SOFTEC 2004

Best of luck in your attempts to promote IT in Pakistan.

Ras

Humairshah:

Did you work in Cressoft Karachi in 2000?

Regards,
Irfan Hamid.

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Dear Amir Bilal,
The point behind your article was to highlight that the dicisions of judges were extremely biased. Well I would like to point a few facts here, if you just look at the history of SOFTEC held in last five years, you will clearly see that students from UET-Lahore, SSUET-Karachi, Lums, etc have also been winning top prizes at softec. I have personally observed that one project was rejected in first round at Softec but it won 3rd prize at NUST; this project was made by FAST-Lahore students. So to imply that the decisions of SOFTEC are biased is totally a fallacy. As well as research is concerned, though not being a theeta of FAST-Lahore, I can proudly claim that FAST-Lahore is the best research centre in CS (language processing & multi-media).
My last words are that atleast SOFTEC gives you and other brilliant students like you to present their work/research in front of government & industry people. Best of luck in next SOFTECs & keep on working hard, you will win someday Inshalla.
Regards - Bilal Altaf

sorry, forget to mention that,

#7 was in reply of #4Charlie
and
#8 was in reply of #5Maryamm

Exactly ! and also you just forget to mention ZABVISION . the coming event ZABVISION 2004 (All Pakistan Inter Unoversity Software Competition and Exhibition) will be held on 22-23 May 2004 at National Library Islamabad.

and about bahria university I got 2nd Prize in Quiz Competetion (Bits Bytes and Colors 2 days ago) .......

yups aryam i agree that AQ Khan competition is very good indeed. and about Bits, Bytes and Colors, I was there also for the both days and the competetion was really good and our university won 4 prizes in that conpetetion.

The 2nd prize prize winning project (Grid4U) was from my university, and also I was in the team which got 2nd position in Quiz competetion and I see a pic of mive on the link you have provided :).

And this is the project which got no prize in SOFTEC but got 2nd prize in this competition .... ans you would have seen that this project was highly research based.

I am a student of computer sciences back in Birmingham,United Kingdom and what I think of Pakistani I.T industry is that it is on the wheels now thanks to some of the work done in the days of Dr.Ata-ul-Rehman but we are ofcourse way too back as compared to some of the other countries like India ! or even Ireland ... I am a Karachite and I always have tried
to something when I was studying there (ofcourse not A or O Levels but Matric as a normal
student from a upper middle class) and what I actually sold was a VB (Visual basic) software which was a business solution software to a firm and earned Rs.2oooo-- and that was my start -- I sold many and plans to open and migrate to my own country after having some job experiance back in U.K --
a)What Pakistan needs is a better standard of English ( now I must say the standard of English has improved a lot but we need a lot to catch up ) that could actually help us a lot for opening and shifting out-sourcing centres CALL CENTRES from countries like U.K,Australia or US to Pakistan instead of India and we could actually get big contracts- like Norwich Union shifted to India and so did HSBC

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b) what Pakistan need is introducing something which is call `Presentation Classes` where students of Secondry Classes are taught to present something in-front of his or her respected classes

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a morale booster for sure...
c) encourage quality computer eductaions and organizing more and more competitions

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Pakistan still is 1o years behind , but we could catch up if we want too and that could only be done by making quality institutions like FAST and GIK`s in even Rural parts we need more NIT`s
Pakistan Zindabad :)

Assalamoalaikum
#3 malik99, you make a very good point about the difference in how easy it is to score in Rawalpindi Board compared to the Federal Board. Having taken federal board exams, i could complain about the same, and i used to do that but since (almost) every university in Pakistan has introduced entry tests now I believe the good students really can make it to the top, because the tests have almost 90% weightage and the Board marks count for only about 10%.
#4 Charlie
The A Q Khan software competition is Pakistan`s oldest software competition i believe, and it is very highly regarded. The Bits Bytes N Colors competition at Bahria Uni was held only recently (17-18 April 2004) and two of the three top prizes went to research oriented projects. Bahria University didn`t win any prize but they sure won the respect of the participants at how beautifully they organised and conducted the event. You can see the results at http://www.bci.edu.pk/bacs/bitbyte.asp
Its really a shame that FAST-NUCES should lose respect because of biased decisions at softec. It has the potential to give great exposure to students. And it really is a good place for learning.FASTians are really good at what they do.
#2 humairshah
I agree that the judges probably have a good criteria and that they know their stuff. I would like your comment on this situation though: (Almost all) The judges at softec offer a particular group presenting their project an opportunity to work at their Universities, and praise their work to the sky while adding ``you guys probably won`t win because your project is so difficult people can`t understand it easily``. And that group doesnt win a prize in the competition, but they have offers lined up to work/research at the Universities where the judges teach. Then what are the judges for? If they agree that the project was great, shouldnt those guys have won? The judges say one thing privately, and their decision for the prizes is its absolute opposite!

Does it make sense??

I do have the same reservations about biased judgement at SOFTEC since last few years. I have listened this type of complaints from many students. No doubt, FAST is a good place for CS students but it is a very cheap way to prove that.

I think students should consider participating competition held at GIKI, at A Q Khan competition or at Bahria university.

Amir Bilal - You wrote ``Please comment on “ Is there any chance that our nation will excel in the field of Information Technology in the presence of this sort of people”. ``

Very good question. Unfortunately Amir, the issues of favoritism, bias, and corruption in our education system do not register any attention in our minds since we are pre-occupied with fulfilling western dictates in reforming our education.

There is widespread corruption and favrotism in administring exams, competitions, and admission offerings to good schools / universities.

Unlike those who go through the standardized A and O levels, the majority of Pakistani students go through an antiquated ``Board`` system. The exams and grading standards of Federal Board are different from the standards of Pindi Board. It is possible to get 140/150 marks in F.Sc. english exam from pindi board. This is however unthinkable in Federal Board. How the admission offices of the universities take that into consideration when they set up their admission offerings is beyond me.

Zain Malik

Amir, you might be right about the biasness, there could be to some extent, its human nature, but why are you calling that biasnes, as Azure said there are things which students overlook but judges are looking for that, the also look into how good you present your thing to them everything has points,
let me give you an example, I was in Software Competition at Karachi FAST, there were many brilliant people from all over Pakistan, but people are not very good in telling and describing their things, they were confusing us, at that time obviously I dont have enough time to judge all thing myself, how I can be so sure that if he is explaining the thing then he actually implemented that, you might say only by representing thing maturely will make the other person winner, no judges are not that dum that they cannot even differentiate between right and wrong, there is chapa khana thing,,.. alot.. and ppl do explain that well, but there are things to judge that....you will learn by experience.

you will win someday inshaAllh....

Amir, I was at the exhibition too, and believe me, majority of the participants had NO idea how to do a proper presentation! A certain student of a very reputable University was talking to us like we were his customers in a machli bazaar... that really makes you lose points. I don`t think the decisions would`ve been biased... the students don`t realize their mistakes and the examiners and judges seldom point them out.

I would like to congratulate all of them though for their sheer hard work in going so deep in making their projects. The students had information, knowledge, potential and determination, no doubt. Some of the projects I really liked was Muhammad Saad Saleem`s CNC milling machine programmed by a self designed computer program. The guy`s good and he can do a lot more, but sadly the project wasn`t entirely about software but had a wee bit of mechanical engineering in it too. Some other guys had designed GIS (geographic information system) related softwares to locate a certain point in a remote area, and some were just on the chaapa tradition of getting codes from their seniors, notes from their teachers and bits and pieces off the internet... that`s not programming!