Arfa Karim Honored with LADIESFUND® Khushhalibank Idol Award

Late Arfa Karim Randhawa, the world's youngest Microsoft Certified Professional from Pakistan, was honored with LADIESFUND® Khushh­alibank Idol Award in 4th Ladies Fund Awards 2012 ceremony held at Mohatta Palace Karachi.

Speaking on this occasion, Ghalib Nishtar, President Khushhalibank said that Khushhalibank was privileged to sponsor the LADIESFUND® KHUSHALLIBANK Idol Award as a tribute to the women of Pakistan. “This year’s award is dedicated to Arfa Karim, who sadly left us earlier this year. Arfa Karim is and will continue to be an inspiration for the coming generations of Pakistan. This Award is an acknowledgement of her courage and commitment in pursuit of excellence and endeavor to create a positive image of Pakistan. Overall, the sponsorship of this award is our humble contribution to acknowledge and celebrate the top female role models of the country, particularly those women who are determined to succeed against all odds”.

LADIESFUND Awards are given each year to those Pakistani women who perform outstandingly in their respective fields. Arfa Karim, was one of the many talented individuals honored at the grand award ceremony. It was the unanimous decision of the judges’ panel to posthumously dedicate the LADIESFUND Khushhalibank Idol award in her memory. The parents of late Arfa Karim received her posthumous award in the ceremony.

News Details: Khushh­alibankOfficial Site

NUST Launches Pakistan’s Fastest Supercomputer

National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) inaugurated its fastest supercomputing facility in a ceremony held on Tuesday at its Research Centre for Modeling and Simulation (RCMS).

The supercomputer installed in NUST is the fastest GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) based parallel computing system operating in any organization/academic institution in Pakistan till date.

The supercomputer can perform parallel computation at a peak speed of 132 Teraflops (132 Trillion Operations per second).  It is equipped with multi-core processors and graphics co-processors with inter-processor communication speed of 40 Gbps


Techinical Specifications:

Computer’s Cluster configuration:
66 NODE supercomputer with 30,992 processor cores
2 Head Node (16 Processor Cores)
32 Dual Quad Core Computer Nodes (256 Processor Cores)
32 Nvidia Computing Processors
Each processor has 960 Processor Cores (30,720 processor Cores)
QDR Infiniband Interconnection
21.6TB SAN storage

Imaginational ceremony was presided over by Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) Dr Javaid Laghari.

Speaking at the ceremony, Principal RCMS Engr Sikandar Hayat highlighted some of the unique features of this state-of-the-art computing facility recently acquired by Nust through financial grant by Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST).

Hayat said that besides the supercomputer’s extensive utilisation in the computation-intensive research projects in the areas of Fluid Dynamics and Biosciences, this massively parallel facility can also be utilized to handle huge data processing applications of social sciences such as Flood and Weather Forecasting, Oil and Gas Exploration, energy efficient building designs and national transportation management.

Addressing the event, Laghari appreciated the efforts of the entire team associated with the project and encouraged all institutions to come forward and benefit from the facility acquired by Nust. He assured HEC’s full support in this regard.

Rector Nust Engr Muhammad Asghar, in his welcome address, sharing his vision, specifically mentioned that the acquisition of the supercomputing facility would be a source of inspiration for PhD scholars, abroad, to return to Pakistan.

“This will give an impetus for collaborative research between universities and other research organizations within the country and abroad.”

Dr Imran Akhtar, the key note speaker, gave a highly motivating and thought provoking speech on the occasion, encouraging young researchers to come forward and utilize the facility in solving national challenges in the areas of engineering, bio-informatics, political science, psychology and social sciences.

News Details:  Pro Pakistani

IT park being set up in Peshawar

 File Photo

PESHAWAR: The provincial information technology department  acquired 25,000 square feet space in Peshawar’s Deans Trade Centre for setting up an information technology park.


Establishment of a similar park is also planned in Abbottabad. To this effect, the IT department signed a memorandum of understanding with the Deans Trade Centre and another with Comsats Institute of Information Technology.

A cheque of initial payment was also given to chief executive officer of Deans Trade Centre Abdul Khaliq.

The function was held at the head office of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board (KPITB).

The government had announced establishment of the two IT parks last year to diversify its investment portfolio and promote information technology sector.

KPITB managing director Amjad Shahid Afridi told participants that the government had allocated Rs1 billion for the project for the next five years and agreed to release it at once to prevent the project from possible interruptions in case of any change in political dispensation.

Mr Afridi said the government would subsidise 80 per cent of power and air conditioning costs, while Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited would provide free broadband services to startups in the two IT parks.

He said around 25,000 square feet of space had been acquired for the establishment of the IT park at Deans Trade Centre Peshawar and that would later be increased to around 100,000 square feet or a whole floor of the building.

He said investors could set up call centres and business process outsourcing and software houses in the two parks but vendors and other services were not included it.

The KPITB managing director said the government would try to keep the whole operation as one window to facilitate investors.

Provincial science and information technology secretary Mohammad Humayun told participants that the government consulted around 30 IT companies in Islamabad before going ahead with the project in light of their advice.

News Details: Dawn.Com

Sikander Baloch, another genius of Pakistan

ABBOTTABAD: After the late Arfa Karim raised the nation’s pride by becoming the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, another Pakistani wonder child has made history after creating seven Microsoft and Google certified computer operating systems in a suburb of Abbottabad.

The 14-year-old student, Sikandar Mehmood Baloch, lives in Bilal Town in Abbottabad. Sikandar not only became a certified expert of 107 computer engineering languages at a young age but has also received certificates of his achievements from Microsoft and performed work for Google.

He has also received 25 certificates as acknowledgement of his unique work performed for Google, the biggest search engine in the world. Sikandar is studying in the 9th grade in a local school and has made many Linux.

Systems (From VVS1 to VVS7) and developed an indigenous anti-virus system as well. He created a world record at the age of nine after making his first operating system. He works with many websites and earns over $70 dollars daily.

News Details: The News

Pakistan Military to Manufacture Handheld Tablets

Pakistan Military is reportedly in process of developing a handheld tablet, a market dominated by the likes of Apple, Amazon and Samsung, reported Express Tribune the other day.

A rather surprising report said that the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) Kamra has started up a new commercial venture with a Chinese company to manufacture smart tablets to strengthen national economy.

It is said that venture may produce several products starting with a computing tablet, a notebook and an eBook reader.

Details suggest that products are initially being marketed in Rawalpindi, but modalities needed to be finalized so it could expand to other cities including Lahore and Karachi.

The competitively priced products, he said, have several benefits because they are being manufactured in Kamra.

“It comes with a joint one-year warranty of PAC and Innavtek. Because PAC is producing it, it will ensure quality. We will also provide backup support,” the official said an official.

Update:

Okay we have got this information, according to which there are two devices (a tablet and e-reader) available for sale. Notebook will be made available in March 2012. Keep reading for more details:

E-Reader: PAC Pad1

• Portable eBook Reader
• 7” TFT Screen
• 480 x 800 Resolution
• 10 Hours Battery time
• Media supported: AVI, MKV, MP4, MP3, PDF, EPUB
• DRM Compliance
• USB Connector
• Price: Rs. 8500

Tablet: PAC eBook 1

• 1 GHz processor
• 7” Capacitive Multi-touch screen
• 1920 x 1280 resolution
• WiFi 802.11 b/g
• 256 MB Ram
• 5 Hours Battery time
• Android 2.3.3
• 4 GB NAND Flash included
• External SD Card upto 32 GB
• Price: Rs. 15,500

Notebook: PAC nBook1

• 11” Screen
• 1920 x 1280 resolution
• WiFi 802.11 b/g
• 1.33 Ghz processor
• 1 GB ram
• 5 Hours battery time
• 120 GB hard disk
• HDMI support
• Price: Rs. 25,500

PAC claims that all products are co-produces and assembled locally, and are sold after quality assurance.

All products come with 1 year warranty.

Where to Buy:

Currently these products are available at PAC Kamra, however, PAC is making arrangements to make these products available in open market, throughout Pakistan.

News details: ProPakistani

Mardan boy develops SMS-based portal

PESHAWAR: Mardan’s 18-year-old Shahzad has developed a social networking portal that does not require an internet connection – “Smile SMS”. The SMS-based social networking service enables users to gather local and international information on their phones, free of cost, without using the internet.

IT-savvy Shahzad has been into developing programmes and websites ever since he was in grade six. This hobby transformed into passion and helped him achieve a lot at a very young age.

Sajjad Khan, one of the users of the service said that in his village, hundreds of students don’t have internet access to use this service. “This is the first time that such a service has been launched in K-P. It is benefitting a lot of people, said Khan.

News Details:  GoodNews.PK

Same Story is Covered in Al-Jazeera too.

Intel Announces Winners at the National Science Fair

Intel Pakistan marked the end of its national science competition by announcing the winners of the Intel National Science Fair, who will go on to represent Pakistan at the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2012, to be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

The grand winners of the Intel National Science Fair are; ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Shiza Ghulab, Mahnoor Hassan and Bushra Shahed from Institute of Computer and Management Sciences, Peshawar. The individual winners are; Musa Rahim Khan from Agha Khan Higher Secondary School, Chitral and Syed Shahzeb Hussain from Army Public School and College, Command and Staff College, Quetta.

Widely attended by youth from all across Pakistan, the National Science Fair showcased more than 85 science projects submitted by young scientists from all across the nation who qualified for a place in the National Science Fair after rigorous competition at district and provincial levels including the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which participated for the first time in 2011.

“Intel recognizes that curiosity, critical thinking and a strong foundation in math and science are necessary for tomorrow’s workforce to compete for the high-tech jobs of the future. The National Science Fair encourages high school students to embrace and explore their interests in these subjects, and pursue paths that may lead to solving the world’s most pressing issues,” said Naveed Siraj, country manager at Intel Pakistan.

The National Science Fair, organized every year by Intel Pakistan in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, is part of Intel’s efforts to contribute to science education reform in Pakistan.  Projects displayed at the National Science Fair were assessed by a panel of renowned judges.

Intel ISEF, the world’s largest pre-college science competition, enables more than 1,500 young scientists from all across the globe to gather on a single platform to exchange ideas and knowledge, showcase cutting-edge science, and compete for over US$ 4 million* in awards and scholarships.

News Details: ProPakistani.PK

Nokia and Djuice join hand to enhance Pakistani developers

Karachi: With a vision to cater to the lower segment of the market, Nokia Pakistan and Djuice have joined hands to start a series of Developer Workshops that aim to provide training focused on S40 devices.
The first workshop in this chain was held at Telenor regional office where Tony Torp, Nokia External Trainer shared the details of development tools available to develop mobile apps for S40 devices and gave hands-on training to the participants.

Giving his views on the workshop, Tony Torp said, “Yet again it was wonderful to interact with the enthusiastic developers of Karachi, shared with them the S40 background and provide hands-on training on the tools available to work on mobile apps for S40 platform. The developers clearly understood why it will be beneficial for them and their community to contribute towards content development and they all took keen interest in the workshop.”

Expressing her views, Rabia Azfar Nizami, Business Development Manager EDX, Near East, NOKIA said, “I appreciate the interest level of Karachi’s developer community to learn and excel in their chosen field. Nokia has been organizing these kinds of workshops for developers in Pakistan for the past 1 year. As part of the chain that Nokia has initiated in Pakistan to provide new opportunities to the local developers, this time around Nokia partnered with Telenor to offer training for S40 platform. The workshop was geared towards channelizing the strengths of local developers and providing them a rich bundle of resources to develop more locally relevant mobile apps for S40 devices which are most popular among the masses in our country.”

News Details: The News Tribe

First Local Search Engine “Raftaar Pakistan” Launched

Karachi: Pakistan’s first local search Engine “Raftaar Pakistan” has been launched in the country with the aim to facilitate internet users to explore filtered and Pakistan-based content rapidly.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has designed this online search engine (www.pakistan.pk/search) that will entertain a particular search string by fetching the relevant information from websites registered under .pk ccTLD.

Raftaar Pakistan is expected to catch the attraction of broadband internet service providers in order to encourage and promote local search facility.

PTA would welcome to work with Broadband services providers to host Raftaar. Besides, PTA launched various application services on its online national rabta portal (www.pakistan.pk). The primary focus behind the launch is to assist local Internet users in retrieving various information specific to Internet resource information and content of the country.

National Whois application will help the user to access ownership and management information of an IP address of Pakistan. The Whois service is linked up with APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Center) database.

ICT rabta pages service will assist a user to retrieve contact and general information about ICT industry of the country whereas educational portal service will help the students and general community to access information regarding public & private educational institutes, scholarships and skill development programs available in the country.

 News Details: The News Tribe

Pakistan IT companies participating in GDC

Pakistan’s six IT companies are participating in the biggest platform of gaming and animation world, Game Developers Conference (GDC) being held in San Francisco from March 5 to 9.

Pakistan Software Export Boards (PSEB) is sponsoring a delegation of Pakistani companies to this largest conference of its kind in the world with expenses including airfare and partial subsidy for participation fees.
The participating companies mainly work in the field of gaming and animation are iTrango, Jin Technologies, DTL and others having different expertise, working capacity and business turnover.

PSEB invited Expression of Interests (EOIs) from its member companies for mega event last month. It received dozens of applications while only 6 companies were selected after evaluating the business and professional potential of the IT companies in Games Designing.

PSEB expects that the companies would attempt to attain maximum benefit from the event by bringing business/foreign investment to Pakistan and project Pakistan’s IT sector as a viable, cost effective, high quality destination for developing Gaming Products, a PSEB official Saluman Hassan said.

The event addresses multiple platforms, such as dedicated gaming consoles, handheld devices, cell phones, online and of course computers. The GDC provides an excellent opportunity to interact with well-established industry veterans and network with prospective customers and companies.

News Details: The News Tribe

COMSATS Trained Visually Impaired Students

COMSATS Internet Services (CIS) in partnership with Directorate of Special Education & Social Welfare concluded a 6-week web design training course to a group of 25 visually impaired students at National Library and Research Center (NLRC), Islamabad.

The training was conducted from January 2nd, 2012 to February 10th, 2012 at the library by Manager Software of CIS, Mr. Abid Rizvi.

The training covered many web design topics including HTML, CSS, page layouts, Notepad as editor, Dreamweaver, Firebug, domain registration & hosting, and website update and maintenance.

The 6-week training was concluded by a certificate distribution ceremony at NLRC where Director General Special Education & Social Welfare, Mr. Syed Mustafain Kazmi was the chief guest.

Other guests included Mr. Asim Shahryar Husain, CEO, COMSATS Internet Services, and Ms. Munazza Gilani, Manager, Sightsavers Pakistan.

On the occasion CEO CIS highlighted that mission of COMSATS is to use technology for social benefit through programs such as telehealth and training and it is a proud moment for COMSATS that it has trained these visually impaired students to be able to design websites sitting at home.

News Details: ProPakistani

PM Approves USF Projects in Balochistan and Sindh

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, approved two projects to provide basic telephony and data services in Balochistan and broadband services in interior Sindh. The meeting also decided to initiate more telecom related projects in Balochistan to improve the telecom services in the province.

Prime Minister also laid emphasis on initiation of more developmental projects, especially in Balochistan using technologies like optic fiber, microwave, satellite and telecom excellence centers. Prime Minister also directed to conduct training for people living in un-served areas so that direct and indirect employment opportunities can be created for them and digital divide can be bridged. He urged the Fund to enhance equitable services to all segments of the society and also ensure that funds are used economically as well as prudently.

The meeting was informed that the rural telecom project in Mastung Lot, basic telephony and data services will be provided to a population of 74,831 people which reside in 102 muzas. Mastung Lot consists of Mastung, Nushki and Ziarat districts. In the broadband project of Southern Telecom Region-V, the broadband services would be provided in 73 towns and cities in 10 districts namely Ghotki, Jacobabad, Kambar Shahdadkot, Kashmore, Khairpur, Larkana, Naushahro feroze, Shaheed Benazir Abad (Nawabshah), Shikarpur and Sukkur. The project aims at provision of 78,000 broadband connections in these districts. It was informed that in addition to this, 206 Educational Broadband Centers (EBCs) would be established in higher-secondary schools and colleges and 93 Community Broadband Centres (CBCs) for those who cannot afford to have their own personal computers.

The board noted that USF had made immense progress under the rural telecom programme as USF has provided basic telephony and data services in more than 3,500 muzas. Broadband services have been provided in 256 2nd and 3td tier cities and towns along with providing almost 334,000 broadband connections and establishing 943 EBCs and 291 CBCs. In the optic fiber programme, around 3,960 kms of optic fiber cable has been laid to connect 58 un-served tehsils and towns. To take broadband internet to the villages, USF has launched another Programme. The pilot project of that programme is also under implementation aiming to bring the most modern e-Services through broadband, down to the village level. With these achievements, USF has created a success story for the public-private partnership entities nationally and internationally, the meeting was told.

News Details: ProPakistani

My Brighter Pakistan [Google Search Trends]

While reading a post on ProPakistani the other day about Pakistan’s number one ranking for searching the word Sex in Google, I really felt disgraced and disturbed. The reason was obvious and needs no explanation.

I felt that are we Pakistanis only excelling in this thing? Are we only searching for Sex on Google? The post and stats kept on striking my mind and I finally decided to open Google and searched for few other trends. The results which I found were amazing and are as below:

1. Muhammad (PBUH)

The first word for which I checked in the trends was Muhammad (PBUH) and was glad to see that Pakistan is ranked as number one in the world to search about the word “Muhammad (PBUH)” where as 5 Pakistani cities topped the first 5 spots.

2. Islam

Pakistan is ranked as number third in the world to search about the word “Islam” on Google in 2011.

3. Quran

Pakistan is at number one spot in the world to search about the world “Quran” on Google where as Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore are respectively 1st, 2nd and 3rd cities in the world to search about the word “Quran” on Google in 2011.

4. Education

Pakistan is the also ranked as number one country in the world to search about the world “Education”on Google in Year 2011.

5. English

Pakistan is the ranked number one for searching about “English” on Google in Year 2011 whereas Karachi and Lahore are respectively 1st and 2nd in the list of cities which search more than any other city about the same word in the world.

6. Scholarships
Pakistan is also ranked as number 5th for searching the word “Scholarships” on Google in year 2011whereas Islamabad & Lahore are respectively at 4th & 5th spot.

 

Else than above mentioned Pakistan is ranked as 1st country for searching the term “Jobs” & “Peace”, 7th position for searching the term “Information Technology”, 2nd for searching the term “Physics” & “Thesis”.

All these results show a positive side of us. Every society and every nation comprises of good and bad people. From one search term it can’t be assumed that we Pakistanis are using internet solely for negative purposes. There are more search terms in which Pakistan is among top 10 countries in the world. We being Pakistanis should try to highlight our strengths too.

May ALLAH (SWT) bless us.


News Details: ProPakistani

Jaffer Brothers Wins Oracle PartnerNetwork Award

Jaffer Brothers (JBL) was awarded the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized Asia Pacific “Award for Oracle Accelerate, said a statement issued by the company.

The Awards were given to partners at the Oracle Asia Pacific Applications Partner Summit in Phuket, Thailand earlier this year. Jaffer Brothers is a Gold level member in Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN).

The award reflects Jaffer Brothers success leveraging its Oracle Accelerate offering to bring industry-specific capabilities to midsize companies in Pakistan. Oracle Accelerate solutions are not stripped-down applications.

They are the same world-class applications relied upon by many of the most successful businesses in the world. Each Oracle Accelerate solution is tailored to a specific industry, with industry leading business process flows. The solutions are implemented by experienced Oracle partners or Oracle Consulting, so that organizations get up and running quickly.

The results are faster time to value, lower and more predictable costs than a standard implementation, and a solution that is designed to fit the customer’s business. The partners nominated for this award were the top performing Oracle Accelerate Asia Pacific partners in 2011.

“This is an exceptional accomplishment. We are pleased that Oracle has recognized our Oracle Accelerate solution and we look forward to continuing to bring Oracle’s enterprise-class capabilities to midsize organizations in Pakistan,” Said Faheem Jaffer, Country Manager-Jaffer Consulting-Jaffer Brothers Pvt. Limited.

News Details: ProPakistani

2011: Pakistan IT Industry Records Golden Year in History

2011 marked as a golden year in the Information and Technology (IT) industry of Pakistan with lots of unprecedented achievements, solid developments and emerging potential, building a strong hope towards the bright future of the country.

Here are highlights of major achievement of Pakistan in 2011

Pakistan Fast Growth 25

Pakistan Fast Growth 25, a ranking of fast growth entrepreneurial companies, listed 10 IT companies on its index first time.


Official Game for ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup

Pakistani games development company, Mindstorm Studios successfully developed the “Official Game” for the ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup.


Pak-India ICT Firms Vow To Enhance Trade up to $5 billion

Pakistanis and Indian IT titans have decided to carry on their efforts for developing an “India-Pakistan e-land” at the border where people can meet, interact, teach, learn and jointly develop intellectual property.

It was deliberated in the talks that Pakistan and India could boost their mutual trade in Information and Technology (IT) sector up to colossal US$ 5 billion through joint-ventures, investment and exchange of expertise.


Netsol Deal with Indian company

Pakistan’s one of the top ICT companies, Netsol, has been engaged with Indian companies to provide applications of financial services.


Google Grants To Social Innovators

This is first time in the history of the country that a global IT giant has granted seed money to a local association for any social cause.

Google Inc, has granted $250,000 to Pakistan Software Houses Association, that launched Pasha Fund for distributing the allocated amount to the 25 talented innovators.


Pepper.pk Mobile Apps Hit No.1 Spot

Pepper.pk application has hit the number one spot on the global Blackberry marketplace, App World. The application, called LED Notifier Pro, has been immensely popular since its launch and is currently ranked the best selling Blackberry application in the world.


TenPearls Wins Nokia Contest Twice

Pakistani firm TenPearls has marked another record as it has bagged 2nd position and received a $50,000 cash prize at ‘Nokia & AT&T Innovators 2011 Contest’.

This is the second award TenPearls has received for its mobile app named “Animal 101” within a year in which it competed against more than 800 entrants for top spots.

The first award was the 1st prize that TenPearls received for the uTrack mobile app earlier in 2011 for the same platform in Pakistan


Pakistan Shines at APICTA

One of the major achievement of the country, when Pakistan was declared as winner of two gold and five silver awards at 11th annual Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) 2011 in Pattaya, Thailand.

Pakistani ICT firms secured two Gold awards in the e-Health and e-Logistics & SCM categories and 5 silvers in the Communication, Financial, Security, E-Inclusion & E-Community and E-Government categories.


Pakistani website, world’s third largest B2B portal

Trdaekey.com,world’s fastest growing business website, monthly traffic of over 8.5 million visitors. PkPositive also cover this story.


News Details: ProPakistani

ProPakistani Tribute to Arfa Karim

 ProPakistani is largely known for publishing exclusive and topnotch content relating to local telecom and broadband industry.Their site is http://propakistani.pk.

ProPakistani Published a special report  about Arfa Karim, Few selected parts of this article are mentioned below for details Kindly visit this link "ProPakistan.com" 

Arfa Karim; it’s a name that needs no introduction. She made the nation proud when she became the youngest ever Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) in 2004 at the age of 9.

"“Actually when I was six years old, I saw my first computer; whenever you see something new you want to find, what is it? How does is it work? So I used to mess around and I got to know quite a lot of things about it from the hit and trial method and in about two years I got to know how to operate windows and different software’s completely." : Arfa,

Arfa won numerous awards and accolades. Among the ones awarded by the government were the Fatima Jinnah Gold Medal in the field of Science and Technology, the Salam Pakistan Youth Award and the Presidents Award for Pride of Performance of which she was the youngest recipient ever.

Arfa represented Pakistan on various international forums like the IT Professionals of Dubai in which she was given various medals and awards. In 2006, she was invited by Microsoft to be a part of the keynote session in the Tech-Ed Developers conference held in Barcelona. The theme of the conference was “Get ahead of the game” and she was the only Pakistani in more than 5000 developers in that conference.

Arfa was proud of her achievement and even put “Youngest MCP in the world” in her email signature. Her dreams were to study at Harvard, work in a company like Microsoft and return to Pakistan to revolutionize the field of satellite engineering.

It’s a pity that she died so young. Our thoughts and hearts go out to her family who must be devastated at her loss. May Allah grant her a place in heaven.

Prayers for Arfa Karim

  
Arfa Karim, the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, is fighting her battle for life. She has been on a ventilator since December 22, 2011. Arfa got an epileptic attack which damaged her heart and brain and since then, she is in a coma.

Arfa’s father Lt. Col (Retd) Amjad Kareem Randhawa has revealed that Arfa moving her few fingers and her brain showed some activity.  He also told the press that doctors no longer consider his daughter’s case as hopeless after EEG reports have shown brain activity.

She still remains in a critical state and doctors have renewed efforts in trying to save her.

Arfa represented Pakistan among 5000 developers in the Tech-Ed Developers Conference, held in Barcelona in November 2006, where she was a keynote speaker. By age 10, she earned her first flying certificate by flying a plane at a flight club in Dubai.

 Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has contacted Arfa’s parents expressing his wish for Arfa to be treated in the United States. He has directed his doctors to leave no stone unturned in treating the young MCP. Gates’s doctors have contacted Arfa’s Pakistani doctors to get details about her health and treatment. Pakistani doctors are of the belief that since she is on ventilator, it would not be feasible to move her to another treatment facility.

She is also a poet. Here is a list of her poems: http://www.poemhunter.com/arfa-karim/poems/
Some more information about her is here: Tech.RatedSawj

I request you all to pray for the extraordinary young girl...

120% IT Sector Growth in the first fourth months of the fiscal year 2011-12

Pakistan’s IT industry has gained limelight as it foreign investors are seeking healthy opportunity to work with local software houses and service providers as shown by the substantial inflow of foreign investment in the country.

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) statistics said the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the IT sector witnessed growth of 120 percent, attracting capital of US $ 9.4 million in the first fourth months of the fiscal year 2011-12 compared with corresponding period of previous year.

The FDI inflows were recorded in software development with US $6.5 million; IT services with US $ 1.8 million and hardware services with US $ 1.1 million respectively.

Industry people said that global companies are seeking joint-ventures with local firms or planning to set up their outlets for exploiting talents of the local industry in different fields.

Foreign companies having offices in Pakistan are trying to scale up their business with expansion of their networks and production volume, they said. Hence, the FDI witnessed handsome growth in the current fiscal year and a business volume has been increasing with number of employment in the IT sector.

News Details: ProPakistani

Pakistan IT Exports Up 32.6% in Q1 FY 2012

Pakistan’s exports of IT and IT-enabled services witnessed an outstanding growth of 32.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011-12 compared with the corresponding period of past financial year, reflecting improving penetration of local IT companies in different countries of the world.

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) statistics showed that Pakistan IT and ITES exports increased to reach US $ 61 million in Jul-Sep 2011 versus US $ 45 million exports recorded in the same period of 2010.

The SBP’s statistics showed exports earning remitted into country from various regions however exports were estimated to reach US $ 244 million in accordance with WTO formula.

Pakistan exports software based IT solutions, financial and mobile applications, BPOs services and infrastructure development support services to different countries.

Industry experts said that the achievement of growth in exports value is quite good for the industry in the scenario when global downturn has exerted its impacts on IT and other industries worldwide.

They said that the exports have been shifted from US, UK and Middle East markets slightly to African markets, which are considered as lucrative for Pakistan IT firms particularly the south part where the infrastructure development has witnessed enormous growth lately.

The countries are Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria where basic communication network and financial services are being developed by their respective governments, private sectors and international donors like World Bank.

Most of the Pakistani companies are working for financial institutions, automobile, call centers and miscellaneous services sectors in different countries.

United State of America is the largest buyer of Pakistan’s IT-enable service having lion share in country’s exports. It is followed by UK, where the exports are hovering around 10 percent. The pie of total exports shows 16 percent share of other countries including Australia, Canada, Thailand, UAE, Ghana and others.

News Details: ProPakistani

Pakistani website, world’s third largest B2B portal

  Trdaekey.com,world’s fastest growing business website, monthly traffic of over 8.5 million visitors  

Karachi: You would never think that a company that was giving Alibaba.com – the world’s largest business-to-business portal – a run for its money around the world was based out of Karachi and yet there it is. Tucked away in an office suite on Sharae Faisal, the global headquarters of Tradekey.com look rather unremarkable, until you start asking the executives what they have achieved and what they plan on doing next.

“We want to be one of the world’s biggest companies,” says Junaid Mansoor, the founder and CEO of Tradekey, in a rather matter-of-fact tone of voice. “We want to be in businesses that affect the largest number of people.”

Tradekey.com, the world’s third largest B2B portal, is certainly an impressive beginning by the 32-year-old Mansoor, has about 5.8 million members, of whom only about 5,000 have paid subscriptions, the source of the bulk of the company’s revenues, though the company also offers advertising services.

Crucially from the company’s perspective, however, it has been growing at a rate of more than 86% a year.the website is ranked number 7 worldwide by Google’s page rankings, compared to number 6 for Alibaba.com. The company also claims that there are about 20 million keywords where Tradekey.com would be on the first page of a Google search.

News details: Express Tribune