In Arfa’s name
There is need to change Arfa’s dreams into reality. The entire nation is mourning the sad demise of the world’s youngest IT professional Arfa Karim Randhawa. She died on January 14 at the very tender age of sixteen. No doubt, she was an extraordinary genius, and a committed and intelligent individual. The grief caused by her untimely death is likely to stay embedded in the collective national psyche for some time, especially given that people like her are born one in a billion. Also, she died too young, before the nation could have benefitted from her talent and prowess in ...
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Two Golds and five Silvers! Well done Pakistan
People view the IT and software industry of Pakistan as a fledgling market. It does not get a lot of media attention and there are many rumours and speculation about what is actually being developed in these offices. However, this industry has behemoth competition, not just from our neighbours, but within the region itself. Our IT and software sector has an organization, which acts as an umbrella body representing and grooming products and companies to pitch to the world, called P@SHA or Pakistan Software Houses Association. A month ago P@SHA held the ICT awards in Pakistan, where they selected 18 ...
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IT woes: Pakistan’s software houses need to share
Despite their strength in numbers, many local industries have lost their competitive edge in core product offerings. Let us examine one such industry: Pakistan’s IT sector. The two biggest industry associations, PASHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association) and PSEB (Pakistan Software Export Board) represent a total of 1,800 members (400 and 1400 respectively). But these numbers do not translate into dollars when compared to other regional players. Despite the large number of PSEB members, the total size of software and IT services export from Pakistan is only slightly over a billion dollars – that is 50 times less than India’s. Although Pakistan’s IT Industry ...
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Internet – the final frontier!
Not so long ago, a group of smart British MPs (236 to be exact), sitting on their cushiony green benches, decided to vote on and accept the Digital Economy Bill. The bill enabled copyright holders to block a household’s internet connection for downloading copyright material without permission. Quite naturally, the “criminals” were angered. Not to worry though. Shortly thereafter a group of smart unknown coders, possibly sitting on their not-so-cushiony chairs of unknown colour, wrote an 86-line code to make bittorrents (choice method of downloading for “criminals” all over the world) untraceable. Joy returned to the e-world and all was ...
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