www.lasaniacattle.com.
Gallery section is designed well, video section is a broken link and “About us” is also incomplete. Not sure if this flash-loader is a good idea here. Better skip to main content. Reason i am posting this is people want to jump onto “kaam kee baat” i.e some snaps or animals and contact which is very much there.

The day started with the session titled ‘Tales from the Trenches’ where the leading entrepreneurs presented their tales to the audience. If I had to review each in a one-liner then it would be this way. Puzzle by Adil Moosajee, Owner of Ego, was all about, to quote him, ‘Either find a way or make a path of your own. Work with happy people and others should be OUT.’ Reboot by Jawwad Farid, CEO of Alchemy discussed about learning from failures because ‘Before you can win, you have to lose’ and to be an entrepreneur, it is important being comfortable about what you are therefore looking behind is okay unless you don’t get obsessed about it. Adversity by Sameera Raja, Owner of Canvas Gallery, talked about her Breast Cancer Adversity and conquering it while managing her life. She emphasized on scheduling not only your work but how you present it to your audience. Appetite by Shahzad Ali, CEO of Student Biryani talked about how his father through his resilience from his humble beginnings made Cafe Student to a brand Student Biryani. The only favorite story for me was of Jawwad Farid because it talked about starting up a new venture and its hurdles. Others had stories which was about evolution or say an effort to sustain the previous family businesses.

Next up was ‘Investing in Change: Empowering Social Entrepreneurs’ by Batool Hassan, Business Development Manager at Acumen Fund. This was the most fruitful of all. She discussed about the idea of Philanthropy 2.0 where the products don’t need to be free but affordability and dignity should be brought into the market. Examples of Khuda ki Basti, Saibaan and other creatively planned projects were shared to illustrate that businesses can be run for social development and you don’t only get your capital back but reasonable profits can also be generated, if you are not running after the greed of money. She was kind enough to answer our questions even during the lunch break.

TieCon Debate was honestly more about pulling legs of each other. The topic being ‘Conventional Wisdom is becoming increasingly irrelevant’ itself had its flaws. In my honest opinion, any kind of wisdom can be relevant if you know how to mold and use it for your good. Personally Shahjehan Chaudhry stood out because he played the game pretty intelligently and fairly. Unilever representative at the against panel, was all rhetoric and made less sense, still won the debate and as Hassan Rizwan of Prymus Technologies rightly commented that surely ‘our education system is flawed.’ Sadly, people usually like how things are presented than the actual content. Next time it should be a discourse instead of debate. Thankfully lunch came in as a relief.

After lunch it was very apt to have a musical performance when people would usually go into the snore zone. Alan Simon from Taal Karisma introduced his Percussive Fusion Band and gave the people an insight on how band indulges in different beat cycles which haven’t been explored much before. Their each track was a delight and body percussion that they presented was pretty decent as a lot of people claim about the art but their performances eventually come flat. Ustadji their debut single is up on the radio and a must listen.

Skype helped with video-conferencing where Jahanzeb Sherwani, Founder of Jugaari shared his i-phone app experience with techies.

Birds of a feather featured Breakout sessions on various aspects of entrepreneurship skills like Bootstrapping, Branding, PR, Team Building and Social Media, where participants divided into their respective interest groups. Small focused groups surely brought a lot of ideas and learning on board.

Dr. Umar Saif who is Associate Professor at LUMS talked about pitching ideas to VCs. He gave an impression that VCs don’t pay much heed to your product, vision or technology but they invest more on the quality of team. Therefore it is the time when project becomes fund-able, as in at the point of take off, that it needs to be pitched else it would be too early or late. This was followed by Adil Saleem of Seen Report who shared his experience of making dream of this portal a reality which was also incubated by Dr. Umar Saif.

Last up was Asad Umar, CEO Engro Chemcial who talked about Making Your Move! The talk highlighted that once you start running your project, your business model should keep on updating and your passion should be supported by intellect whereby you know how to probe questions on achievements and move forward.

Every speaker highlighted about asking yourself that is it really your dream to become an entrepreneur?, if yes then one should not wait for being experienced as it would never be enough. Moreover an entrepreneur should be reading to take the tough part and learn from the mistakes. Social Media was also discuss at length which become a low or no-cost tool for marketing the businesses. Next time it would be great if Social Entrepreneurship takes the lead or maybe a whole conference can be dedicated on the subject.

Kudos to Sabeen Mahmud, the president of TiE to come up with an interesting line of speakers in such trying times and Shireen Naqvi with her Torque team for managing the conference on such high standards.

PS: The food was really good =D
PSS: I love the conference logo and badge.

It started with an exhibition titled ‘Troubadours of Allah’. The pictures of this collection were shot by Horst A. Friedrichs in the Indus Valley, Sindh and displayed Sufi Musicians of the region. Images are a good mix of documentation of not only the sufi shrines and artists but also aesthetics, material culture and symbols.

Some of the images depict interesting moments including ‘a fakir wearing kajal in his eyes‘, and ‘an image with carvings focused while a person praying is in a shallow focus’. The placement of the photographs could have been more properly planned to illustrate an essay and some pictures with long exposure did remove details. There was also grain in some of the prints. Out of few long exposure shots, only one picture pleased my eye, that of ‘two static almost marrying sitars with movement of people behind’. The exhibition is opened till 20th November 2009 for public.

Next was the Sufi Concert where the audience got chance to hear the soulful voices of Abida Parveen from Pakistan and Fareeda Parveen from Bangladesh who sang awe-inspiring poetry of various Sufi Poets.

It was followed by a lecture session next day where Dr Jurgen Wasim Frembgen, Omar Kasmani, Dr. Durre Ahmed and Peter Panke shared their views about Sufism.

Tables of 10 seats will be available to guests, for which an appropriate voluntary donation will be appreciated. All proceeds from the night will go towards funding the activities of NOWPDP in improving the lives of people with disabilities in Pakistan. If you are interested in attending the event, please contact the NOWPDP office on +92-21-3586 5501, (Ext. 237) .

NOWPDP envisions a society where people with disabilities have equal rights, dignity, justice and access to opportunities. NOWPDP works toward building the capacities of its 150 member organisations, heightening awareness of the cause of people with disabilities, advocating rights and needs, and giving them opportunities that are routinely denied to them. NOWPDP is a registered non-profit organisation. For more information, please visit NOWPDP.

Last edited: 10:43pm, 22/10/09

All bikes and bikers are free to join and play an essential part in promoting our nation and saving our environment!

Second Critical Mass Cycle Ride
On Sunday, 18th October 2009
At 07:30 a.m.
Approximately 7 km.

Starting at Mc Donald Sea view, Karachi down towards village and back.. families and children welcome. Bring your own bike and some water

Facebook > Critical Mass Karachi

Scheduled for November 7th, 2009

[ www.personalityquotient.com ]

PIZZA HUT
IFTAR DINNER BUFFET: Rs. 550 Including Tax

KFC
IFTAR DINNER BUFFET: Rs. 500 Including Tax
RAMADAN SPECIAL: 1 Zinger & 1 Drink: Rs. 150
RAMADAN SPECIAL: 9 Piece Bucket of Chicken & 1.5 liter Soda: Rs. 750

MCDONALD’S
RAMADAN SPECIAL: Order any medium meal deal for Rs. 260 Including Tax
RAMADAN SPECIAL: Buy any dessert or shake of over Rs. 90 and get 1 free (both deals valid 7:30-9:30pm)

For more KarachiSnob

The other exhibition held at the home of renowned architect Habib Fida Ali is a marvelous collection of Chitarkari or Schist(Slate) stone engraving a collaborative work of Renowned Chitarkar, Muhammed Ilyas and Noorjehan Bilgrami.

The two masters have engraved intriguing designs celebrating our cultural identity.The repetitive geometrical patterns symbolic to Islamic art and carved peepal and Chambaily patterns in in their traditional radiations carved out on the stones placed in an aesthetically complementing environment, shaded under a thick cover of peepal trees in a garden of a beautiful, over a hundred year old building, is obvious to create a magically mesmerizing environment.

Both the Exhibitions will remain open till the 22nd of August, 2009.

Habib Fida Ali's Residence Map

For more details:
Call: (+92-21) 5831292
Email: gallerykoel@gmail.com

The team worked for more than 3 months for conceptualization of the program and the participants made it a success with their hard work in less than three weeks. The participants included both amateurs and professionals. Each trying to make most out of their skills and appreciation or criticism they got would really help them to improve because the aim was to provide a platform rather than exclude anyone due to some lacking in any aspect of film-making. Believe in minds and not mindless entertainment! And to do the mindful and needful judgment, the jury consists of media personalities from Geo and Dawn News network.

I being a team member in all my limited capacity, photographer and audience at the same time, had a great time to see this event shine its glory. The movies which caught my attention personally:

In Drama, Sawaal by Zohair Alibhoy (student of Media Sciences) which questions on lost opportunities and discrimination against the lower segment of society. This movie was impeccable in acting, sound and screenplay. Makhee Bhaee by Danish Ali and Shahrukh Ali, a short experimental (made on handycam with funky chroma effects) having a fun take on how flies can be terrible nuisance and at the same time a fun ride, I know its hard to comprehend such sentence :p This movie proves that if you have creativity, nothing can stop the wonders. The ultimate survival by Lubna Ladhani was also a decent effort on issue of kidnapping and inspired from a real story, giving the message that it’s better to live in simplicity.

In Documentaries, KCR made by Alishan (a graduate of NAPA) which talks about Karachi Circular Buried Railway which is not in use and the rail track itself is worth billion of rupees. Two efforts by Sohail Noorani (Animator at Aaj TV Network) were impressive given that all work he did were on handycam. Dire but Truth, a short documentary on problem of asthama pertaining in sweepers and I Judge/I Act, a short drama about self-introspecton and guilt.

Animations were a real treat and each one of them stood to its merit. Especially Give me More by Sunny Sadruddin who studied at Vancouver Film School and In Search of the Light by Malik Gillani, a student of Karachi School of Arts. Both were amusing and thought provoking with technical brilliance.

In Music Videos, Alvida had a good concept while Josh by Safar Band brought some pumping patriotic music on the cards.

Flow of films with proper categorized slots and audience interaction could have been improved. Overall execution of the program was good and the platform deserves its due credit. The Awards Night is planned this week.

Here are the links of some videos that can also be viewed online:

Animations:
In Search of The Light

Give me More!

Garlic Maniac

Promos:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=149245189128&oid=105235734858

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=109464737110&oid=105235734858