Islamabad: Mr. Walid Irshaid, CEO and President of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) was awarded the TeleTimes International Leadership Award for Best BroadBand services in the region at the TeleTimes Annual International Industry Excellence Awards ceremony, held at Islamabad Club on Friday.

The prestigious award was received by the PTCL CEO and President Mr.Walid Irshaid from the Federal Minister for Finance Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh in the ceremony which was presided over by Dr. Muhammad Yaseen, Chairman, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). A large number of top executives from the telecom industry were also present on the occasion.

PTCL Broadband is the largest and the fastest growing broadband service in Pakistan. The service was launched in 2007 and currently Broadband Pakistan has 95% market share. The service is available in over 1100 cities and towns across Pakistan, leading the proliferation and awareness of broadband services.

Mr. Walid Irshaid, CEO and President PTCL has expressed extreme satisfaction on this achievement and has thanked his team for their dedication and commitment that they have put in to ensure the success of PTCL Broadband services. He also reaffirmed that under his leadership, PTCL will continue to lead from the front in developing and introducing new and innovative technologies for richer customer experience.

HIGHLIGHTS

TOP 3 EMPLOYERS

1. Build Your System (35 Openings)

2. SFS Animations (10 Openings)

3. i2c Pakistan (9 Openings)

TOP 3 CATEGORIES                                      

1. .Net Development

2. PHP Development

3. Graphics Designing

AREA WISE RANKING                                 

1. Lahore (105 Job Openings)

2. Islamabad (63 Job Openings)

3. Karachi (37 Job Openings)

JOBS BY AREA

JOBS BY EMPLOYER

JOBS BY TECHNOLOGY

TREND REPORT

 Note: These figures/data have been extracted from Rozee.pk and specific company website. The data gathered is from online records starting from 25^th July 2011 to 31^st July 2011.

By Mohammad Yasir

National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in association with Evamp and Saanga is organizing a 4-day workshop on “Rapid Web Development through Ruby on Rails Framework on July 28-31.”

‘Rails is the most well thought-out web development framework I’ve ever used. And that’s in a decade of doing web applications for a living. I’ve built my own frameworks, helped develop the Servlet API, and have created more than a few web servers from scratch. Nobody has done it like this before.’ – James Duncan Davidson, Creator of Tomcat and Ant.

Ruby on Rails includes tools that make common development tasks easier “out of the box”, such as scaffolding that can automatically construct some of the models and views needed for a basic website. Also included are WEBrick, a simple Ruby web server that is distributed with Ruby, and Rake, a build system, distributed as a gem. Together with Ruby on Rails these tools provide a basic development environment.

Ruby on Rails is also noteworthy for its extensive use of the JavaScript libraries Prototype and Script.aculo.us for Ajax. Ruby on Rails is typically deployed with a database server such as MySQL or PostgreSQL, and a web server such as Apache running the Phusion Passenger module.

The workshop aims at teaching to promote rapid agile web development with clean application of MVC that is high-performance and scalable.

The participants will be trained

• To build Rails applications from scratch, manage database with migrations
• Learn about Ajax support in rails
• Understand ActiveRecord associations and validations
• Understand REST and how to use it in Rails
• Understand basic optimization techniques such as caching/eager loading

The trainer of the workshop will be Hasham Malik, who is Director Engineering at a leading software house, where he has lead teams to develop and deploy several RoR websites and applications.

On the 28^th of this month CodeWeek will be celebrating its 2^nd birthday. Another year closes its journey, and is headed towards a new much more innovating and inspiring one. During this journey many people inspired us on our way.   Looking back not only makes us want to relive every moment and every meeting again but also makes us think how far we have now reached in terms of progress in our industry.

During this year we not only covered Android development, but ruby on rails and software quality assurance as a business. We also learnt how our software professionals are serving the non-IT world, how we are competing Skype with our product ‘Vopium’ and how we developed ‘Cricket Power’, the Official game for the ICC’s Cricket World Cup 2011.

Jamil Goheer, CEO Kualitatem, an entrepreneurs hared his experience of starting a software business with us. He said when starting a software company a neat idea is required. A unique idea which may have not been implemented previously, and promises a fortune. Every successful software engineer we’ve met so far has had a knack for creativity. Not just creativity but with an idea, a desire and passion to do something great.

Faizan Iftikhar, Head Mobile Product Development, highlighted the importance of Android in Pakistan and worldwide. In a conversation he said ‘It’s a mobile platform you can’t afford not to learn. Android is being used for development of amazing applications worldwide. In our country as well, it is being considered today’s most remarkable mobile communications platform.’ 

Nabeel Akmal Qadeer, the Co-Founder and COO at Technopsis is one of the most sought-after IT professionals in the local SME sector of Pakistan. His views are often thought to be unorthodox yet brilliant. CodeWeek interviewed him a couple of weeks back in his office at Shapes Pvt. Ltd. Head Office [which is the Head Office of Technopsis as well], where he treated us to a hot cup of coffee and some very interesting ideas.

Hasham Malik, Director of Engineering, OSM Invention (Pvt.) Ltd,   diverse experience in development spanning over 10 years. His areas of expertise have been e-commerce, social applications, web services and mobile back ends. But in the interview he highlighted the importance of Ruby and Rails in the developer’s community.

Tanveer Sharif, CEO Vopium told us about his product Vopium, Skype’s competitor. He said, ‘In 2008 we managed to raise 2 million Euros from a European investor, after which we expanded in numbers i.e. from 5 to almost 70 employees. This allowed Vopium to expand and introduce our service to the whole of Europe as well as Australia and the US. Then with the global financial crisis, the company was feeling the financial crunch. But in 2010 everything settled down when we signed a major investment contract with Mr. Raghuvinder Kataria, one of the early investors in Bharti Airtel, the largest mobile operator in India and one of the largest in the world.’

In a conversation, Shoaib Malik, Country Manager Mindstorm Studios, discussed how the idea of ‘Cricket Power’ emerged. In his interview he said, ‘Cricket power is the Official game for the ICC’s Cricket World Cup 2011. It is a browser based Cricket Game and it features offline single player, online tournament mode, statistic tracking and challenging AI opponents that learn from your every move. Whether you play offline in exhibition games or hit the Nets Practice mode, Cricket Power will bring you back to the online tournament for a chance to show off your newly mastered skills and compete for top spot on the leader boards.’

Mubashir Naqvi, CEO Qubee, met CodeWeek team in Karachi. With 25 years of experience of working with renowned brands in Pakistan he highlighted the growth and importance of Qubee in Pakistan.

Ali Jaleel, General Manager Dell, in an interview with CodeWeek said, Pakistan is a growing economy which has a significant population comprising of young people enabling technology rapidly. People here are adopting new technology, its latest trends and equipments including PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Tariq Malik, Deputy Chairman, NADRA, in an interview with CodeWeek highlighted NADRA ‘Catalyst for Change’. We are trying our best to change the way government does its business. We are transforming the e-Govt. agenda in Pakistan.  NADRA houses the world’s largest multi-biometric database, which gives us a national competitive advantage. We have very effectively used it to bring transparency in many government’s citizen-centric initiatives.  These programs have enhanced public convenience, improved service delivery and ensured transparency and above all, left an impression of good governance.

IT Industry is gaining momentum on its events, and so is CodeWeek.

March 20^th came face to face with high profile iPhone Application developers, with CodeWeek as its host.

CodeWeek landed offline with its first event of 2011,

“Get your Apps Straight on iOS4”

iPhone Application Development Seminar

With the success of our first event on iPhone Application Development, we decided to go for another on Android, and on 16^th of April, we welcomed an inquisitive and amazing audience along with remarkable speakers. The seminar lapsed for complete four hours where four speakers presented highly interactive presentations. Speakers belonged to varied companies and came from different backgrounds. As a result of which, different experiences came in the forefront.

Telenor Pakistan launched Djuice’s ‘Apportunity’, a service that allows mobile application developers from Pakistan to create mobile apps and get them published on the Nokia Ovi Store, Apple AppStore, and Android Marketplace for people around the world.

Telenor Pakistan, the country’s second largest cellular company, continued to perform well in the second quarter of 2011 according to the latest figures released by the Telenor Group. It added 914,000 subscriptions during the three-month period ending with a total of 26.7 million subscribers, a growth of 12% over the same period last year.

“I am happy with Telenor Pakistan’s performance in the second quarter of 2011. We have been able to sustain growth and keep our EBITDA margin strong despite operating in a challenging business environment. As with previous quarters, we continue to receive recognition; Telenor Pakistan and Tameer Bank’s easypaisa won the Shaukat Khanum

Social Responsibility Award in recognition of the service’s impact on society of organized philanthropy, an achievement we are proud of, ” said Chief Marketing Officer, Telenor Pakistan Aamir Ibrahim, speaking about the solid second quarter figures, said:

The company’s EBITDA margin has been impressive, growing over three percentage points over the previous quarter, while market share has remained stable at 24%.

Computer projects are mega events for the computer students.

Many students built their entire projects on imaginary start-ups.

Wasted effort?

These projects could have been funded even if at very nominal price and the situation would have been win-win for both parties. Pocket money for the student and an A grade documentation built for the company.

The scenario is no different in colleges and universities. Gradually IT organizations are becoming aware of this cheap labor that is available to them in the form of students. Now and then somebody gets lucky to be spotted by a firm interested in their term or final year projects. In a similar way organizations should consider start-ups as potential investment areas. For start-up funding categories of investors that can be explored are as follows:

Angels are rich people. The word was first used for backers of Broadway plays, nevertheless applies to individual investors commonly. The contacts and advice can be more important than the money.

Seed firms are like angels in that they spend moderately little amount at premature stages, but they are companies that do it as a business, rather than persons making sporadic investments on the side.

The reality that seed firms are companies moreover means the process is uniform. Seed firms will in all probability have set deal terms they apply for each startup they sponsor. The truth that the deal terms are set doesn’t suggest they’re sympathetic to you, but if other startups have signed the similar agreements and things went sound for them, it’s a mark the terms are evenhanded.

Angel and seed financing play a role prior to a business has launched its product, or soon thereafter. It’s the capital you could do with to make it happen. Generally, there are a small number of sources of angel money:

1. Venture Capitalists are about “heavier” deals, but they’re more accessible than other investors.

2. Strategic Angels have industry or domain know-how in what you’re doing. Having strategic angels is grand, for the reason that not only will they provide ready money, they’ll make available skill, contacts and authenticity to your hatchling startup.

3. Non-Strategic Angels -affluent people looking to branch out their portfolios by investing in startups. Lots of people fit into this group: businesspeople, doctors, entrepreneurs, etc. They don’t often publicize their interest in angel investing, so finding them can be tricky.

Venture Capital firms locally are the best option to consider for a startup. They invest in other people’s money, and large amounts of it. But they tend to come later in the life of a startup, are harder to get, and come with tougher terms. However the lesser known VC firms are on the lookout for potentially successful startups all the time.

The nuisance of taking money from less recognized firms is that people will presuppose that you were turned down by the more glorious ones. But, performance is all that matters. So the more certain you are, the less you need a label. Another peril of less celebrated firms is that, like angels, they have not as much of status to guard.

For the reason that VCs put in hefty amounts, the capital comes with supplementary restrictions. The largest part only comes into effect if the corporation gets into a hitch. An added divergence with large investments is that the founders are more often than not required to agree to lay down their arms aka their stock and earn it back over the next 4-5 years.

For the most part perceptible change when a startup takes serious funding is that the founders will no longer have absolute power. Once upon a time VCs used to be adamant that founders step down as CEO and hand the post over to a business guy they supplied. That is not the case any more. At the same time as founders are all the time more able to hang on as CEO, they have to relinquish some supremacy, and make the board of directors yet more powerful.

This is not as bad as it sounds, however. Bill Gates is in the same position; he doesn’t have majority control of Microsoft; in principle he also has to convince instead of commanding. And yet he seems pretty commanding, doesn’t he? As long as things are going smoothly, boards don’t interfere much. The danger comes when there’s a bump in the road, as happened to Steve Jobs at Apple.

It is suspected that VCs agree to business plans more as a line of attack to maintain tabs on industry trends than as a cause of the startups. It is, regrettably, regular for VCs to put terms in an agreement whose consequences bombshell founders soon after, furthermore widespread for VCs to protect things they do by saying that they’re customary in the trade.

After all that has been said it is important to remind IT organizations to support bright young minds bursting with bright young ideas, after all they are our future! And it is just as important for these young minds to seek organizations to fund potential ideas they might be toying with. However they need to know it is important to be prepared to hunt down the right investor in the right way.

Google Pakistan invited talented people to make MapUp community with help of its passionate and helpful mappers in our Map Your World Community.

The intent of the MapUps was to guide new users through the process of mapping their cities and neighborhoods while stressing the importance of having a complete map of Pakistan available online.

The month of June proved fruitful for mapping enthusiasts, tech buffs, and entrepreneurs throughout Pakistan as they gathered for a series of Google MapUps organized at universities in three major cities: Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.

Led by Google Pakistan Country Consultant, Badar Khushnood and a trio of Pakistan’s Map Maker Advocates—Faraz Ahmad, Jabran Rafique and Omer Sheikh—the three events welcomed a total of 150 participants to learn the ins and outs of Google Map Maker.

Recent mapping efforts in Pakistan have been predominantly aligned with relief efforts following Pakistan’s 2010 floods and landslides, as demonstrated by Omer, Jabran and Faraz. Dr. Sayeed Ghani spoke at the Karachi MapUp about Sindh Flood Maps, his community-based geographic information system (GIS) that implements a Google Maps API to assist in disaster management. Dr. Sohaib Khan, who co-hosted the Lahore MapUp, has also focused on flood relief.

On a basic level, the aim of MapUps is to teach new and aspiring mappers the fundamentals of Map Maker, and to bring them together to map their community. Omer explained that “The idea is to get the participants started in the hope that they will continue mapping in the future.” Badar Khushnood and our Mapping Advocates ultimately highlighted the tools and motivation behind mapping, highlighting it as influential, inspirational, and humanitarian.

Dell, a global leader in technology, distributed prizes to the participants of the road show held separately in Karachi and Lahore for showcasing its different latest brands to notebook lovers.

Dell’s innovative products, the Inspiron 3010, 4010 and 5010 were showcased along with the Dell Studio high end notebooks at fantastic prices along with enticing promotions on purchase. Drawing large crowds, this exciting activity also featured gift hampers for the participants through lucky draw offering bumper prizes including a Dell notebook.

Being an innovative brand, Dell has always tried to engage the Pakistani consumers through innovative, exciting and fun filled activities, thus introducing them to the latest, most reliable technologies.

Through these consumer interactions, Dell aims to encourage the notebook enthusiasts to gain more insight into cutting-edge products.

The aspiring Dell customers now have the freedom to confidently choose the best-suited information-technology tools for themselves.

There’s two subtle forces being mapped here: One, the differing ways that internet companies spread. And two, the vast disparity between a city seen by a tourist vs. a native.That map you see above isn’t a picture of the earth, seen from space. Rather, it’s a map of the locations attached to every tweet and Flickr photo. What results is a remarkable picture of how each service has spread across the globe.

At the very broadest levels, you have a map of the very different ways that Flickr and Twitter have spread across the world. Take a minute to look at this map of America, where Flickr use is shown in orange and Twitter use is shown in blue:

And here’s how Europe compares:

What you notice is that Flickr is everywhere, but Twitter is still creeping across certain swathes of land. In particular, the eastern seaboard of the United States. You might have expected the Twitter and Flickr maps to have overlapped quite nicely, since they both serve an audience of plugged-in techies. But it’s not the case, and there’s some interesting reasons why that might be.First off, Twitter is about two years younger than Flickr, having been founded in 2006. But then again, Twitter has exploded, so growth and maturity isn’t the whole story. Why would Twitter seem to be expanding more organically, while Flickr use pops up evenly all around the world?Well, assuming that Fischer’s data is fresh, remember that Flickr is at its foremost a service. If you take photos and want to upload them to the web, you’re going to find equal utility for Flickr no matter where you are in the world or what language you speak. And as a result, Flickr-use can catch on anywhere, independent of social ties.

Contrast that with Twitter. Twitter is aconversation platform. And we tend to have conversations with people we know — and these people tend to be those who live close to us. For all of Twitter’s global reach, our social networks are still defined by physical proximity. If some techie sociologist took a long hard look at how Twitter and Flickr spread, I’ll bet she’d find that this crucial distinction defined the growth patterns of each service. Flickr’s growth might look more like mushrooms sprouting all across a forrest floor, while Twitter would more closely resemble the spread of a virus.But wait! Fischer’s maps reveal an entirely different narrative when you look at them up close. Here’s the maps for San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo:

Twitter and Flickr tags again fail to overlap. In these three cities, it’s clearly not an issue of how much penetration each service has: They’re both really popular. But the geographies don’t overlap because the places people take pictures of aren’t the places they tweet from. That is, people take pictures of tourist destinations; people tweet from where they live.If you were, say, Italo Calvino or Jorge Borges, you could wax philosophical about the astonishing poetry of what we’re looking at: It’s no less than a visual map of how differently cities look when you view them through the eyes of a tourist or a native. Sometimes, those visions line up. But having been a New Yorker for 10 years, I can vouch for the fact that the city I love isn’t the one that tourists ever get to see. So much of what I experience remains invisible unless you’ve been here for a while — and that, I’d argue, is the greatest mystery of city life.

(Courtesy: Fastcompany)