Bookmarking Desi Innovators & Ventures

SeenReport and Jaroka Tele-Healthcare, winners of mBillionth Award 2010

by Rafaeel Akbar Chaudhry July 24th, 2010

 

Winners - mBillionth Awards 2010

It was Jehan and Rabia Garib’s twitter feed that led me to register my product for the mBillionth Award 2010. When I registered, I knew that we’ll be rejected in even short listing as we couldn’t find an appropriate category to nominate our product. Moreover our application was unlaunched and running in private alpha amongst our own company employees. We thought that by the time jury will judge our entry, we will launch the public alpha. But if you are in a telecom business where operators have an upper hand, launching your service independently becomes a herculean task. I don’t know which place did we end up in Grand Jury held in Colombo last month but I am happy that we were at least shortlisted for jury.

The m-Billionth Award South Asia 2010 was the first of its kind in the region recognizing and felicitating mobile innovations, applications and content services delivery. It was arranged to honour excellence in mobile communications across South Asia spread over 10 core categories. The m-Billionth Award is designed as an annual South Asia’s leading mobile content’s award platform towards larger regional Mobile Congress in media and policy advocacy. The platform was created with the help of DIT and Digital Empowerment Foundation who have come together to create a regional platform and had support of partners like mint newspaper, VAS companies like IMImobile, OnMobile, One97 and the umbrella organization such as IAMAI (Internet & Mobile Association of India). Pakistan Software House Association (P@SHA) was the Country Partner, Bytesforall , the Strategic Partner and CIO Pakistan, the Media Partner from our side. (more…)

 

The order of career

by Saad Omer April 3rd, 2010

A lot of young graduates seem to focus on the wrong things in the beginning of their careers. While they should attend to learning the arts and crafts of the industry, somehow their main focal point remains the salary being offered. This diverts them from entering a golden period of learning the practical tools in the start of their jobs, a training which will essentially translate into their future growth. Instead, they visualize getting a higher starting salary as an effective achievement; and to obtain it, they often make wrong choice of leaving good job offers, just because they pay less.

Perhaps I would not blame the fresh grads for this. Having the sense mentioned above, is a judgement which is required to be given to them by their institutes before spilling them into the job market. But they are too busy making big amount of money from the students. It is but natural, that a graduating student will assume that it is ‘his turn’ now, since he has already paid few lac rupees to the institutes over the past 3 or 4 years. To their disappointment, this is not the case.

For all corporate, a graduating student is a piece of lump which they have to shape up and customize. The knowledge about the industry he got from the school, comprises of only 10% of what is required to do his job. In short, they hire a plain guy which they have to train according to their needs, which required time, money and effort. Do you think in addition to the above hassles they have to face, they would consider giving big amount of money to the trainee? If your answer is yes, think again!

As a fresh graduate, you have to fully and only focus on your immediate target: TO LEARN. Forget about the earning for the first 2 to 3 years of your career. Your job is to learn whatever you can, without worrying about the salary and benefits. Once you are out of this period, you will discover a secret. The organizations will handpick you themselves. It all depends upon how good of a gem you have become by the virtue of your learning. But to get the best, you have to be the best. Remember, there are no shortcuts for experience!

 

Five Pakistanis recognized as Young Global Leaders

by Rafaeel Akbar Chaudhry March 5th, 2010

YGL 2010 Honouress from Pakistan

EntrepreneursPK Team is glad to inform its readers that 5 Pakistanis have been honored with the Young Global Leader 2010 title by the World Economic Forum. Those who have made us proud this year are Mr. Amir Jahangir (CEO, JAAG Broadcasting (Pvt.) Ltd.), Mr. Hamid Yar Hiraj (Federal Minister of State, Commerce), Mr. Muhammad Ali Tabba (CEO, Lucky Cement), Syed Mustafa Kamal (Ex-Mayor/City Nazim, Karachi) and Mr. Umar Saif (Founder, Saif Center of Innovation (SCI) ).

It feels great to know that our fellow country men are part of the list that includes Roger Federer, Professional Tennis Player (from Switzerland), Evan Williams, CEO Twitter  (from the USA) and Mandla Mandela, Member of Parliament of the South African National Congress (from South Africa) etc.

This Forum of Young Global Leaders is a unique, multi-stakeholder community of exceptional young leaders who share a commitment to shaping the global future. Each year the World Economic Forum identifies 200-300 extraordinary individuals, drawn from every region of the world. The individuals recognized are under 40 years of age and are evaluated on the basis of their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. Together, they form a powerful international community that can dramatically impact the global future.

WEF on 3rd March 2010 has announced the names of 197 people from 72 countries who are to join the Forum of Young Global Leaders in 2010. Those selected are all stakeholders of society (business, social entrepreneurs, political&government, arts&culture, and opinion&media). They represent all regions: East Asia (43), South Asia (21), Europe (46), Middle East and North Africa (14), sub-Saharan Africa (17), North America (38), and Latin America (18) and this year’s selection has more gender parity than ever with 38% women.

Drawn from a pool of almost 5,000 candidates, the Young Global Leaders 2010 were chosen by a selection committee, chaired by H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, comprised of eminent international media leaders.

The 2010 honourees will become part of the broader Forum of Young Global Leaders community that currently comprises 660 outstanding individuals. The Young Global Leaders meet annually and this year’s summit will be held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2-7 May. It is the first time a summit will take place in Africa and it will also be the largest gathering of the community.

We wish and hope that the trend continues and 2011 YGL Honourees list contains names of many more local impact makers.

Young Global Leaders Dead Sea Summit

EntrepreneursPK Team is glad to inform its readers that 5 Pakistanis have been honored with the Young Global Leader 2010 title by the World Economic Forum. Those who have made us proud this year are Mr. Amir Jahangir (CEO, JAAG Broadcasting (Pvt.) Ltd.), Mr. Hamid Yar Hiraj (Federal Minister of State, Commerce), Mr. Muhammad Ali Tabba (CEO, Lucky Cement), Syed Mustafa Kamal (Ex-Mayor/City Nazim, Karachi) and Mr. Umar Saif (Founder, Saif Center of Innovation (SCI) ).