Contributed by Rafaeel Akbar Chaudhry

Seenreport.com, a start-up that was launched by a trio in Lahore, their slogan “people powered news” has closed Series “A” round of funding from Al-Janabi Group, a leading media investor in Middle East. SeenReport is the largest citizen news portal in Pakistan and provides both users and media organization expertise in combining traditional and new media by leveraging its rich social media suite.

SeenReport’s Young CEO, Sharjeel Ahmed, says,

“We are really excited to acquire investment from Al-Janabi Group. As a prominent media venture capital firm, they bring a lot of experience and guidance to the table. Combined with the passion and expertise of SeenReport’s team in fusing traditional and new media, we will certainly achieve higher grounds.”

When talking about the way forward for the company, Sharjeel said,

“SeenReport is making a strong impact on the way news is created, shaped, distributed and perceived by the people. Traditional media has already started to embrace SeenReport’s platform. We feel that the funding is well-timed and will enable us to grow our company. We will use this funding to expand the company, strengthen the platform and explore the international market.”

Yaser Awan, the COO of SeenReport, says,

“The series A investment will really help us in taking SeenReport’s platform to a new level where we would be able to make an even better impression on Mainstream Media by promoting Live Streaming, Freedom of Expression, Citizen and Process Journalism and involving technology in bridging the gap between Internet, mobile users and common people across the globe. We would appreciate if you take this Pakistani success story (the Startup that started from zero and became a multimillion dollar company), propagate it and tell Pakistani people that we can do it. We are not terrorists; we are the flag bearers of innovation. All you need is passion and you can go out and change the world.”

Since its launch on 10 June 2008, SeenReport has made huge strides and now offers a full blown news sourcing and publishing platform. The platform is specifically geared towards gathering news via cell phones, micro-blogging and live casting. The platform supports rich multimedia content and taps into the prominent and emerging social networks and blogs in order to create a comprehensive social media suite. It provides a platform to SMS, MMS, E-Mail or directly upload our videos and photographs with short description to be published immediately directly via your cellular phones. You don’t even need to spend time registering for an account. You can however upload via cell phone or PC, the making of an account is not compulsory, if a non-account holder member uploads it would just name the source as anonymous.

SeenReport has made its mark with news sourcing platform and unique business model to provide its off-the-shelf social media suite to news organizations and media companies. Already engaging thousands of people and establishing a client base, the social media suite is capable of powering any international news organization’s citizen journalism arm.

It has been a really tough struggle for the SeenReport team as in Pakistan there is absolutely no platform where one could raise Angel Investment let alone VC Funding. This really is a milestone for a Pakistani Startup and we believe that this will mark a new era taking Pakistan’s name to the next level where internationally people would start taking Pakistani Startups more seriously and may be more opportunities open up for Venture Capital injection. Pakistan would start to get even more attention for being a place where innovative work is being done. Hopefully this will also encourage many other young entrepreneurs who are struggling to make an impression or thinking about starting their own business.

About the Author:

Rafaeel Akbar Chaudhry is a telecom engineer by degree. He’s a serial entrepreneur, a social media analyst, a pastime blogger and an IT consultant. He’s also currently chairing the Lahore chapter of IEEE Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) and has won IEEE Region 10 Leadership Award during his student life.

Where print lacks, electronic rules. Where newsgroups fail, blogosphere succeeds. In contrast to the local media, Pakistani Bloggers have made a successful attempt in presenting the latest development and progress taking place in Pakistan’s IT Industry. Blogosphere is the new media. Due to the rapid advancement in technology it has played a vital role in raising the standard of living and in informing the natives about the latest in the IT Industry. Every morning newspaper shouts back at you that the country in which you live, and where you have spent all your life is A FAILED STATE. Or if you switch on the television set which is airing the breaking news of the day that PAKISTAN IS A FAILED STATE, how would you react? Morning newspaper is what tells you about the world around you. The main purpose of reading a newspaper every morning is to refresh and to prepare you for the entire day. A few weeks back one of the leading newspapers of our country had printed an article which quoted,

“In the fourth annual Failed States Index published by the Fund for Peace (FfP), Pakistan has been ranked 9^th in a list of nations that are defined as failed states or on the verge of becoming failed states.”

This news has been circulating the web from quite some time now, but printing this particular paragraph in the newspaper shows that our media has accepted the fact that yes, Pakistan is a failed state. Is it? What should be your reaction?  Why is every newspaper concerned about failures, why don’t they give any coverage to the successes of various sectors?

Media has transformed the world into a global village. The role of media is very important for developing nations, because it is media which brings about awareness, analyzing and observing ability within an individual. But why is that people have stopped reading newspapers and listening to the news? Whilst you find an answer let us tell you that the blogoshere is operating at a very fast speed, and their number is increasing every passing minute. How many blogs do you visit every day? Or do you have a personal blog? In a survey conducted by our team earlier this week, we came to the results that 7 out of 10 groups/individuals have their own blogs, through which they share and communicate with their visitors and members, educating and entertaining them. And in return 95% of Pakistani population on-line is constantly interacting by posting their views, articles and comments on these blogs.  Providing people a platform to voice their concerns and giving them a stage where they can show their talent and potential to the world. Developing and growing Pakistan is what the world needs to know about. All you need to do is type Pakistani blogs and a list will come right in front of you. And trust me you will be amazed.

The objective of these blogs is to present to the world the positive image of Pakistan which our local media has failed to do so. Instead of presenting the positive picture journalists are more concentrating towards the corruption and negativity, the question is WHY? We have been reading news about drone attacks, Taliban, and terrorism, but have you ever come across any headline (other than the T20 world cup news) which would show that yes Pakistan has achieved this and accomplished that at an international level. Well if you have than please correct us by writing to us.

The most outstanding achievement of the various blogs is in terms of presenting to the world the IT sector of Pakistan. We discuss every issue regarding the growth of Pakistan’s various sectors, but we never speak about the growing IT sector. As we all are aware of the fact that every leading newspaper of Pakistan has a science and technology page in it. We salute them for giving technology a space in their newspaper. But have a close look at them. It won’t take you another second to flip the page over, and you will end up thinking, “what a waste of time”.

Such sections are a source of great disappointment for the IT professionals, and for those who wish to read quality news on the IT Industry. Personal blogs and interactive communities have greatly influenced individuals to move forward. The old rules are gone now where people waited for the newspaper to inform you. It’s the freedom of expression which has enabled the nation to show that they are socially responsible. You will find a wealth of information in blogs based on technology. Topics which are being discussed in these blogs may not be heard otherwise. The blogs totally dedicated to technology have given the people an opportunity to look at whatever is happening in the Pakistan’s IT Industry.

Pakistan has passed through savage times and has survived and moved forward. And this is exactly what the people of Pakistan and what the world needs to know. And at this point of time global village is our only hope. It is not about being paid, it is not about making money; it is about bringing the current and positive right in the forefront, without filtering it and without spinning it around.  The image of our country can only be redefined by showing the world our potential abilities, our growing talent and our capacity to face every challenge.