IT Tazee - Covering the Technology Business in South Asia

Jehans done a great post on valley entrepreneur, Osman Rashid and his recent ventures, to read, click below:

http://jehanara.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/osman-rashid-named-2009-ey-entrepeneur-of-the-year-2/

Popularity: 42% [?]

University of Texas (UT Austin) will kick Aggie’s sorry behind! GIKI will take over and rule the LUMS campus. Or will it ? OR will FAST or will MIT finally get its graces handed to it by Harvard? With this game, teams of students from each school would be able to face off each other and finally put such questions to rest….Think of “VarHereoes” as a turn based strategy game with a social networking element. Its like Risk or Civilization or Chess even, but your opponent is your rival university. The startup has built a strategy game around this concept of defeating your rival university. Time to quit the chess club and make a “varheroes” club and put up your battle page on Facebook….

There are a few startups I have seen that have killer business models, and you tend to think “why did i not think of that?!”. Varsity Heroes is one of those. The execution is also very well done, especially the awesome graphics, and the comic based approach to explaining the game, similar to Google Chrome’s. Hassan Baig and co have done a great job so far. If this is not VC-funded, it should be!

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 66% [?]

Food is serious business in Pakistan. And really, the world over. Zagat , a website for reviews and eatery listings is a multi million dollar business.  Since i know Karachi best, alot of these sites have been covered from a karachi angle, though I think a Lahori would know food alot better…A few years ago when I started karachimetro.com, I felt frustrated that there was no one seriously looking into this space in the Pakistani market. After all, atleast 6 million connected pakistanis are looking to satisfy their need for good food everyday. Here are three websites/apps that I follow and use very frequently to find a place to order from when I’m in town…there are many more that are entering the fray, it seems like all of a sudden, everyone wants to be in this space!

Popularity: 62% [?]

For the time being, we are on top. And In many areas, I think we’ll stay there. Given the overall depressing state of the gloom and doom news all around, techlahore does a great job of showing us how bright things are :

http://techlahore.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/pakistan-has-worlds-largest-wimax-network-will-america-catch-up-wonders-tmcnet/#comment-1086

PS to the American media : It wont hurt to quote these facts between your biased Pakistan-is-not-good reporting. I will never deny that this country has problems, but ignorance and bending the truth ticks everyone off, really.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Pakistan NewsWatch is a new and upcoming webapp built by Aleem Bawany. I’ve been using it regularly for about a week now and I noticed that since i’ve been using it, my visits to dawn, the news and other media websites have fallen dramatically. And this is a good thing, not just for you but for the news sites as well.

Newswatch is sort of a twitter, or a popurl for news sites in Pakistan. Maybe similar to what Buzz.pK does for blogs and RSS feeds, Newswatch does for the news/professional media in Pakistan. Its built -really– well and has a nice, clean interface with multiple RSS options and you can tell how the dollar is doing, and the weather too!

Two thumbs up for the site, it has some serious growth potential. Dawn.com, walk in and make a deal , before its too late! Definetly one of my daily visits, right next to buzz, bloglines and gmail!

Popularity: 18% [?]

Its actually free, most of the time. Anyone can read your source code if you have a web application. Indeed thats how alot of us work now, there is no harm in extending other peoples code (as long as you respect the license). Its called Open source. Linux was built this way, so are many other apps. Vertical expertise on platforms, yes there is some demand there. We do not need php developers anymore. We need wordpress experts, linux experts, facebook application experts, and iPhone/Mac coders. Coders with deep, geeky knowledge of one platform.

There are facebook clones, twitter clones, clones of clones. What does that tell you? It tells you that there are enough developers out there who can build your application or idea (which is usually the first, and simplest problem).

So Mr tech entrepreneur, while you are hip, cool, geeky, techie,etc , your problem eventually is never going to be the technology. You’ll figure that bit out. You need a guru marketer(s), and amazing, honest, decently dressed sales guys. Sell, sell sell, share, sell, market market market. Your brand, your domain, your service. That is the cycle you want to establish right after your beta is out there. So, whats your barrier to entry once your app is out there in beta? How will you make money (please dont say just advertising!) , kill the competition and build your brand? Not a very techie problem, but one you need figure out before version 3, nonetheless.

Then wait for it all to dissapear. Just like you use email, if your users use your app/service/product, and once it fades away into daily life, its timeless. And so is the revenue  

Popularity: 17% [?]

For all the news of US drones attacking targets inside Pakistan, many might think that the country lacks a strong, powerful UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) fleet of its own, which is quite contrary to reality. Also, I do not see why we asked for US predator technology. With Wired magazine taking notice, and the Air force already having 2 UAV squadrons with 4 more on the way, why do we want imported super expensive US drones when stuff like that is being built right here in Karachi and Islamabad: (see pics below)

      OR this :   

A UAV is the epitome of integrated engineering. Building a strong platform demands high software development skill, EE skill, mechanical and aeronautical engineers. You have to build a plane essentially, put it an robotic brain (software), advanced sensors and make sure all the motors and long range controls work.Build ground control stations that can operator off a laptop and do enough signal processing to make sure the video comes across clean and in focus. All at the same time. Not easy at all to do. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 15% [?]

“Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant dangers, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” 

Advertisement placed by Earnest Shackleton in 1914. This was for an exploration mission to the Artic. 5000 people responded to the ad. 

Reminded me of the promise a startup holds today. A startup in many ways is more than just working on your idea. Its an exploration of yourself as a person, an exploration into a knowledge economy.  Quite similar to being an explorer in the early 1900’s ? Ofcourse, you might crash and burn, lose your shirt, make no money in real terms. But thats the price of a shot at glory and your own thing. 

You also might end up being the founder of the next Apple computer, or YouTube, or Digg. But you wont know that till you get out of that cublicle you’re so comfortable in, will you? 

Popularity: 6% [?]