Category — Abstract

I haven’t been watching TV lately but somehow I do come across AirTel advertisements aired recently. And this one is really funny & creative:

Today, common phrases have been developed which we get to hear every now and then. ‘Government kitna paisa khaati hae’ is one of the favorites. But if you ask me, its not them only – look around and you’ll find same situation on every level. Not that I favor any political party (because I am least interested in politics) but I have myself experienced the same theft on different levels. During my previous job, I saw peons and officers of different levels doing the same typical theft as per their capacity. Students in university try to do the same during university events. It’s just that we blame others before even analyzing ourselves.

We are a collection of individuals who all together can form ‘land of pure people’. But every one of us is heading in the wrong direction. As Muslims, we are divided into many sects instead of being one. As a nation, we are divided into Pathan, Baloch, Sindhi etc. As humans, our deeds are not even near humanity. We have great authors, people who blog aggressively and can really inspire some audience. But all we do is complain. We talk about change, politics, we discuss others but our attitude is not changing. We are not ready to take any responsibility on our shoulders, and our sufferings continue. The British/Hindu rule ended years back and we are a free nation now, yet we still do ‘Mangani’ and judge people by the way they speak English!

It’s about time we think, plan and act. Every one of us, each individual should adopt change, should seek some responsibility, and should avoid hurting people if only we want to leave a better nation for our generations. Now is the time when we can make a change because tomorrow will be too late for any of this. Rise and shine, wake up and hear the call, seek religion the way Muhammad (SAW) bestowed upon us. Perform deeds that have grounds. Respect humanity and love people around you. And it all starts from one-self because revolution starts within!

Last weekend, I came across a really cute and creative image while browsing DeviantArt. Couldn’t resist sharing it on my blog:

Source: http://ce-i.deviantart.com/art/mirror-20456667

A friend of mine, senior from FAST, Haseeb Ahmed recently came back from Swat valley and shared his thoughts on a Yahoo Group (GOF). Situation is really bad out there; people are in worst condition, no food – no shelter!

Right from the Valley….

Tragedy… One of the biggest displacement in the history… not of Pakistan, not of Muslims… but of the whole Human history!
I write this with utmost pain and discomfort, and I’m sure anyone who has a comprehending heart and mind will feel the same, provided he/she analyzes the situation with open eyes. I would urge all those who are blessed with Allah’s graces, and have the resources, to visit here if possible and see for themselves the most tragic and ironic reality, with their own eyes. What a mess we have created, with our own hands… and there’s nobody to blame, no one to point fingers at, as to who is responsible for this calamity… coz it’s only ourselves! … 3 million… these are not cattle and sheep, or cats and dogs… we are here talking about 3 million humans! … 3 million Muslims! … 3 million Pakistanis!
… and the count is rising!

I just came back from the inflicted areas. And will share what we saw and what we analyzed. I went  there with a team of 10-12 from Karachi, including people from the business community, a well known welfare trust, based in khi ( also prominent for its extra ordinary relief efforts in the Earthquake), and renowned religious scholar, Syed Adnan Kakakhel ( Student Conference Islamabad, Musharraf Speech fame).

We went on an extensive study and enlightening circuit, from Islamabad to Mardan, to Takhtbhai, to Shergarh ( some 10-15kms away from where the curfew starts), back to mardan, then to Swaabi, to Tarakai, then to Nowshehra and Peshawar.

We visited many a camps, some run by welfare trusts, some run by religious institutions/ organizations, some run by NGOs, and a few by some generous local individuals who are indeed doing a great job, without any sort of funding from government or any other source, and only on their own resources. These people must be saluted for their efforts.

To give a clearer picture, these camps are scattered over a huge area, including various small cities and villages, and not concentrated in just one, two or three areas. This directly implies the humongous movement that is across the whole area below the SWAT and Malakand division, and people are continuously coming down the hills from North, towards South. There are rare means of transport available, since there is curfew enforced, majority travels this rocky, mountainous distance on bare foot.  And trust me, they have moved out of their houses, many many of which are quite well off and of good financial stature, in no more than just plain clothes!! …
… to move into camps or to take refuge in mosques, schools, madrasaas,… on roadsides, along footpaths, in grounds… wherever they’d find a shade! Or precisely, wherever they’d find a corner!

I went to quite a few camps along with the team, and the situation cannot be explained be in words. This is a massive displacement! These camps, they are no more than a very temporary resort for the people moving in.  I’m sure nobody amongst us can stand the scorching heat, in which these camps are like ovens! No human being can live in these camps, where it seems like not only the sun is fiery, the earth is also inflamed! There are no proper sanitation facilities, no utensils, no fans, no coolers, meager electricity and surely not enough medical facilities or medicines.
Women and children are the worst affected. Women have nowhere to go, they cant stand the pain and hunger of their children! Let alone, they don’t have anything for themselves! Just plain clothes, and that too been wearing for weeks now!

Children… literally cannot forget their questioning eyes! They have no idea what happened to them, why they have been moved out their houses, and when are they going to go back home!  Home is what they miss… they don’t know who the talibans are, what they are doing, or who the government is, what they are doing… they have been punished and forsaken, for sins they haven’t done!
Even then… in their adolescence … they are rhyming the national anthem in those temporary sun baked schools, still chanting “Pakistan Zindabad” with all their enthusiasm! …
Sorrow…

We talked to a number of people… just common people, and asked them who they think is responsible for this. Most of them, if not all, blame the government and the army. Talibans, they deject and hate, but they don’t hold them responsible for moving them out of their houses!

A trust we went to, told us during the earthquake, they called up this person in swat, and on one phone call he donated 14 ton rice to this trust for the earthquake stricken.  Today, that same person, is standing in their queue for 1 kg of rice for his family! He has come with nothing, but his wife and children! Has cheque books, but accounts frozen!

We went along with this trust to a number of houses, where the locals are sharing their houses, with limited resources, with the incoming refugees, and distributed packages of various rations, clothes, utensils and some cash by hand. Also disbursed donations collected from my own sources in a very short period, given to me by my friends and colleagues.

As a matter of fact, camps accumulate only 15-20% of the displaced people. The rest, 80-85% of the people are sharing homes with others, or are in schools, mosques, or as guests in hujras of locals, and therefore, are invisible! Inaccessible! Unlike those in camps, they have the shelter and shade, but are not getting any kind of relief or support.  These people should be the focus, as they are in major concentration.

There’s a huge amount of work to be done, in all dimensions….

One thing, there is no substantial relief or cooperation from the government side. Even if it is there, its only in a few large camps, or those in cities like Peshawar and noshehra. So, that increases the disappointment and annoyance of people.
Yes, there are many trusts, individuals, religious parties and ngos working, and they are no doubt doing a great job, keeping in mind the limited resources they have.

There are operations and camps from UN, NGOs from Austria, and a few others, but these are limited and surely cannot accommodate a lot of people. Also visited a camp supported by Muslim Aid Foundation and UNHCR.

We also observed that there is sheer lack of communication and information. These people have no idea and no knowledge of what is happening around them, what is happening around in war affected areas, and in the rest of the country, when will it end, where is the government, where should they go for registration, who should they contact for only information!

Implicitly, this lack of information, absence of government officials, improper arrangements, and prolonged subjection to uncertainties prevailing around them is giving rise to frustration, anger and hatred! We literally foresee riots and chaotic uprising, which infact has already started there, in the form of road and traffic blocks, and demonstrations by the hunger stricken IDPs.
Karachi… we see due to childish acts and racial bias of one certain party, the people over there have very much disappointment regarding karachiites. We literally came across questions “Aap hamein Karachi mein kiyun nahi aanay detey ho??”  and “Aap ne imran khan ko nahi aanay tou hamein kya aanay do gay!!”

This is certainly not good. This insurgency and frustration has already reached major cities, and if the attitude remains this of aloofness and discriminations, things will get worse in all parts of the country.

Observing right from here in valley and considering the socio economic impact of this displacement, if this imbalance and operations prolongs, the generation and children developing here will grow up with harsh feelings, no emotions, of frustration, anger and hatred, of snatching and might is right, and will only add to a new breed of these so called talibans, who are really not talibans, but criminals and socially depressed class!
Already, there are culprits and wolves lurking around the camps! Human wolves.  Hidden in the form of volunteers or doctors or aides, they are trying to adapt children, or kidnap them, and women and girls… they need extreme concern! Criminals from all around the country are prowling around these areas to fulfill their own tasks. May Allah protect them all!

What needs to be done…
Huge relief measures, support programs, medical facilities, educational programs, food and rations, clothes and crockery, fans and shoes,… everything! Everything and anything that can contribute to the cause! Concrete programs to provide jobs/tasks/projects or work to the skilled and unskilled displaced, so that they can support themselves, even if its only partial. Measures to move them into rental houses, and proper buildings if the military activity prolongs. And then arrangements to make sure they can go back to their homes as soon as possible, and pressure on the government to complete this operation fast!

Ofcourse, this is on a larger scale. What we, as individuals can do is to donate as much as we can, with everything we possibly can, be it cash, clothes, utensils, or just moral support. Donate to who ever we trust and feel comfortable with. Support them with all available resources. But the call is to surely come forward and realize that this is a great human tragedy we are facing and must play our roles to minimize the sufferings.

We are also collecting donations, clothes and other stuff and making sure these reach the right people, mostly distributed by hand. You can make your contributions / donations / zakats, and we’ll make sure it reaches the deserving in the best manner, inshAllah.

Pakistan is in a state of war… and ironically, the rest of the country, including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Quetta, or any other part or city of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, is not able to comprehend the intensity or gravity of the situation! There’s literally a war going on, within our country! We need to rise above social, racial and provincial bias and do all that we possibly can, be it only by word of mouth, be it only by showing support, if not by financial or material means, but help them! They had to move out their houses in just one day, without anything that they owned! They have lost their families… mothers looking for their children! Children looking for their fathers! Brothers in search of sisters! … and we are here trying  how to make sure they don’t come here! Damn, they don’t want to come here! Or in Punjab! Or anywhere else! They just want to go back home! So why not make sure as long as they are out of their homes,
provide them with as much as we can!
If WE… All of US… don’t act now.. this land, these people, this country, this religion, … will never forgive us!

May Allah accept everyone’s  efforts and may He give our brothers the patience and strength to stay steadfast in these testing times.
Many prayers for lasting peace in our country. Ameen.

Haseeb Ahmed Polani
ha5eebahmed@yahoo.com

Hey, this is fun! I just got this from my team lead:

“Do not maximize the screen… just leave it as it is after clicking the link and see what happens… wicked.” http://users.telenet.be/kixx/

2 weeks back, after the Friday prayers at Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre (Fanar) – 25 people from 5 different communities (Nepal, China, Gana, Philippines and Bangladesh) confirmed their Shahada in public. It was lovely to see the newly converted muslims declaring Shahada. Many muslims took snaps while the people declared and I got lucky to take a quick one in the mosque.

Allah O Akbar!

Most of the AirTel advertisements are really impressive! I came across this one last weekend and would like to share it with my readers – it’s really cute (:

A new habit that I adopted in the past few years is ‘blogging’. I have been reading several blogs, stories from successful people around, learning from mistakes of experienced entrepreneurs, and just like all other people – I also have a list of people who I ‘admire‘ for their healthy contribution in my life. So I thought to share the list of people who helped me become what I am today.

After the limitless support of my family members comes the list of following people:

- Ra[y]za

Muhammad Raza, my school buddy – I was in 8th grade when we became friends and after buying my new PC, we used to share our stories about Need for Speed 3. Raza always used to crack down things, dig them to the deepest. We were once sharing some files for NFS when Raza made a webpage and hosted the file. Later, during lunch hours I asked if it’s possible to make a website and that hour marked the beginning of my web designing era. It was really fun to design personal home pages back in 2000 (I still have one hosted at: http://coolpoint.20m.com). He always helped me in picking up basic html concepts, file/hosting issues etc. And after that, he gave me a vision about web layouts and since then I’ve designed more than thousands of them! Thanks bro!

- TBT

Talha bin Tariq was a 3rd year student at my university when I was a fresher. Fortunately I got a chance to design an illustration for Graduate Profile 2004 and after seeing it he asked me to show him the rest of my portfolio (in Lab-1 of FAST-NU). He was the first person who encouraged me a lot and helped me to discover more in gfx. I was also offered to design illustrations for Online 17th and even after producing not-so-good results; he appreciated me and got the best out of me. I still remember that how with few quick-clicks in Photoshop, TBT used to create impressive outputs! His good quality knowledge about core, amazing after-effects on images and friendly behavior always made me enjoy his company =) There are few extra-ordinary students among each batch, and he was MashAllah one of them. Talha is now a Software Engg. at Microsoft and you can view his complete profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/talhatariq

- AhsanQ

Ahsan Qamar, my group member; my teacher – the one person who pulled me out of the failure curve and helped me to see the potential inside! I really had a poor start at university, although I had interest in web designing and development but never scored well in my exams. I always had a lazy attitude towards my assignments. But this one person dragged me out of darkness and helped me cover all the knowledge that I missed in classrooms. I still remember the Data Structure assignment nights spent at his place which really helped me to get a good grip on programming. Ahsan always used to understand things very quickly, remember each and every concept read just once, and program things in a very efficient manner – MashAllah! Most of the time when we had study sessions, Ahsan took the lead (with Shoaib Hafeez on support ). Today, I feel blessed having such friends, and the experience of failing and then going up really teaches you the importance of success, and this lesson one can not grasp easily by succeeding in one go. Ahsan Qamar recently flew back to his hometown (Rawalpindi) and will be starting his new job this week InshAllah. I’ll really miss him around!

- Asad

Asad Siddiqi, my mentor – yet another senior at FAST-NU but I got to know him after I graduated. I once added him for some freelance project on my IM and today, I chat with him just like my any other friend. During night-shifts at TeraData, I used chat with him and share recent happenings. While seeking new jobs, I used to consult him and he always gave me healthy advices. Although he is currently in NCR, USA but he had good knowledge about local software houses, their products and trends. And he really played a major role in helping me switch my job, in switching to a better place!

- Ammar

Syed Ammar Faheem, the little kid – committee interviews were on the go (during my final year) and I got a chance to interview this kid, both for ‘The Webmasters’ and ‘Interface’. Ammar used to manage PakMarkaz.net, so I visited the site and the colors didn’t appeal me much. Some mishap happened and I proposed not to induct this kid in both committees. But later on, we got him on board and the kid started to prove himself. We’ve worked together in Procom, Interface and even studied together during my last semester at university. And this little kid (not so little now ) is responsible for this space that I hold on the web – yes, my blog! Ammar was the one who pushed me to start blogging although I was reluctant to do so and always used to think: what’s the use?! But after starting it I realized the benefits it holds.  He has been selected as the President of Procom 2009 – proud of you kid! And I am really a fan of the ‘aggressive’ content writing he does.

(and the last one on my list is..)

- STUPEFY

Abdul Basit, just like my elder brother, and a business partner – it was the 1st semester, our group was sitting outside in the lawn (at FAST-NU) when I had a chance to chit chat with this geeky fellow. And our minds clicked on one thing that was “Flixin.tk”, a resource for IPT assignments. Much has happened until now and we’ve spent almost 6 years together. One thing not-so-immediately-noticeable about Basit is, “he is really soft-hearted” and he even agreed to that while we were practicing for MBA interview (5 good things about you) ; ) He always has wise opinion about things, better understanding of issues in life and really takes good care of things and people around! We’ve been running a venture since 1 year now Alhamdulillah and it is really fun working together. Basit has been always interested in core stuff and at times I feel too relaxed to even bother what’s happening on the backend. I believe not every friend of yours can become a business partner but I’m glad that we’ve been able to keep things separate both for our professional as well as friendly lives!

Before I wrap up this note, I would like to mention names of few more people who helped me to grab expertise in PHP/MySQL – Ammar Rafiq, Asim Imtiaz and Fahim Ilyas.

“A student never forgets an encouraging private word, when it is given with sincere respect and admiration.” ~ William Lyon Phelps

Few days back, while I was trying to recover one of Yahoo accounts for some important document, I came across my initial set of web templates that I designed 8 years back! It was year 2000 after summer vacations when my buddy, ra[y]za, explained me what exactly a web template is, and I felt a little interested too. He showed me one of his submissions that were live on FreeWebTemplates.com and couple of people downloaded/reviewed it too. I was into basic websites since 1999, thanks to ra[y]za again! But the idea of template clicked me as well and I designed 2 web templates.

I submitted the layouts on freewebtemplates.com and was waiting for my templates to appear in their showcase. Few weeks passed, I even re-submitted but no luck! After I had lost all hopes, the templates were just like any other spare file on my hard drive because I had designed them for community and not for any client/website. It was after 2-3 months when my friend told me “hey! your templates are online and they’ve reached 10 most downloaded templates” – I was way too happy to see the output. Not sure about the actual figure but I guess it scored 2500+ in 2-3 weeks.

When I came across my designs recently, it actually reminded me of my old layouts. But nevertheless – I really worked hard to improve my designing skills and MashAllah the result has been quite promising. I have taught Photoshop to more than 10 people, have even conducted workshops. Seeing hopeless faces in designing – I always used to tell people ‘it takes some time to move higher..‘ and same happened with me (:

Let me share my 2 layouts that marked the beginning of my precious skill!

For recent work, freel to visit my online portfolio: http://axdimensions.deviantart.com/gallery/

It’s been a year since I started blogging, started doing startups, started going on a daily job after my graduation and a whole calendar year has passed too (2007-2008 as well as 1429 to 1430 Hijrah). Life in university was quite different than it is in industry!

January 1, 2008 was the day when we launched PakMarkaz.net (PMN), my first startup (with Ammar Faheem). PMN was started to unite the voices of our nation – a place where they could share their thoughts. Due to some serious delay in enhancements and lack of features, we couldn’t continue PMN with the same throttle and both of us got busy into daily life leaving PMN a little on the side. Since I couldn’t participate fully, I left the project circle in the second-quarter of 2008.

While PMN was going low, STUPEFY (a close friend of mine) had an idea through which we could enhance his final year project and convert it into a venture that could help people around the country to make free international calls! Unlike any other venture, this project required couple of investment and we had no clue to if we would be able to generate any ROI because the system worked in an odd way – yes, that is what we used to think about it in the start! We started working on it from last week of January 2008 and used to work day and night on the weekends. Finally, after testing up couple of features we were confident that it would work with every other user. Held a usual brain storm session and named the product ‘Connect2Pk‘. Launched its beta version on March 3, 2008 and with no SEM or SEO skills, we started promoting the product through our contacts. MashAllah, it’s been 11 months since the venture is up and running with a user base of more than 13,000 users and counting! We’ve learnt a lot from it – in fact Connect2Pk has been the core part of my every experiment on the web. Improved the layout, applied various SEO techniques, implemented AdSense, generated around 25% traffic from my blog (in the early days), sent invitations through email and the best part is – provided rapid support to our dear users!

Hopes started gathering around when I saw Connect2Pk growing. And guess what? I had another startup fever :$ But this time, I wanted to build up a proper team so I did couple of meetings with my university group. We shared couple of ideas and finalized to work on one – “Qeemat – a community based pricing system!” We had a team of 8, big enough to even build a social network but may be not everyone was motivated or interested. I had been always excited about my ideas and really wanted to see it live but things started getting delayed. My friends selected me as their team-lead but still the deadlines were part of dreams. I soon realized may be it’s a wrong step to start a startup with a bunch of people and I separated out hearing comments ‘un-realistic deadlines’ etc. Anyway, I started working on my own and set up certain deadlines and Alhamdulillah – Qeemat.com was up & running on that specific point of time. The venture did get a good response from the industry but not much from the users due to which I never looked back at it to improve its set of features. (And I know that’s a wrong attitude!)

Connect2Pk was the only venture that was up & running then. Since things were running quite smooth – I had a chance to explore things. I played a lot with WordPress, even ended up developing a plugin for it. And trust me; I’m really a fan of WP today! I don’t care how bad its code might be (as couple of developers commented negative over its architecture) but it really makes our life easy in putting up small content based web sites and/or blogs.

(Oops! There is just one more to list down..) Back in mid-October, STUPEFY felt like testing another project. How about we aggregate news from local sources and put them in one single place? The idea appealed to me and I suggested if we could give user a more reader-friendly interface by the help of AJAX and DIV (I was inspired by the way Google Reader displays all RSS items). On November 4, 2008 – we launched PakHeadlines with a very basic set of features. This little project of ours still needs some pending work to be done and the response on the website has been so far a little below average. However, I hope if we’ll manage to implement the updates before it gets further late – we might get lucky enough to catch some more readers!

Hmm, that was all about my startup experience during 2007-2008. Today, I’m employed in TPS and working on ‘InSight – ATM monitoring and management suite‘ and was earlier employed at TeraData (from 07-01-2008 to 31-07-2008). I did a small post on my blog when I switched the job (you can read it here). Alhamdulillah things have been quite smooth up here. I am really getting to learn a lot. My colleagues are really amazing – at times I feel blessed! And they really appreciate (and respect :$) me about all the venture experience I’ve been through so far. Anyway, I believe a post like this should have been done earlier but I was quite busy with my job and was trying to concentrate totally on it due to some high priority task.

At the end, I would just like to share few main factors that I believe were the major cause of failure:

• Love your product and dedicate yourself 100% on bringing it right
• Keep struggling hard to improve it
• Even if you fail, you can always learn and improve

And for the last one, I would like to give credit to Jehan Ara who recently shared an amazing video on her blog. Thank you ma’am!

Well, that’s about my past year – I would really love to hear some feedback and suggestions from my dear readers especially if they would like to drop their 2 cents to help me improve on the startups. Err..yes, I do have 2-3 ideas in pipeline for this year and InshAllah I hope to bring them in a more better & positive way.

Have a nice day!