Sometimes children bring such sanity of things that leaves adults speechless. I felt the same, when I went to the KGS organized blood donation camp “Lifeline” today. Win hearts, give blood, save lives. (more…)

YES!+ (Youth Empowerment Seminar) is an Art of Living Workshop specially designed and power packed for the youth. It is an innovative fun packed life skills training program that empowers the youth with a strong healthy body with high energy levels and a relaxed stress free mind. It expands their horizon, inspiring them to take responsibility for their life and their community. This 30 hour intense program also includes practical sessions that help one combat fatigue, monotony and tension. Attendance at all sessions is essential.

Regular practice of the techniques and knowledge of this course ensures a strong healthy body and a relaxed stress free mind.

24th – 28th Jan 2010 at 6:00 PM-9:00 PM
Venue: Base Rock Café,
16- C, 6th Commercial Lane, Phase 6, Ittehad Commercial
DHA Karachi

Course Contribution +Life Time Membership
Rs: 4,000 only!
For students, 50% discount.
Assistance is available, if fee is a challenge.

Contacts for registrations:
Hashaam: 0302-855 2344
Mahesh: 0307-232 7185

Art of Living works for well-being of people and is a not-for-profit organization.

The students of LUMS, NCA, NAPA, Lyceum and SZABIST have combined their efforts to bring you the play “Yeh Bhi Ek Kahanee Hai” on Saturday, January 23, 2010 at Arts Council Karachi. The play starts at 6:30pm. This is in Collaboration with “JAAG TAALIB E ILM” a student organization promoting peace. The script is attempt to show the other side of the story i.e. the point of view of the so called ‘terrorists’.

Tickets available NOW at Aghas and Shahbaz Subway at price of Rs. 250.

PS: The director claims this play as “A theater performance the like of which Karachi has never seen” which slightly puts me off but you can give it a try for sure.

Karachi will host its first ever FIFA Youth Gaming Tournament on 20th December 2009, where teams from different educational institutes will participate in an intense gaming activity to prove their football-gaming skills. The twelve hours long event will be based on knock-out format. The winning teams will play the first round, second round, semi finals and the final match.

The FIFA football game is a very popular among the youth and will be played in two categories individual and a team of two, on PlayStation3 with pre-defined rules & regulations for the competition to avoid any issues later. Students from all participating institutes and gaming lovers from the age group 14-28 will be attending the event to cheer their favorite teams to victory and participate in the variety of other activities organized for the audience.

“The prime motive of organizing the event is to engage our youth in constructive and competitive environment and to provide them an opportunity to feel the FIFA spirit before the upcoming FIFA Worldcup 2010″ stated Mr. Irfan Basit, brand manager Mountain Dew, the main sponsors of the event.

The event is expected to attract youngsters and football lovers alike and will provide a unique experience to watch and enjoy football in Pakistan.

On the 9th of December 2009  Google and CIO Pakistan once again organized yet another amazing event, a Dine up with Dell where around 65 of the key blogger from Karachi were brought together under one roof to talk, discuss and play as silly as we want but only to address and discuss much saner and slightly more serious issues.

The event was held a few days ahead from the first anniversary of the first ever large scale bloggers meetup in Karachi, and although the event was announced almost only 48 hours before but like Farhan says in his blog, it is really hard to miss any event which CIO and Google organizes, so even on such short notice a lot (almost around 65) key bloggers showed up at the event. Also present at the event were Naveen Naqvi, poppy Agha and Sania Saeed.

At the event we discussed a lot of things including “take back the tech” campaign to the pros and cons of the new media revolution and how we can further benefit form the internet communication technology. The event also supported A noble cause for Thalassemia Awareness (http://thalassemia.com.pk/) , all bloggers were urged to place a link or add a badge or ribbon to help and support the cause. You can find more details of the event at Farhan’s blog here

Such events help address the issues bloggers and people associated with the new media technology faces on a day to day basis and provide a platform to discuss and realize our responsibility and our role in reshaping and better representing our country in the world.

The Dictator’s Wife returns to Karachi, an original play by Mohammed Hanif, critically acclaimed author of ‘A Case of Exploding Mangoes’.

Devised and performed by Nimra Bucha

Arts Council, Karachi. 10/11 December. 8pm.
Tickets available at Espresso, Liberty Books and at the venue on the night.

what people are saying…

Over the years marketing has taken different dimensions and the medium of internet is no exception. One trend is designing websites for sacrificial animals. Here is one for you. Will post others if i come across :

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.

Last Wednesday, The Indus Entrepreneurship Conference was hosted at Sheraton Karachi in collaboration of Torque (SoL). It was a one-day networking and learning opportunity for all those who wanted to find the entrepreneur streak in themselves by taking inspiration by engaging with successful individuals in the field.

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.