilities previously used by Invisalign.

Such call centers are already a huge business in India, and Chishti`s company follows the same approach. Its employees are coached to speak slowly and to identify themselves with names like ``Bob`` and ``Elizabeth`` to put American customers at ease.

Describing himself as a cultural straddler who is equally at home in Pakistan or California, where he likes to watch ``The Simpsons`` and ski at Lake Tahoe, Chishti insists that his investment in Pakistan`s future is premised on sound business judgments. But he admits that personal factors also have come into play. ``It`s just kind of a salmon instinct,`` he said. ``You`re swimming upstream to where you started.``

By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 17, 2003; Page A27

Fundamentals,

The ducated pakistanis are talking about why cant they develop IT. The fact is that in the last 50 years, pakistanis have not done anything of significance, even by pak standards.

The have no industry, no railways, no communication system, no health service, they even never had a consistant government. The military which accounted for so much of their resources has only three defetas and the worlds largest surrender of troops to show for.

Pakistan is a nation of loosers and the reson is not very hard to find. Pakistan was not created through a popular movement, it was done by one man fighting through typewriter, and has more to do with british eagerness to leave a trail of distruction in their wake.

There are no freedom fighters in pakistan, there is no one who fought for pakistan, it is a nation without heros, a nation without role models.

That is the very reason why pakistanis has to create heros and they were abdalis and gaznavis. These heros have guided the young, to the killing field of afghanistan, chehniya and kashmir.

Marassas are the only significant contribution of pakistan, and it is in tune with its creation. It is a nation guided by one book, what does information technology mean in the context.

The patheic romair says there are no professors for IT, what can you expect, when the madrassa graduates are the elected reps, it makes no sense for any one o study anywhere other than in madrassa.

It is pathetic to see the romairs and SRs of pakistn discussing IT, completely oblivious of the historical reality of pakistan.

REDefining IT

There is hope for romair, there is evidence that pakistan is emerging as a power in IT. The very education system in pakistan is giving it the advantage. There are thousands of pakistanis, recignised as experts in the field. How the microsoftas and lucents are making a beeline to india, similar IT organisation have braches and training facitlities in pakistan.
Pakistan is recognised the world ever, and some of the leading lights of IT, the equivalenys of murthy and premji are in pakistan. Yes romair, it is IT, it is International Terrorism.