Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) 14th May unveiled its research report on working women in Pakistan IT industry, in a press conference held in Karachi.

The research is based on responses from 50 companies and 125 individuals – it targeted IT companies as well as large IT departments within non-IT companies.

Research report revealed that women account for 14% of the IT workforce, of which 37% are at the mid-career level while 13% are in Senior Management positions.

The data also pointed towards the presence of the infamous glass ceiling. Despite years of experience a large proportion of the women has been unable to move beyond mid-level positions.

Another observation was the significantly low number of women who hold more than seven years of work experience under their belt. This stunted retention can be attributed to the ‘leaky pipeline effect’, whereby life events force women’s careers to often take a back seat.

In the context of HR policies and practices, a majority of women were satisfied with their work environment. While paid maternity leave, flexible hours and emergency leave were the most commonly offered benefits – there were still some companies who failed to incorporate paid maternity leave (a basic HR benefit worldwide) in their package.

The participants complained about long hours and recommended flexible and shorter work timings, transportation and day care facilities.

One gap identified was the lack of training and mentoring programs. Most of the polled companies did not extend such opportunities to female employees, despite their proven effectiveness in enhancing the abilities of employees.

Women reported that they did not feel undervalued in comparison to male counterparts but wished to see a reduction in gender stereotyping of IT roles.

Jehan Ara, president PASHA, encapsulated the motivation behind the initiative by saying that participation of women in the workforce has been shown to have positive effects on a nation’s economy.

“We aimed to not only get real facts and figures on women’s participation in IT but also aimed to explore the extent to which women are enabled and equipped to succeed in IT.

We explored key reasons which may also prevent new entries into the IT field, as well as factors affecting women’s growth. We hope that this report can be a first step towards gaining visibility for the critical roles that women play in this otherwise male-dominated industry”, noted Jehan Ara.

Nadeem Elahi, Chairman PASHA, present at the occasion talked about the growth of the Pakistan IT industry in the face of domestic and international challenges. Nausheen Ishtiaq, Research Associate, was also present at the press conference.

The country’s IT industry is generating an estimated $2.8 billion in revenue (excluding the retail segment), making up 1.2% of the GDP. He said that buoyed by improved policies and support, this figure could easily be pushed to $10 billion mark.

Matloob Ahmed, one of the Ufone sponsored golfers, won COAS Open Golf Championship – 2012 which concluded recently at Rawalpindi Golf Club.
There were more than 400 participants in the event from all across Pakistan. The tournament throughout was led by Matloob Ahmed and Muhammad Nazir both Ufone sponsored golfers but at the end this was Matloob who stood strong to take away the winning prize. Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani handed over the winning cheque of Rs. 2 million to Matloob Ahmed at the grand prize distribution ceremony.

Ufone recently announced its ongoing commitment to sports in Pakistan by signing up the top golfers Pakistan has to offer. This is the first time in the history of Pakistan that golf has been endorsed at such a massive country wide scale. Ufone has signed on Shabbir Iqbal (Pakistan No.1), Matloob Ahmed (Pakistan No.2), Muhammad Munir (Pakistan No.3) and Mubariz Ahmed (Pakistan Junior Champion) along with other upcoming talent. This step has reaffirmed Ufone’s conviction to support sports in the country. Soon after the signing of these players, Muhammad Munir won Mangla Open 2012 and the KP National Ranking Open Golf Tournament 2012 and Matloob has soon followed suit.

Speaking at the occasion beaming Matloob Ahmed said that Ufone’s endorsement has built his self-confidence. The platform provided by the company has encouraged golfers to play local and international tournaments which has increased the spirit of competition between them and drives them to perform at their very best.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) commemorated the international Earth Day 2012 by kicking off a tree plantation campaign at its headquarters in Islamabad.

In a graceful ceremony attended by PTCL officials and employees, Senior Executive Vice President HR, Syed Mazhar Hussain launched the tree plantation campaign by planting a ‘Blue Pine’ sapling in the central gardens of the PTCL HQs building.

As part of this campaign, PTCL is planting 200 tree saplings in its HQs grounds as well as PTCL residential colonies spread across Islamabad.

“PTCL has made significant strides this past year to reduce its carbon footprint by encouraging a paperless environment and using recycled material for its products,” said Mr. Hussain on the occasion. “We are firmly committed to sustainability, and this tree plantation campaign is yet another step in our ongoing efforts to preserve and protect our precious environment for future generations.”

In 2009 United Nations designated April 22 as ‘International Mother Earth Day’. It is commemorated annually in more than 175 countries to increase awareness and appreciation of the Earth’s natural environment.

Information Technology (IT) got its first reference in 1958 in Harvard Business Review as “a new technology having no single established name”.

Later the term got its proper definition as usage of micro-electronic based processes for transferring, processing and storing all sorts of information.

In today’s knowledge-based economy, proper utilization of IT assures access to knowledge which is the prime gate to economic as well as social progress.

A country’s disposition to accepting and adopting latest IT tools is a new parameter to evaluate its progress. About a decade ago, in it hay days, IT sector received immense coverage and attracted domestic as well as foreign investors.

In a short time, many initiatives came into limelight with most of them projecting from private sector and Pakistani community abroad. Plenty of profit was earned by investors including businesses as well as private institutes. Some of the major pioneering steps forward from private sector included:

Introduction of IT courses by Khadim Ali Shah Bukhari Institute of Technology (KASBIST). For the first time, in Pakistan’s history, courses of ecommerce and IT-based business were started
Introduction of specialized computer and IT courses based on American curriculum by APTECH worldwide
Formation of Hamdard Institute of IT which offered degree programs of IT engineering and software development
Many institutes having names specific to IT were introduces, such as:

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology
Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences
CECOS University of Information Technology and Emerging Sciences
City University of Science and Information Technology
Qurtuba University of Science and Information Technology
Sarhad University of Science and Information Technology
Later, such IT boom lost its interest among public due to too much saturation in IT sector, however, came up with a new name Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) after rapid absorption of mobile companies.

Although having lower charm among public, right now, IT universities still attract plenty of students and their acceptance is limited to particular circles only. Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan recently released its ranking of top four IT universities as:

COMSAT Institute of Information Tech Islamabad
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences , Islamabad
Qurtaba University, Dera Ismail Khan
Balochistan University of Information Technology and Management Sciences, Quetta
City University, Peshawar

However, despite the nature of IT being global which leads to its suitability when it comes to global competition for quality, none of these universities got their names included in international ranking lists. The excuse of lacking resources is in no way fair in this regard because having international quality for an IT institute does not need that huge chunk of funds. Also, the broadband and communication setup provided throughout the country is good enough to compete.

The main reason behind that may be the brain drain of talent during hay-days of IT. Many IT graduates of top Pakistani universities prioritized serving outside during that time. Also, most of degrees are just limited to general names like IT, computer science and software engineering, however, those promising good jobs and research opportunities both in country and abroad in such world of outsourcing like computer graphics, media studies, computational sciences (biology, mathematics, physics etc), cloud computing, bioinformatics and web development are not being offered on larger levels.

By introducing degrees focused on specialized and advanced computer courses we can not only meet the current unemployment issues but it can also pave more ways of research.

Major newspaper (including DAWN) and TV channels yesterday carried this story by APP claiming that widespread availability of cheap unlimited text message plans has made the service as preferred mode of communication for youngsters and its excessive use is leading to health problems among them.

Report said that SMS has surpassed rest of the forms of daily interaction amongst youngsters like face-to-face conversations, voice calling, etc.

It said that 60 per cent of youngsters send and receive over 125 text messages daily to interact with their peer group.

Report claimed that excessive texting is leading to a number of problems for kids such as insomnia, depression, lack of eating, isolation etc.

Almost 90 per cent of those interviewed by APP admitted that they sleep with their cell phone lying next to them and thus, keep slightly awake most of the time during their sleep.

Majority of respondents admitted that they are often awakened by a phone call or a text message after going to bed and the lack of sleep has affecting their work and progress.

On a related note, very similar survey with almost similar results was conducted by Indian industry body Assocham back in July 2011. Interestingly APP’s findings exactly match with this study done by ASSOCHAM. And don’t get amazed if we tell you that we had revealed exactly similar impacts of SMS/Night Packages on youth back in July 2008.

Here’s what exactly we reported in 2008:

These night packages have made people lazy. As they don’t enjoy sound sleep at night and of course they have to do a lot of work at day as well so it is making them both physically and mentally sick.

Eating disorder is common among these people. They don’t go to anyone’s home as they can’t afford to waste any “free” night.

It is a known fact that happier moms have happier children. Since women are prone to depression, so it’s best that they keep their minds busy and keep working. Although for working moms, it isn’t easy to look after their children, they spend half a day at work and after that they are left with absolutely no energy to deal with the child’s tantrums and moods. But since mothers have greater tolerance and patience towards their children they tend to get relaxed with them after a long day at work.

Researchers have proved that no matter how busy a woman is, whether she works or she is a stay-at home mom, she would be equally involved in her child’s school and other activities as any mom. The idea that a mother works, ensures the child’s better education due to the fact that the working mom is happier and she has more experience and exposure. She would also be financially better to ensure the child’s living standards.

Many economists have also proved that countries with a higher percentage of working moms tend to develop faster because working ladies tend to groom their young ones better and this provides the country with a better younger generation.
In terms of health, working moms are said to be healthier than their stay-at-home peers because they keep themselves busy in healthy activities, they don’t just possess healthy minds but they are also healthy physically, the reason behind this is that they have to be in a working environment and they keep a check on their body shape and their outlook.

It is yet another known fact that the happier the mom the happier will be everyone at home. A little baby when learns from the mom, he/she imitates everything, he even learns on how the mom reacts to several different situation, what are the anger patterns of the mom. So happier the mom, healthier she is, healthier will be her children and everyone else at home. There is no doubt in fact that a house becomes a home with the presence of a mother.

National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) inaugurated its fastest supercomputing facility in a ceremony held on Tuesday at its Research Centre for Modeling and Simulation (RCMS).

The supercomputer installed in NUST is the fastest GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) based parallel computing system operating in any organization/academic institution in Pakistan till date.

The supercomputer can perform parallel computation at a peak speed of 132 Teraflops (132 Trillion Operations per second). It is equipped with multi-core processors and graphics co-processors with inter-processor communication speed of 40 Gbps.

Techinical Specifications:

Computer’s Cluster configuration:
* 66 NODE supercomputer with 30,992 processor cores
* 2 Head Node (16 Processor Cores)
* 32 Dual Quad Core Computer Nodes (256 Processor Cores)
* 32 Nvidia Computing Processors
* Each processor has 960 Processor Cores (30,720 processor Cores)
* QDR Infiniband Interconnection
* 21.6TB SAN storage

Imaginational ceremony was presided over by Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) Dr Javaid Laghari.

Speaking at the ceremony, Principal RCMS Engr Sikandar Hayat highlighted some of the unique features of this state-of-the-art computing facility recently acquired by Nust through financial grant by Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST).

Hayat said that besides the supercomputer’s extensive utilisation in the computation-intensive research projects in the areas of Fluid Dynamics and Biosciences, this massively parallel facility can also be utilized to handle huge data processing applications of social sciences such as Flood and Weather Forecasting, Oil and Gas Exploration, energy efficient building designs and national transportation management.

Addressing the event, Laghari appreciated the efforts of the entire team associated with the project and encouraged all institutions to come forward and benefit from the facility acquired by Nust. He assured HEC’s full support in this regard.

Rector Nust Engr Muhammad Asghar, in his welcome address, sharing his vision, specifically mentioned that the acquisition of the supercomputing facility would be a source of inspiration for PhD scholars, abroad, to return to Pakistan.

“This will give an impetus for collaborative research between universities and other research organisations within the country and abroad.”

Dr Imran Akhtar, the key note speaker, gave a highly motivating and thought provoking speech on the occasion, encouraging young researchers to come forward and utilize the facility in solving national challenges in the areas of engineering, bio-informatics, political science, psychology and social sciences.

Overheard at Regent Plaza last Sunday…
“These pagals who give the Scholastics Aptitude Tests (SATs) and get their 2400s,” said girl A, “Bar bar daytay hain, aur phir LUMS Common Admission Test (LCAT) ka grading scheme mess up kar day tay hain”
(they take the test over and over again and mess up the LCAT grading curve).”

“I swear yaar…,” said girl B.

That was the weekend the Karachi Literature Festival kicked off at Carlton Hotel while a rally was taking place at Mazar-e-Quaid to protest against India, drones and everything in between. It also happened to be the weekend that the Opal Hall, Crown Jewel and several other hotel halls were packed with teenagers getting ready for the LCAT.

For the next couple of months, these girls and many others will be worried about the same thing the grading scheme, the bratty students who give their SATs and mess up the grading scheme.

It all starts in the car, when you are going home with your friends. One of them will fret about how the clueless college counsellor sent off the application to Montreal instead of Toronto. Another friend will want to know how much her father makes and if she qualifies for financial aid. As the questions fly back and forth, there will be one friend in the backseat who will mumble because he feels left out.

This friend is going into medicine. The visa and essay questions are not for him nor are the constant guilt trips of swiping your parents credit cards to pay this many dollars for that application.

His options are – Aga Khan University Hospital, Dow University of Health Sciences, Ziauddin University and maybe King Edward Medical College. He wants the answers to: How many seats are reserved? Does King Edward take students who don’t live in Punjab? And the most important question of them all – how do you pass the test?

This admission test is a curious thing. As you get the hang of university applications, you (or people you know) start to spot things – who likes grades, who likes sports, whether you should come off as the physics geek or use the ‘if you don’t take me I will get married because that is what happens to girls in my country’ (quite a common angle these days).

Tweak, then tweak again and then tweak some more.

But the one place you don’t tweak is in your home country. For all the talk about the well rounded personalities – do our universities attract enough of them? Where do the brightest and the best in Pakistan go? Is there room for offbeat personalities? Who knows? There is something comforting in the idea of one test determining your future. No fiddling around here – no making yourself look good – that is all reserved for the interviews, if there are any. Nope, here it is just the old-fashioned and simple percentage cut offs and how well you did on a test on a particular Sunday morning in February.

It makes sense, if there was only one admission test. Other countries have their versions – USA’s SATs, Brazil’s Vestibular, South Korea’s CSAT. But here, every single college has their own admission test. Which leads to round one of the urban rumour mills.

AKUH’s English sections aren’t that tough (but study for it all the same, you never know with these colleges). Ziauddin just wants you to pass the Biology section and DUHS is just difficult. For the Lahore University of Management Science, they suggest that you crack open the Princeton SAT book and go through the grammar part, to know what you will have to face. English is easier. According to one student, we’re desi na, we’ve done harder math sums than these American high school students. Others wonder whether A-Level students have a disadvantage in giving the test. One of them heard that if you got 1,900 in the SATs you’re exempted – or was it 2,100?

“Can there be no standardised doctor in Pakistan? Dude, forget this doctor shoctor,” said a student.

“I’m going to the University of Karachi and doing something in linguistics.”

Another one will say, no, it’s too close to the parents, why do you think I’m not applying to the Institute of Business Administration?

We could be interesting people poised on discoveries and ground breaking research, excellent jugglers and wonderful singers, brilliant conversationalists, but unless we don’t make it through an admission test after school, there is no way a Pakistani college is going to take us in and that’s a fact. And not one standardised general indicator of the average intellect of a Pakistani student – the test that determines that yes, this Pakistani teenager is fit for college.

Oh no.

This is free fall take a test and hope it does not clash with your school exams.

Just pass the test, and all of this will be swept under the rug – and all you will remember is how, for a while, your education system and college tests completely messed with your head.

via tribune.com.pk

After shutting down 120 passenger trains and dumping so many engines, Pakistan Railways has launched its first ever Karachi to Lahore nonstop air conditioned train called Pak Business Express. The train is launched in a joint venture with private sector.

Pak Business Express is apparently a VIP train with high class facilities for the passengers in obviously a price which is not affordable by awam at all. Oh! I forgot it is business train not awami train.

I wonder what may be the reason behind the name Business train. Is it for businessmen who travel from Lahore to Karachi or vice versa? Or is it to do business for the Pakistan railway which is in crisis? I guess the former sounds unreasonable as if it is supposed to be for businessmen then they would prefer traveling by air to save another 16 hrs time. So the later argument seems a bit true because Pakistan railways will earn Rs 3.2 million daily from the Business Express.

Pak Business Express is offering amenities like air condition traveling in fix 18 hrs time for a one side trip including meals from a five star hotel, TV, internet and security. The fare for one side is Rs 5000 and for a round trip it is Rs 9000(In a country where basic salary of a person is Rs 7000). The passengers can also avail the facility of special airport kind of waiting room at the station creating discrimination among awam and khawas.

To accommodate Awam in business train now from 5th February the train is offering economy class with reduced fare of Rs 3500 excluding the facilities of TV and meals. A round trip will cost a family of just two persons Rs 18,000 while an average Pakistani family has 4-6 persons. If the whole family has to travel through the Business express it will cost them Rs 20,000-30,000 in Business class and Rs 14,000-21,000 in economy class for one side trip to Lahore or Karachi, for the sake of reaching on time.

Now comparing the fares with Awami trains will give an affordability idea. The Awami trains charge Rs 810-890 in economy class with obviously just offering the seats/berths while Rs 1970-2020 for lower AC class, Rs 2270-3330 for business class and Rs 4260 for AC Sleeper.

So the comparison reveals that if you want to reach on time in a hassle free travel you have to pay for it and if you wish for an uncertain travel without knowing when you will reach your destination you have to pay less and bear more. The choice is all yours!

The train arrives at Karachi station 19 minutes before scheduled time on its inaugural day. If Pak business express can reach on time why not all the other trains can? Pakistan railway’s Awami trains can also offer a pleasant journey to passengers who cannot afford such luxury provided they dare to manage funds and facilities.

via chowrangi.com

Abu Dhabi Group (ADG) has indicated to launch an independent mobile financial services company through join-venture of Bank Alfalah and Warid, an official press statement said.

The group will enter into Pakistan’s mobile-banking industry with combination of two subsidiaries that will develop a branchless and electronic eco-system comprising products and value proposition for merchants, businesses, consumers and the government sector.

Ali Abbas Sikander will be heading the mobile-banking wing of Abu Dhabi Group. He worked with prominent international banks and led successful e-banking and branchless banking projects earlier in Pakistan and abroad.

The name of service brand has not been exposed clearly, however there will be number of small businesses and employment generated and rapid transactions of money will be carried out easily.

ADG is one of largest investors in Pakistan and has been operating in the country since 1997. The group companies have over $6.5 billion in total assets in Pakistan. ADG has invested in banking, telecommunications, real estate, insurance, sugar, asset management and health care sectors.

“It should be a matter of great comfort and satisfaction for our banking and telecom customers that their respective facilitators share a common vision to provide mobile based financial services which are convenient, need based and secure”, Atif Bajwa, CEO, Bank Alfalah said. I am sure this will prove to be a very positive step towards the economic and social development of the country and for consumer financial access.

Muneer Farooqui, CEO Warid Telecom stated that Pakistan telecom industry has shown tremendous growth over the recent past, and now with the introduction of mobile financial services our subscribers will be equipped with highly accessible and convenient technology beyond traditional bank branches to ensure the much needed financial inclusion in this country.

Pakistan is considered as model for mobile-banking services in the world as the sector has witnessed significant growth in utility by the customers through reliability, confidence and preference.