When did your involvement with GIK Institute start? What was the vision for GIKI and, after 17 years, is GIKI where you envisioned it to be?

I was among the people, including several foreign professors, invited by then-President Ghulam Ishaq Khan — around 1989-90 — for  brainstorming sessions about the proposed Institute. The idea of starting a private university in science and engineering was quite novel [at the time] for Pakistan, and it was meant to be an instrument for breaking out of the mediocrity trap gripping Pakistan’s other engineering Universities.

My dream was for GIKI to become a community of self-governing scholars, a place where reason and innovation would rule and where the only thing that matters – the quality of student emerging from it – would be at the center of all our efforts.  These graduates would also be proficient in their work and aware of their own cultural heritage as well as those of other people, and  imbued with the processes of (mathematical) reasoning. This dream is yet incomplete as it requires civilizing the engineers and scientists also!

What are the obstacles to achieving this vision?

The reasons go back to the founding of the Institute. [At the time of its founding] I disagreed with Topi as the site, and preferred an urban setting near Nowshera, on the main highway and close to a strong industrial cluster, since it was going to be set up in the then-NWFP (now re-named as Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa). President Ghulam Ishaq Khan may have been persuaded by his close associations with WAPDA to set it up next to Tarbela Dam, but this decision has been the fatal flaw holding back GIKI from reaching its true potential. It hardly mattered in the years before HEC started injecting funds into the higher education sector but now it is critical, as GIKI has little access to public funds. My fear is that GIKI will price itself out of the market.

My other recommendation was also not followed in letter and spirit. I had done my undergraduate from Oxford (its engineering department was called the Engineering Sciences Dept .), and remembered it as a program which enabled one to go into manufacturing, or research, or business [after graduation]. It stressed the blurring of boundaries between engineering and physical sciences. GIKI’s name does have the words “Engineering Sciences” in it, and there is a faculty of Engineering Sciences, but it is not really in the same spirit of the 100-year old model at Oxford, where every student had to take all subjects (electronics and electrical engineering, computers, heat engines and thermodynamics, mechanical and other civil structures, fluid flows), and then take 3-4 additional advanced courses [in the area of his or her specialization].

When were you brought on-board as the Rector, and when and why did you leave?

I was asked and agreed to become the Rector in June 2008 to but left in January 2009 for one major reason. The Taliban fell in love with me and accused me in a letter in November 2008 of spreading immorality and organizing mehfils of ‘raqs-o-saroor‘, apart from espousing the ideas of the Americans and the Jews, etc., etc. Also, I am quite an independent person, one who has made his own decisions, and it riled me that their shoora had decided to ‘send me to jahannum’ without asking me first!

My focus was always the well-being of the students and to see that they got their money’s worth. I interacted with faculty and students intensively to improve the delivery of education. I also pulled up the administration for their general apathy. I insisted on hygiene and cleanliness in the hostels and dining halls, started improving their sports facilities, and offered to arrange proper music lessons. I encouraged them to patronize local Swabi talent rather relying on relatively expensive pop concerts. I also asked them to be irreverent — to avoid obscurantist dogmas by questioning assumptions, and to remember that no mullah is remembered in Muslim history, while scholars such as Ibn Khaldun and Bu Ali Sina are honoured.  Imagine my frustration at not being able to have even a discussion with the Taliban!

The students were my first concern and without raising alarms, I brought this [letter from the Taliban's shoora] to the notice of the Federal Interior Ministry, which helped to increase police patrolling on the two major roads to Islamabad and Peshawar to prevent any harm to the students. My family came to know only in Jan 2009 and were quite hysterical. So, I decided to quit. Remember, Swat was only an hour away and the military operation against the Taliban did not start for another 10 weeks. There was also the strange case related to the revival of the hair cutting saloon on the campus for female students and faculty wives. This was opposed by a couple of senior (!) faculty wives as being un-Islamic. Incidentally this facility is doing very well.

But, you’re still associated with the Institute (as the Executive Director of SOPREST). What are you working on now?

After the sad demise of Mr. H.U. Baig, I was asked in March 2010 to take over as Executive Director of SOPREST, the society which runs GIKI. I have done so on the understanding that we will be working towards setting up three new Schools of Business, Public Policy, and the Social Sciences in Islamabad under the SOPREST banner.  I am happy to report that the BoG of SOPREST approved this program on its meeting of 17th September.

This new campus is expected to have some 2500 students in place in 10 years. It will provide an integrated approach to business, management, public policy, and simulations and modeling of issues pertaining to problems peculiar to this century, such as security and affordability of energy, water and food. We have requested 50 acres from CDA near Rawal Dam, while a partnership is possible with another Foundation on a 300 acre site near DHA/Bahria.

The support of GIKI alumni will be extremely critical in making this a success. Our alumni  have made a name for themselves, in Pakistan and abroad, and I request them all to support us with suggestions and networking for acquiring talented faculty and, of course, donations. Their advice and experience will be extremely valuable for making GIKI a true University. Our target is to raise some 50 % of the Rs 1.2 billion we will be spending on the venture in the next 5 years. We intend to manage the remainder amount.

A final question about GIKI. Your son was a student at GIKI back in the 90s. If you had the option of sending your son to GIKI now, would you still send him there or to another institute?

[Laughter]. I will probably send him [to GIKI]. It is still one of the best places for engineering in Pakistan.

Moving away from GIKI/SOPREST… You did some pioneering work on lasers in Pakistan, work that can be an example for scientists returning to Pakistan. How did it all start, what did you accomplish and do you see a bright future for the work you started?

It was really exciting! I started as a one-man laser group in 1969 but gradually we developed a very good team. We all complemented one another and we all gave generously of our time.

We built lasers, we used them, and we generated over five billion rupees of revenue through product development over 20 years. Our lasers are leveling farm land in Pakistan and reducing water consumption by more than a third.  I met the Director of the Biotech Institute in South India recently, and was pleased to know that 3 of our land levelers were purchased by them for reverse engineering. Recently, I helped design the position monitoring system for the thousands of detectors in the CMS at CERN in Geneva. All 40 systems have been made in my labs and have been incorporated at CERN’s CMS, and our lasers and precision optics have been used in Germany, Switzerland, and Spain apart from S.E. Asia.

I lapsed from active science in 2005 when I joined the Planning Commission but I’ve been back to my lab about 4 to 5 times, though we stay in touch. Lasers has a good future in Pakistan, and is in good hands.  The National Laser Labs is now being put together, and will commence shortly. I am content that there may now be more people working in lasers in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission than in nuclear physics!

You’ve had a remarkable career in academia, in research labs and in the government as member of the Planning Commission. What do you consider to be your most significant accomplishment? How would you like to be remembered ?

An embarrassing question! I think my legacy would be the starting of a completely new field in Pakistan: Lasers.

Spoken like a true scientist! One final question. Did your work in the government make you more hopeful about Pakistan’s future or less?

Planning Commission was an enormous learning experience for me. I initially looked after science and technology, higher education and industry (a good combination) and later education and health also. This was my first experience of working in the ‘Government’ and I was a bit surprised at the lack of institutional memory and just downright laziness and incompetence. I hope I raised the quality of discourse and analysis.

My biggest challenge [at the Commission] was the Vision 2030 project – trying to identify the most likely future for Pakistan among the many that were possible or desirable. This document is now largely forgotten in the middle of the political changes of the last two years, but going through this exercise really gave me a lot of hope about the future of Pakistan.

I am confident about the role for Pakistan in this century. We are not too small as to be irrelevant, in fact we are the about right population size and our younger people carry far less historical baggage; they are enterprising, more selective and also more demanding in terms of quality.

On that optimistic note, thank you very much, Dr. Khan and our best wishes.

Thank you.

We define the scope of the discussion as problems whose solutions would:

1. benefit from research and innovation, and
2. produce broad social change in Pakistan.

We identify ‘Energy’, including power generation, accessibility, and distribution, as one such problem. A 2004 document, prepared by the Planning Commission of Pakistan titled Vision 2030, stated that currently 30% of Pakistan’s energy supply comes from oil, 50% from natural gas, 6.5% from coal, 12.7% from hydroelectric sources, 0.8% from nuclear energy, and 0% from renewable resources like wind, solar, and biofuels. The goal for 2030 is to achieve 18.5% from oil, 45% from natural gas, 19% from coal, 10.8% from hydroelectric, 4.2% from nuclear, and 2.5% from renewable sources like wind, solar, and biofuels.

To achieve this goal, innovation is needed in technologies as diverse as generation and distribution systems, maintenance protocols, and most excitingly, new ideas in renewable energy resources specific to the context of Pakistan’s cities, villages, and landscape. Energy satisfies the second criterion of broad social change as well: if viable energy solutions are found then load-shedding, a daily nuisance experienced by citizens around the country, would be mitigated. Further, the availability of affordable energy would spur industrial growth and provide access to electricity for millions living in rural Pakistan.

We encourage our readers to identify other such problems within the scope of our two criteria, and to justify their ideas with rational explanations and examples.

As part of our efforts to try and develop a “Do-It-Yourself” incubation center in Pakistan, we’ve set up Allied Incorporated as our first pilot project. We began operations on January 1st, 2010 out of Lahore. Allied Inc. (as we call it) is run as a not-for-profit. Our objective is to inspire, train and facilitate entrepreneurs – both inside Pakistan and abroad (when they want development teams in Pakistan).  Through this process, we hope to develop and refine a practical model for encouraging entrepreneurship within organizations, across the industry and in the society at large. In this article, I hope to document and share our model, so the model can be improved and perhaps even replicated in smaller, under-served cities.

We envision a 3-step process for new entrants:

1. Inspire: Inspiration is usually the first step in the transformation into entrepreneurship. It is also the fuel that picks us up on days when things are not going so well. I recall reading the story of Shabeer Bhatia (founder of Hotmail) and how he built a $400M company in less than a year with no prior experience of running a company or even managing a team. This was bigger than the budget of most of the cities in Pakistan and how much good it could do. You don’t need to look too far to see that there is amazing content already available online for this purpose. To name a few examples:

• PASHA is going great work in collaboration with CIO Pakistan to develop a series of interviews with key players in the IT space in Pakistan
• Stanford and MIT have great entrepreneurial content
• Forums like greenwhite.org are cropping up as online communities to discuss startups

2. Educate: Once an individual decides to start a business, he is usually met with the realization that he doesn’t know how to proceed. For young fresh graduates, the gaps are huge. For experienced individuals, gaps lie in the financial management and sales and marketing side. Our training focus thus is:

1. Business Management content with an entrepreneurial focus: This would be content for someone who has several years of technology experience and now wants to move to a technology entrepreneurial role. These include basic finance and sales and marketing skills.
2. Technical training content required for a startup: This would be focused on last mile technology content that a typical university grad can take and be ready to work in the industry

Though there are many other things that one feels are lacking in resources available out there, we need to be careful what to adopt into a self-funded incubation model since each of these areas requires a huge effort in collecting content, refining it, and keeping it up to date. Our plan on the training side is to develop an online collaborative knowledge base for the industry. We have solicited content from companies in the local industry that specialize in a certain field and are in the process of consolidating and publishing that content. You can find an alpha version of the knowledge base here. Once we have enough content collected and organized, the plan is to start the delivery phase where we will start exploring other forms of delivery for this content (e.g. in-person delivery, video link-based off-site delivery for remote locations, etc.)

3. Facilitate:  Once an individual feels they are ready to take the plunge and start a business, we aim to provide additional facilities. We want to provide a physical forum where entrepreneurs can be around others bitten by the same bug. This is perhaps the most natural way to provide both guidance on things they are doing wrong, and validation of things they are doing right. At the moment we have a small rented office space which entrepreneurs can choose to work in and pay by the seat. The incubator take on the administrative hassle (e.g. power backup, internet connectivity…) allowing new companies to focus on what they’re trying to do. You can find a detailed list of services provided on our site.

Canned Business template #1 – IT Consulting

Since most of the founding team of Allied Inc. are IT professionals, our first template for businesses has been centered around the IT industry. This, we feel can fairly easily be extended to the engineering sector in general.  Most of our participants, so far have been 30-somethings that have significant experience in the outsourcing IT industry and are fairly well aware of the risks they are taking. So far, we haven’t been able to attract fresh graduates with mature ideas but that is something we hope will come as we “templatize” our processes further.

The business model is that of a typical offshore IT outsourcing firm. Target markets are the US and the EU. In particular, we focus on the entrepreneurial sector in these markets due to the ease of access to this sector directly from offshore. The fact that the IT offshoring business is considered a well-known, run of the mill activity is good for us since it provides a lower risk trajectory for tentative entrepreneurs and allows us to focus on the incubation more than the consulting.

Compared to a typical consulting firm, ours is different in a few noteworthy ways listed here. Most notable, however, is that we aim to increase the level of ownership in participants. Ownership of tasks, their consequences and thus the individuals destiny in general. Academic research details five factors that influence the perception of ownership in people in an organizational setting (listed in order of importance):

1. Fairness
2. Community
3. Participation
4. Financial Payoff
5. Influence

Within Allied we’ve tried to implement these principles using the following policies:

1. All policy making is based on a shared vision of fairness. We define fair as values of greatest combined mutual interest.
2. All employees have open access to information. This includes details of revenue and expenditure.
3. Consultants get paid what the clients pay for them (minus overheads). Since Allied Inc. aims for no profit, this leads to great value for both the employees and their consultants. Details of this here.
4. All employees are free to experiment in their free time and are open to solicit other companies and customers for business. If they succeed in bringing in business, they are free to setup their own teams or businesses the way they see fit. This is quite unlike conventional IT units in Pakistan where this attitude is actively discouraged.
5. We present no grand plans or strategies for the future. Our growth will come ecologically depending on what the employees of the companies are most excited about. There are no grand plans or long term strategies. We encourage constant experimentation with delivery and sales models, guided by the training options available internally.

[Note: To give credit where it’s due, most of these ideas are derived from Dr. J. s's story of how he started Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The company was started in 1969 with total revenue of $250,000. By 1990, they had $1B in revenues, which grew to $8B in 2006. Our operating philosophy derives heavily from the guiding principles of SAIC.]

Challenges (so far…)

• Slow decision making: Given the collaborative and democratized nature of our decision making process, it is slow. We need to spend a lot of time developing consensus and doing due diligence on a lot of issues. This is almost always slower than a ‘saith’ making spot decisions and at times speed of making decisions matters more than making the absolute right choice.
• People issues
  • Skepticism: Amazingly, we have had a lot of resistance from people in accepting the idea of a not-for-profit firm. Most of our clients show skepticism on the validity of our claim. More surprisingly perhaps, hiring new talent is even harder. We get the “what are you getting from all this then” question a lot. This is, however, natural since few, if any, references are available for people both here and abroad.
  • Behavioral Inertia: Another related issue is the lack of people who are willing to take responsibility. Most of our hires are senior people with 7 or 8 years of experience in the local services industry. During that time, they have been groomed to take as little ownership as possible, and to participate only when absolutely necessary. They have been convinced that doing better will not necessarily lead to better reward. We’ve found that this re-adjustment process takes a while to sink in for most people.
  • Strange definition of risk: People in Pakistan have a strange definition of risk. I once interviewed a person who told me that ours was a small setup and it was a big risk for him to join us because he wouldn’t know how long we’d last. I offered to give him a few months advance salary and extended notice periods for termination but he wasn’t very interested. I asked him how much guarantee he had from his current employer and if he knew how well that company was doing internally. I asked him if his current employer had a million dollars in reserve but chose to shut the company down anyways, would he have any control over it. He got the point, but he still didn’t join us!
  • Impatience: Being young, full of ideas and having an entrepreneurial flame burning in you is a really bad combination! Many times our level of patience for results is that of a hungry two year old in front of candy. This is, however, a happy problem. We would rather have people too eager for change than those who have given up on it.
• Lack of guidance: One of our major issues is not having a reference business model for incubation and in particular non-profit/cooperative consulting firms. There are few of these out there in the world and even fewer that are openly documented for references. Hence a lot of our learning on incubation is experience-based.
• Making the training unit break-even: One of our key challenges on the training front is monetizing the effort required to build and maintain the training portal initially. Although technology training remains a major hurdle for the growth of the local industry, most companies are not willing to act on it. Our attempts to form an industry-wide fund to develop the training portal have so far met with stalling tactics. This lack of funding has made the training development slow and stuck in a chicken-and-egg situation.
• Avoiding external funding: Since one of our basic objectives was to setup an incubation unit that a small community itself can develop, we adopted a basic policy of no external funding. All the capital expenditure is made by the employees themselves. This has the positive side of increasing the ownership level of people but making inventory management and accounting all the more complex. It also challenges us to create aggressive growth since some of that (especially in the services industry) is heavy on capital investment when growth kicks off.
• Making the companies break-even: Being a small company, the biggest challenge of course is always to make ends meet at the end of the day. With all the energy spent on the incubation and consensus building process, there are days when there is little time for the things that actually bring in money. A lot of this has to do with the fact that we are in early stages and systems and processes are being streamlined. However, our biggest challenge remains stabilizing our sales and delivery units. Only that will enable us to survive long enough to call this a success.
• Creativity and innovation: Understandably our business models are designed to be low risk, predictable stepping stones into entrepreneurship. This, by design, moves away from riskier, highly creative ideas. Our thesis here is that if you have enough free people (financially free and free in thinking) in close proximity, creativity and innovation will occur naturally. While innovation and creativity are not out immediate focus areas, we want to be able to assist people in that to whatever extent possible.

Conclusion

As a percentage, too many of our youth are groomed to become docile, white collar employees and to suppress their ideas for ‘practical reasons.’ In the long run, this is bad for the nation and the people. Allied Inc. is our attempt to try and change that and develop nurseries of entrepreneurship in Pakistan; to develop a mindset that looks at problems as opportunities but with a realistic, long term lens. These are still early days for us and we have a long way to go to prove our point. Our biggest challenge is perhaps to survive long enough for us to bring about perceptible change.

If you feel you can assist us in any way or if you have ideas on how we can do things better, please share your feedback with me at momer(at)alliedc.com. Our website is located at www.alliedc.com where you can find details of our specific IT offerings. A special thanks to Ali Bin Jamil for his support in the effort so far.

Quaid-e-Azam once wrote to the people of a Muslim village. The people in the village complained how the British Raj had not done enough to improve issues in their village. Jinnah’s response to them was to take ownership of their problems: “to identify their issues, make plans to resolve them, and act on their plans” and not wait for the British government to come help them. It sounds simplistic but really in many cases, it really is as simple as that. Jinnah understood the psyche of our nation well and we, as a whole, haven’t changed much since.

A lot of solutions — I would argue that all of them — begin by a determined individual taking ownership of an issue. Technical challenges, financial constraints, leadership, or even motivational impediments are really direct effects of strong willed people taking ownership of the problem. In my view, there is no shortage of people trying to take ownership. What is required is guidance and reinforcement to these people to stay the course.

I propose what we require are a series of incubation facilities that help develop the entrepreneurial spirit, and then to coach it into sustainable businesses. Incubation is the chosen medium for this around the world. Seoul, Korea has over five hundred incubators alone. Compare that to that three (that I know of) in Lahore. For Pakistan, the idea has simply not kicked in yet. Governments lack the funding and universities lack the infrastructure required to generate ground-breaking innovation and deploy technology in a financially sustainable way.

This article is the first in a two part series to explore the concept of incubators in Pakistan. The first part introduces incubators and deals with considerations needed to establish incubators in Pakistan. The second part details efforts of my partners and myself to develop a practical model for incubation in Pakistan.

About incubators

Incubators come in various forms with various objectives and degrees of success. Incubators based in property firms try to add value to their offering, non-profits trying to encourage entrepreneurship create jobs and affect social change, universities trying to encourage industry collaboration and monetize research, investor driven incubators look for high returns from the next big idea, and corporations try to expand into new markets or looking to encourage entrepreneurial talent within their enterprise.

Incubators provide:

• Premises that are accessible on easy terms for a limited amount of time:
  • Other physical facilities including conference rooms, restaurants, catering, security, furniture rental, office equipment rental, telephone, library and reference material, vehicle rental, cleaning and maintenance, child care, and overnight accommodation.
• General business services:
  • Audio visual equipment, Shipping and receiving, mail services, fax, photocopy, printing, reception and messaging, word processing and clerical and administrative services, access to laboratory and computer equipment.
• Professional services:
  • Legal matters, intellectual property, accounting, book keeping, recruitment and staff selection, education and training services, IT and internet services
  • Liaising with schools and colleges for training of their people and MBAs
• Management and business strategy service:
  • Technology assessment (R&D strategies, competitive positioning, patents and IP protection, technology partnering)
  • Business plan development (CSF, Revenue models, Wealth generation strategies, exit strategies)
  • Marketing plan (Launches, Alliances and Partnerships, Sales and distribution strategies, PR campaigns)
  • Corporate Finance (Capital raising, Mergers and Acquisitions, IPOs). Government and grant loans, equity finance arrangements, debt financing arrangements, business tax, risk management and insurance.
• Networking opportunities: These include interaction with academics, other entrepreneurs, financiers and service professionals
• Guidance according to the phase of development the company is in (creativity, direction, delegation, coordination, and collaboration)

Incubators in a Pakistani context

For Pakistan, the concept of incubation needs customization before incubators become viable, sustainable units. Incubators in Pakistan need to go beyond acting as investors or financiers assisting in ideas that someone else brings in. Entrepreneurship is generally missing in our society so incubators need to make the job of starting a business easier by having pre-fabricated business templates. These can include strategically appropriate areas to begin, points to investment and supporting in hiring and delivery. This is particularly true in the early stages of the business and more so for first time entrepreneurs.

Unlike western countries, capital in Pakistan is largely private equity. For religious reasons, a significant percentage of the population will not go to banks. This makes networking in the right circles all the more important. If the investment is to be generated within Pakistan, investment also includes a long period of investor education in the technology’s potential. This extremely intensive relationship building can overwhelm entrepreneurs, if left unassisted. Incubators should also focus on business templates that are not capital intensive in the first place.

Incubators need to start businesses with proven models and a proven customer base rather than one where the customer adoption is likely to take years. The appetite for risk is fairly low and ideas like disruptive innovation die in R&D before the investor’s patience runs out. Many new start-ups fail, not because their ideas didnt make sense, but because they run out cash before the target markets accept their ideas. Most product ideas fall under this category where the ideas make sense on paper, and even at times have successful implementations in other parts of world, however these just don’t have an accepted customer base in their target markets yet. Attempts to implement eBay equivalents are just a few such examples.

Training is an essential part of any organization’s portfolio. With a high turnover of talented people from the country and constantly changing developments in the technology sector, preparing and delivering training is a constant exercise. The key focus training areas for incubators should however be business basics (from the perspective of a technologist). For any one startup this task can be overwhelming, which is why the incubator needs to operate this as a shared function. Within business training, development and support on the sales and marketing side is probably the key missing element. This can take the form of, for example, buying-houses in the textile industry. These buying-houses serve as unified sales units for textile delivery (stitching units). These allow new businesses to focus on smaller functions, expanding overtime across function.

A strong networking component is required. Pakistan remains a country where normative influences are strongest. The incubator needs to provide a forum for entrepreneurs to connect to each other, investors, educators and resources. These can provide essential reinfocement, guidance and vision required to operate successful business models.

Finally, successful models need to focus addressing social psychological gaps with entrepreneurial archetypes. In particular, there is a need to raise levels of self-efficacy and ownership and correct how risk is perceived. This is probably the least understood and most neglected portion of any organization’s implementation strategy. Managing people, their motivations and their emotional is probably the most impotant thing an entreprenuer/manager has to contend with after financing and sales.

In the next part, I will discuss our efforts at establishing our incubator in Lahore, with the hope that it sparks discussion and the opportunity to talk to like-minded people who can give us insight on the initiative.

Muhammad Omer is a simple guy with a new found fascination of entrepreneurship and the process of building entrepreneurs.  A graduate from the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute and Linkoping Tekniska holgen in Sweden, he’s probably suffering from a mid-life crisis since he recently left a decent career in a Pakistani Software house to start a technology incubation center. His areas of interest include cultivation of social entrepreneurship, creativity, and self esteem in the people of Pakistan.

In an effort to enforce quality, the HEC recently announced that they would not recognize PhD degrees awarded unless the recipient manages to score a 40 percentile on the GRE subject test at the time of admission to the graduate program, reported here. This is a revision of HEC’s earlier policy, announced four years back, that the GRE subject test must be cleared before submitting the thesis. The announcement has proven controversial among PhD instructors and their students.

The controversy spilled over in Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU), where the QAU syndicate and the QAU academic council are split over the issue (reported here). Dr. Sohail Naqvi, Executive Director of the HEC, was challenged by protesters during his visit to the QAU campus. Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy, the chairman of the Physics department at QAU, supports the initiative by the HEC and recently wrote in its defense; we have shared his article here.

So, should PhD students need to clear the GRE before being awarded their PhDs?

Seafood export from Pakistan to European Union (EU) countries was banned in early April 2007, after an EU team visited the Karachi and Korangi fish harbors to investigate quality standards at the fisheries facilities. Earlier, during a February 2005 trip, the EU team warned the Pakistani authorities about sub-standard quality at the harbors. This ban on all fish imports from Pakistan to the EU has resulted in a multi-million dollars loss. As quality standards normalize across the globe, the standard of quality in Pakistan’s fisheries could potentially cost millions more in revenue in coming years.

Fish rotting under the sun at local fisheries

In my opinion, the only way to save the fishing industry in Pakistan is to form a separate Ministry for Fisheries. Currently, this department is a secondary part of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and almost neglected as a ‘vestigial’ organ. The formation of a separate ministry for fisheries will not only ensure that whole-hearted attention is paid to this important foreign exchange earning industry of Pakistan, but will also end the disparity and disharmony found between its federal and provincial care takers who want to shift blame for their failures on others. This Ministry would be well advised to institute the following measures immediately:

First, all brands exported from Pakistan to the EU or anywhere else in the world should be registered with the government and only those brands that are pre-inspected for quality by the authorities at all stages of its production should allowed to be exported.

Second, the number of seafood processing units approved by the EU may be eleven but in reality scores of “cowboy” exporters are sheltered within these units producing low grade products on “rental” or “contractual” basis. This illegal practice should be stopped at once.

Third, the registration of new fishing vessels must be banned for at least the next 10 years to save the remaining marine resources as well as to avoid congestion at harbor and ensure better hygiene and sanitary conditions on board as well as off board. The existing boat owners should be lawfully advised to modernize their vessels by installing chiller systems as per international standards which can be wholly or partly financed on a long term basis by the Provincial or Federal Government of Pakistan.

Finally, most of the fishery units are obsolete with very old machinery and rotten cold store insulation. The equipment used for essential fast freezing to preserve export products and to extend their shelf life are in poor shape and their function is non- uniform and sub-standard. We recommend a program to upgrade the current ice-chilled system with industry standard Refrigerated Sea Water Systems. Below, we present the case for the use of these systems both in terms of produce quality management and to maximize profit.

Modernizing Fishing Vessels: Refrigerated Sea Water System

Marine food quality is preserved only by the proper sequence of chilling and freezing on board the vessels. Preservation of quality must start at the point of capture because quality loss begins instantly when a fish dies. The quality can never be improved, but it can be maintained with proper care. Tuna, for example, is commonly chilled and stored temporarily in refrigerated seawater (RSW) at 30°F. However, rapid chilling to 10°F and continued freezing is necessary to protect tuna quality against deterioration due to bacterial, enzymatic, or oxidation activity. Spoilage and quality changes in seafood are affected by a myriad of factors: temperature, time, and physical treatment. Fish handling and physical abuse can also affect spoilage.

Thus, it is important to freeze the fish as quickly as possible to approximately 10°F, then dry the well and continue to take heat out of the fish down to about 0°F. Most enzymes retain some activity as long as there is free fluid in the fish. Above 0°F there is still enough unfrozen fluid in the fish to allow slow deterioration. Bacterial activity may continue down to about 15°F, even though it is reduced greatly at 23° to 25°F. The internal fish temperature will lag behind the brine temperature during chilling and freezing. The internal temperature of big fish, with greater body mass, can be warmer than the RSW and/or brine temperature for many hours until temperatures stabilize. Fish size will dictate the amount of this temperature difference; larger fish can lag several hours behind the brine temperature.

As opposed to the ice-chilled system currently used on fishing boats in Pakistan, mechanical Refrigerated Sea Water systems are the industry standard. If an RSW System is installed on boats, fishermen will get a better quality product that could be sold to the processor who in turn could make higher profit by selling overseas especially to the EU countries which held more than 50% of Pakistani seafood market. RSW increases both the fishmeal quality by maintaining the protein level and by being able to present fish for human consumption that is both good looking and free from non-desirable subjects such as bacteria and maggots. The protein level also depends on refrigeration being able to stop degradation. Seafood export could quadruple with this system, bringing much-needed foreign exchange to the country as well as improving overall socio-economical conditions of the fishermen community. Fishermen or the vessel owner can easily pay back for the refrigeration system within a year as shown by the following analysis.

Potential Revenue with the RSW System

The following statistics are based on actual figures recorded by fishermen or the boat owners present on site at Karachi Harbor during our survey on April 11, 2007.

The findings are summarized in Table 1.

	Fuel	Ice	Labor	Total Expenditure	Fishmeal	Local Market	Total Revenue	Net Revenue per Trip	Annual Net Revenue
Current	468k	84k	63k	615k	112k	520k	632k	17k	187k
RSW	468k	0k	63k	531k	280k	520k	800k	269k	2,959k

Table 1. Comparison of Expenditure, Revenue and Net Revenue between ice-chilled and RSW systems.

Existing expenditure per trip:

A typical 55’ keel length of fishing vessel in Pakistan has either a 402 Horsepower (HP) CAT 3406B or Cummins 420 HP engine. If the engine is running all day at peak HP, it will consume about 7,200 liters of Diesel per 21 days of trip.

Price of one liter of Diesel in Pakistan is approximately Rs. 65.00 Therefore: 7200 x 65 = Rs. 468,000.00 per trip

Ice carried and consumed per trip is about 350 blocks; each block weighs approximately 80 kg; 350 blocks x 80 kg per block x Rs. 3.00 per kg; Price of ice Rs. 84,000.00 per trip

Labor required per trip; Rs. 200/day/man x 15 man x 21 days per trip Rs. 63,000.00 per trip; Total Expenses Rs. 615,000.00 per trip

Existing revenue per trip:

Present estimated revenue in terms of total catch is about 40 tons (40,000 kg). Based on our detailed discussions it was concluded that 35% (14,000 kg) of fish is converted into fish meal. Typical net earning is approximately Rs. 8.00 per kg = 14,000 x 8 = Rs. 112,000.00

Remaining 65% (26,000 kg) fish sold to local market at an average rate of RS 20 per kg = 26,000 x 20 = Rs. 520,000.00

Total Revenue generated Rs. 632,000 per trip

Total estimated Net Revenue (Revenue – Expense) = Rs. 17,000.00 per trip

According to the fisherman they take 11 (eleven) trips per year

Therefore: Rs. 17,000 x 11 = Rs. 187,000 per year

Vessel installed with RSW system:

If a vessel is installed with refrigeration equipment which can run for 24 hours and is worth about US $ 50,000 the fishermen/owner saves:

1. Ice elimination: RS 84,000.00 per trip

2. Better price achieved on the 35% of fish sold as fish meal @ RS 20 per kg = 14,000 kg x 20.00 = Rs. 280,000.00 per trip

Total potential profit: Rs. 364,000.00 per trip

Total earnings per year: (364,000 x 11) Rs. 4,004,000.00

Gross revenue earned per year with the new equipment is Rs. 4,004,000.00 which in turn is US$ 50,050.00 (1 US $ = 80 RS). This indicates that the capital cost can be recovered in approximately one year. Of course there will also be normal maintenance and wear/tear cost that should not exceed 10% of the capital cost per year.

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of STEP.