When you regret doing something…

You talk to your conscience, and ask if it was all wrong.

More often than not, it is part of who you are and you have to live with it. I have to live with it.

China: Some numbers and characteristics.

So it has been months that I have been reading this book about China and how it is changing the world. Actually the book, which appeared in 2004, now appears out-dated in the face of how rapidly the dynamics of our world are changing.

It is a good read except two major biases which I find in the author’s narrative. The first one being his rigorous American perspective of looking at things and the second one is the logical gaps in turning numbers into conclusion but nevertheless, it does enlighten upon how 21st century belongs to China.

I have been thinking, what are the parallels which one could draw between China and other developing countries like India, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey etc. Yes, China has a large population but its population density (i.e. population divided per unit area) is less than both India, Pakistan. So it is not necessarily the ‘number of people’ which is helping them rule the economic world, because clearly other countries have encompassed greater number of people in their geographical area.

Then the other thought kicks in: Oh it must be lack of corruption. But the Corruption Perception Index from Transparency International suggest that businesses perceive Chinese public sector to be equally corrupt to India’s and more corrupt than Turkey’s, Romania’s (East Europe), Tunisia’s (North Africa) and Cuba’s.

China’s courts are infamous for their not-so-business-friendly rulings, they have so many human rights issues that the west is never short of them to highlight some.

Then what is it that makes China so different?

1. It is the flow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). China today comes #5 only after USA, UK, Hong Kong and Germany in ranks of countries attracting most FDI and do consider that Hong Kong is basically China itself as the money flowing in there is more likely to affect China.

2. The sheer optimism that government tries to infuse in people. Their media, on the instruction of government,  talks of “happy stories about good people”. They execute a whole propaganda campaign to keep their rural farm workers and mobile factories (migrant workers who have moved to cities in pursuit of better lives, mind you there are 200 million of them as per some estimates!) up on work and be lured for better things to happen.

3. Their serious attitude about actually being big. I have worked at a place where I used to interact with our Chineese  contractor, those people used to work for 14 hours a day and never cried to client - which in this case was us-  about it.  I spoke to one of them about how their country is progressing and the person was entirely aspirant for seeing China on the top of world stage.

So it is boils down to money, optimism and the will to act. That’s what is making China.

Tagged.

So Lubna tagged me with following questions at her Tehreer:

1. Last movie you saw in a theater?
Shrek 3, It was quite a dull sequel to its predecessors but still had some sequences good enough for chuckles.

2. What book are you reading?
China Inc. (Ted C. Fishman) and C++, Complete Reference.

3. Favorite board game?
Chess.

4. Favorite magazine?
Time, IEEE Spectrum

5. Favorite smells?
The prevalent fragrance in the environment after it has rained in my hometown, Ghotki.

6. Favorite sounds?

Lately, the sounds used in the track “Different Sound…” from the movie Music and Lyrics.

7. Worst feeling in the world?
Having done something unfair to somebody, of course on my standards.

8. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
Snooze that alaram!

9. Favorite fast food place?
That’s a tie between KFC and Pizza One.

10. Future child’s name?
Heh. This one is funny, have never thought on these lines.

11. Finish this statement. “If I had lot of money I’d….?
Would try to multiply that :P (Family wisdom: after all I am a grandson of two businessmen)

12. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
Lol

13. Storms - cool or scary?
Interesting

14. Favorite drink?
Fresh Lime

15. Finish this statement, “If I had the time I would….”?
Would fix my head and flush the junk out

16. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?
What the heck is that?

17. If you could dye your hair any color, what would be your choice?
Green!

18. Name all the different cities/towns you’ve lived in?
Ghotki, Karachi and a few months in Nagpur, India.

19. Favorite sports to watch?
Cricket is interesting.

20. One nice thing about the person who sent this to you?
Lubna is one hell of a friend who would either drive you crazy or would become crazy herself. I doubt if this is something nice to say, though. :P

21. What’s under your bed?
DAWN Newspaper.

22. Would you like to be born as yourself again?
Yes. As some Einstein maybe.

23. Morning person, or night owl?
Big time, Night Owl!

24. Over easy, or sunny side up?
Sunny Side Up.

25. Favorite place to relax?

My mom’s kitchen.

26. Favorite pie?
Po-pye! It rhymes, no?

27. Favorite ice cream flavor?
Vanilla+Strawberry. I just have not been able to find a cult for Chocolate.

28. Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond first?
This is the leaf node of this recursive call. Return.

When Obama speaks Innovation… (Video)

• His theme becomes Technology
• He vows for an open internet (yeah, he was saying all this at Google !)
• He plans to have a C.T.O. (Chief Technology Officer) for U.S.A
• He wishes to double the federal grant for basic research for his country.
• He is threatened by the competition in Dubai, Dublin, Mumbai and the likes of them.
• He is up for strict anti-trust laws for promoting entrepreneurs.
• And he wants to see lights in “most of Africa, parts of Asia and some corners of America” on the some connectivity map of Google.

As much as I do not yet fully understand how the victory of Obama is going to change the world, as he claims of, but he is impressive and Hillary just isn’t. Maybe I am biased towards him because of all of his technological ambition getting in to me but what the heck!

See this video, if you want the full, one-hour-plus scoop.

What do you do when you hit a wall ?!

Suppose, well just suppose, you are the person who is to fix all the problems of Pakistan - or as a matter of fact, take any developing Asian country - the whole nation looks up to you and actually you are sincere enough to want to get to solutions.

But what happens when you go in to the convolution of problems? You start hitting walls, if you try to fix education, social disparity creeps in, if you go on to fix that, the political and economical injustice starts acting up, if you shot on to solve that, the corrupt bureaucracy shines up. You keep trying that, and you come back to education or any one of the major problems above.

You simply hit a wall.

How do you solve problems when they are convoluted and complex and intricately inter-woven?

My ex-boss used to say: “Piece-by-Piece, Part-by-Part”.

How would you want to fix it, or would you want to fix it at all?

Woods.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost.

PASHA brings ICT4D on the Pakistani tech-table.

So I attended this session on ICT4D - Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Generally, it means to use ICT for providing solutions to developing communities so that it generates value for the people who have problems and of course the solution providers, i.e. the developers and technologists.

The speaker - Mr. Vikram Crishna - highlighted several ICT4D ventures and the necessary do’s and don’ts. He discussed how simplification and standardization is helping Indian states to eliminate tender leakages using NexTenders and how NeuroSynaptic is attempting to provide online health-care by comprehensive and reliable means. He also discussed how a rural wireless network built using off-the-shelf components by the local farmers in Denmark’s area Djursland is bringing connectivity to the community, underscoring the idea of “let’s do it for ourselves” and the must-mention portal that they have to decide about the future course of the network.

Crishna also discussed Amaana from Lahore, which is basically a platform aimed at replacing cash by building a trust-framework on SMS payments. Luckily, a developer from Amaana was also present on the occasion to talk about some of the limitations they have due to SECP regulations and limited number of partnerships. The gentleman also opened up and vowed for challenging the INNOV8 mobile banking solution. Let’s see how that goes, it seemed promising from the face of it, although I personally am still not sure how the cellphone’s text messages will be secure enough to let cash transaction happen on them as they way they propose.

The discussion also turned towards alternative cellphone user interfaces and possibility of using LASER projectors instead of screens in mobile devices and with no or minimal keyboards. The idea of using peer-to-peer wireless telephony also came up and the issues of latency in such an IP network involving multi-hop switching also popped up.

There were interesting ideas referenced from the audience as well, including one about reporting harassment issues with women and solving the meter-reading problem using the the electricity copper, RFID tags and/or any other wireless standard like bluetooth or zigbee. Rehan Allahwalaa’s Baytaar also came on the surface and his equation of whole city wifi connectivity equals two billboard signs on Shahrah-e-Faisal also emphasized the notion that how cheap operating a network from currently non-willing sponsors can be.

On the whole, it was a very inspiring and optimistic session which set the tone for focusing energies on solutions development problems. It certainly has become a relevant question for us - as Pakistanis in particular and an specie in general - as to how we want to bring equality and justification to our actions to actually set ourselves in to a positive spiral of development.

Kudoos to PASHA and Jehan Ara for popping up with this platform of bringing stake-holders on the same table and yes, the free lunch was great.

Success: If you want it, you have to earn it.

The egg within the egg…

The entangled environment and hunger for power!

Electricity was gone for six hours at home yesterday reasoned for the load-shedding. Mind you, home is located in the largest urban center of Pakistan, close to the city center.

Pakistan is short on power power, and needs it quick. However past attempts - and even recent attempts if you mind - to give a rapid solution to the power-hunger of the country have been futile. There are always some figures and years available, predicting upon when things would get fixed, but the future has to tell that.

However, as a budding engineer, I believe we MUST invest in alternative power technologies. Thar’s coal is currently being seen as the next power gold-mine, but really? Coal-power is considered to be one of the environmentally dirty sources, along with the others which we have been using.

But the serious note of caution is: the alternative power technologies may not be all that clean either.

Seriously, this is entangled, we are playing with nature’s equation and constantly hitting the wall. Solution anyone?