Mustafa Kamal, former Nazim Karachi, and four other PAKISTANIs have made it to World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders 2010 winners list. Others include Amir Jahangir, Hamid Yar Hiraj, Muhammad Tabba and Umar Saif. According to WEF : The honour, bestowed each year by the Forum, recognizes and acknowledges up to 200 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.. It is indeed a proud moment for everyone and lets give full credit to the ones who deserve. These were drawn from a pool of almost 5,000 candidates, the Young Global Leaders 2010 were chosen by a selection committee. The 2010 honourees will become part of the broader Forum of Young Global Leaders community that currently comprises 660 outstanding individuals.

www.weforum.org

[image: bluechipmag]

[ Atrophyingsenses ]

Intel Pakistan organized an award ceremony in recognition of schools and teachers who are using technology for learning. This was part of the Intel Education Initiative. Department of Information Technology Sindh has been working with Intel for this purpose. These awards are held annually in Pakistan under Intel Teach programme which provides professional development and guidance to teachers on how to use technology to enhance student learning in the digital world. To date, the programme has trained 220,000 teachers in Pakistan, reaching out to over 60 cities and districts. In addition to the teacher training, the Intel Teach Programme also hosts forums and workshops to enhance the use of IT in learning environment, and so far has reached more than 28,000 teachers and principals. [The News]

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.

During a phase when the country is at target of some unfortunate incidents, Goethe-Institut Karachi with efforts of it’s Director recently celebrated Sufi Week which tried to create awareness and discourse about a softer and peaceful dimensions of Islam.

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.

Abdul Sattar Edhi makes the nation proud one more time by wining a prestigious United Nations prize for his services in promoting tolerance and non-violence. Edhi shares the $100,000 prize money with Franois Houtart of Belgium and will receive the award on November 16, the International Day for Tolerance. They won the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-Madanjeet Singh Prize on the unanimous recommendation of an international jury to UNESCO.

UNESCO has following tribute for Edhi’s services  :

” Abdul Sattar Edhi ((Pakistan) for his life-long efforts to ameliorate the conditions of the most disadvantaged groups in Pakistan and South Asia, and to promote the ideals of human dignity, human rights, mutual respect and tolerance. ” read more

[ image : shahidul ]

‘Critical Mass Karachi’ is a cycling movement out there on the streets of Karachi. The group sets out at a fixed location and time, to peddle through set routes. Let’s join together and reclaim our public spaces and view our city through new angles.

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.

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While this sad news show we are yet to learn to handle excitement, nevertheless its a great moment for whole nation. Karachiites let the world know they are second to none. Moments citizen captured during T20 celebrations (video/Photo). Will try to add as many as possible.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TO-VR4HsJg[/youtube]

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I still remember the days of childhood when monthly visit to Sindbad Tariq Road and Clifton was a must. The reason being that Funland and Sindbad were the only places for hangout and I used to get 20 tokens free from Sindbad each month for being high achiever in annual exams at school. It continued from 3th to 8th grade.

Now when I visited Dolmen Mall Hyderi some time back, I can see that with inclusion of Sindbad there, the visitors to the food court and fun has increased manifold. They have games for kids and elders alike. AND TO MY AMAZEMENT, THE FREE TOKENS STILL CONTINUE UNDER THEIR TAGLINE ‘Education Before Recreation’.

For people near living by especially a must visit and don’t forget to play Air hockey which is auto-serve =D. Also Zekes Shack the water shooting game, you will love the mess.

PS: I am frequent visitor there :p