STEP – Science, Technology, and Education in Pakistan

Bilal Zafar is a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California (USC) and a graduate research assistant at the Information Sciences Institute. His research work is focused on computer architecture and interconnection networks, and real passion is teaching. He has served two terms as a Teaching Assistant Fellow at USC’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, and was the receipient of Best Teaching Assistant award in 2006.

In collaboration with IEEE-LUMS and IEEE-NUCES as part of IEEE-week, STEP has organized talks by Saad Fazil and Kellee Santiago on February 7th, 2010. The talks will be streamed live and a brief Q&A session will follow each talk.

The talks will be aimed at a general audience. Undergraduate and graduate students with non-engineering backgrounds are also encouraged to attend.

Title: Technology Blogging and Entrepreneurship

Where: LUMS Department of Computer Science, Saeed  Saigol Auditorium .
When: Sunday, February 7, 8:00am Pakistan Standard Time

Abstract:

Whether you want to blog as a professional, grow in your current job, start a technology company, or even influence policy — effective blogging and know-how about blogosphere can play a critical role in your success. This talk will primarily look at blogging as a career and blogging as a means to entrepreneurship. I will discuss what you need to do to be a successful technology blogger and how you can use blogging to start and sell your business

Bio:

Saad Fazil does freelance writing for VentureBeat, where he focuses on deep analysis of emerging trends in the industry. He is the founder of Whizner Consulting, a technology strategy consulting firm. Prior to consulting, he held business analyst, product management, and sales consultant positions at Kayak.com, Oracle, and Alcatel. He received his MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. He blogs at IT Valley and tweets at @sfrocks.

Where: LUMS Department of Computer Science,  Saeed Saigol Auditorium.
When: Sunday, February 7, 9:00am Pakistan Standard Time

Abstract: 

Games will be the most prevalent medium of the 21st Century – more than radio, film, and television combined in the 20th. So as leaders in this medium, what do you hope to accomplish, and how can you get there?  In this talk, Kellee Santiago (President & Co-Founder) will discuss thatgamecompany’s approach to developing innovative games, and will explain why they hope that all of you will join them in doing so. She will walk through TGC’s process from first approaching a concept through prototyping and execution, taking examples from their previous PSN release, “Flower.”

Bio:

Kellee Santiago is President and Co-Founder of thatgamecompany (TGC). TGC’s goal is to make video games that communicate different emotional experiences, and expand the communicative possibilities of games. Kellee graduated from the MFA Interactive Media program at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts where her research focused on game design, interactive narrative, and physical and gestural interfaces for digital media. While at USC she teamed up with fellow student Jenova Chen to develop the student-created game, “Cloud.” The game went on to become critically acclaimed, after which the two decided to found their own studio, thatgamecompany, and landed a three game deal with Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. to develop downloadable games for Playstation Network. Their first two commercial releases, “flOw”, and “Flower,” went on to become award-winning and two of the top downloaded games on PSN.

Kellee is also a TED2010 Fellow.

“Kabhi kabhi to humaray zayhen main aisay khayal aata hay keh agar Zardari ki baytee Swat main parhti to shaid school bund hee nahein hotay”. Read the rest of this entry »

A 1997 study of data from the University of Delaware found that across a wide range of universities in the US “education programs were funded below the institutional average for all disciplines” and at the more prestigious research universities “education programs were less well-funded than other professional programs, with the exception of social work and accounting”. The idea that quality teachers cannot be prepared “on the cheap” is getting a renewed look and gaining significant traction in the US and there might be important lessons for Pakistan to learn from this discussion.  Read the rest of this entry »

LUMS has been shut down for a week. And as I said to a friend, maybe it’s a good thing. Because we, the ones at LUMS, are so disconnected from Pakistan, that it had to take the death of seven students, seven of our people, to make us pause our movies and type google news instead of facebook in our urls. Because with the divide between classes here, it’s as if Pakistan is two countries; one where all the news comes from, bombs, stampedes at ration lines, acid attacks, rapes and one where LUMS is, where people (even a few crazy women) can walk the clean quiet streets of defence and cantt, where people dine in every increasing style, where the only effects of terrorism are a few tiresome roadblocks and the echos of blasts far far away. Terrorism has reached our country now and we are slightly disturbed at it.

So finally the budding intellectuals of Pakistan have turned their attention to this problem that they had heard about but never really experienced before this. But this turned out to be a problematic exercise for me. Ask me what I want to see in this country. And I can flood your ears with concepts such as pluralism, freedom, justice, democracy, even anarchism in the style of Noam Chomsky. But ask me, “how do you get to there, from here?” And I am mute. And my hands drop uselessly to my sides. Or rather, they go up and cover my eyes because there is no point of sight when you can’t move.

My philosophy won’t work here because I know what I want but I have no way to make it happen.

I want these killings to end. I want the discourse to become more nuanced than “Islamic terrorism”. I want people to realize that all Muslims aren’t killers and that to say so, even as a joke, is to open the door to a dangerous generalization. I want Muslims to be able to criticize Israel on it’s war crimes without being attacked as fundamentalists. I want Muslims to stop defending what’s happening in our country and stop using conspiracy theories to deflect blame onto the US and its cronies. I want things to become less simplistic. But it can’t happen. Because there are certain interests for USA in creating the image of a Muslim terrorist. Because there is a certain complacency in the Muslim attribution of blame to the west. We all want to blame someone because then the responsibility to fix the problem is placed on whoever is blamed. And man is inherently lazy.

I want the people of Pakistan to be united. But for so many groups with so many nationalist claims to unite under one banner or one leader or even one party is impossible.

I want Pakistan to be partitioned into it’s four provinces. But for that to take place without bloodshed is a myth unheard of in our part of the World. And then there is the problem of our geographical location. A problem that we refer to with a mixture of pride and sorrow. The problem is that we are essential to too many interests. We are a troublesome neighbor to far too many important countries for those interests to allow us to divide for internal peace. Better a war ridden Pakistan than four small states who don’t border all those territories that actually matter to the World.

I want us to not think in terms of nationalism and patriotism. Because what use are these constructs? Why is a fellow Pakistani worth anymore than someone who just happens to be born in Iran or India? Why can’t we cherish human life and human development regardless of which boundary it occurs in? We cannot because such trajectories of thinking have never been offered to us. We cannot because if every Pakistani began to think of him or herself as an individual and began to work for their own benefit, all Pakistan would get is a slap from the invisible hand. Individualism abroad means greater progress because there are structures in which that individualism is exercised. Here, individualism is destruction. It is individualism that makes so many LUMS students rejoice that our university has closed in the middle of exams, because they hadn’t studied and would have scored “below the mean” in a course. Yes, there are Pakistanis who are rejoicing in this moment.

I want such Pakistanis, all Pakistanis to realize what it means to be at war. I want us to work. Ceaselessly. Because work alone can produce results and yes, it might be a Western concept to cherish work oh-so-much instead of sipping tea with the family but I want us to realize that tea and drawing room chats won’t do anything for us. But we can’t. Because when we go to school we die; when we talk out loud, we disappear; when we write, they write back threats. And why should we work? Why should we bother, sitting in our generator powered homes, surfing the net on our shiny laptops, going to cafes and stealing kisses on campus? Of course the greatest issue for LUMS to consider is kissing on campus. Of course. Because what effect does Pakistan’s appalling Gender Equity Index ratings have on a campus where women make up nearly half the student body? What effect do rising food prices have for us, with our regulated cafeteria prices?

So maybe it is good that LUMS has shut down for a week. But will this week change anything, I wonder? An essay here, a comment there. And this week will pass. And the rat race within LUMS will begin again. And you and I, as rational actors, will realize that nothing we do can help Pakistan and we should simply help ourselves by burying our heads in our imported traditions, getting the grades and rushing abroad the first chance we get.

I want things to change. But they won’t. Because we are stuck, you and I and scores like us. And I don’t know how we can get unstuck.

On Funding Projects from the Industry

STEP: Till now, mostly you were funding projects in the academia. Would you be looking at funding projects that are directly initiated by the industry?

QS: We are supposed to fund projects submitted by the industry. Our proposal can be initiated by even an individual. But, being an entity that funds public money, the longevity of the institution to which we are giving money is very important to us. An individual can take the money (from us), work for a little while, and then disappear. What do we do then? Universities don’t disappear. They can provide longevity and credibility to the project. And, it is not (just) longevity for the length of that project but even after that. Read the rest of this entry »

On the History of the Fund

STEP Editors: Let’s start with the history of the Fund, if you can tell us a little bit about it. We understand that it was in a dormant state before it was revitalized.

Dr. Qasim Shaikh, CEO, National ICT R&D Fund:

Yes, it was in a dormant state but, as I tell my team, I don’t think that we are the opening batsmen of this team.  Actually, the Fund was created when PTCL was the only telecom operator (in the country). I think, and somebody has to correct me, that the key person who pushed (that) some of the PCTL’s earnings should go into research and development in Pakistan, like Bell Labs at ATT, was Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman. Then the Deregulation Act was passed and in the Deregulation Act it was mandatory that every telecom operator will have to contribute 0.5% of their revenue to the Fund. That included internet service providers as well, not just the large service providers. Since there were more contributors to the Fund than just PTCL, it didn’t make sense for it to stay within PTCL. So, it was taken out of PTCL and created as National ICT R&D Fund.

Read the rest of this entry »

President Asif Ali Zardari has proposed setting up a high-level National Literacy Council “to ensure the launching of a well-coordinated and effective literacy drive throughout the country”, APP is reporting. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy 63rd Independence Day to all our readers.

“Remember that your Government is like your garden. Your garden flourishes by the way you look after it and the efforts that you put towards its improvement. Similarly, your Government can only flourish by your patriotic, honest and constructive efforts to improve it.” — Founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, speaking at Islamia College, Peshawar, April 12, 1948.

Text of the complete speech, titled “Responsibilities of the Youth”, is available at HumSafar.info.

Read the rest of this entry »