Warid Telecom Payment Gateway MOU signed between Warid Telecom, Meezan Bank and Monet

Warid Telecom, a leader in innovation in the Pakistan telecom industry, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Monet and Meezan Bank for rollout of the Warid Telecom Payment Gatewayfor Meezan Bank’s branchless banking services, with Monet as the technology partner for the venture. Through this memorandum, Warid Telecom and Bank Alfalah have been joined by Meezan Bank as founding members to create the Mobile Money Network which would be subject to SBP approvals under the branchless banking regulations.

The MoU was jointly signed by Warid Telecom’s Chief Commercial Officer, Mr. Younas Iqbal Sheikh,Meezan Bank’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Ariful Islam, and Monet’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ali Abbas Sikander.

Mr. Muneer Farooqui, CEO of Warid Telecom said “Warid is excited to play its role in the development of a first-of-its-kind financial eco-system with partner banks for our customers and distribution networks. The Warid Payment Gateway is the first step to create a bridge between distribution networks and banks with an independent PSP like Monet”.

Sharing his views on the occasion, Mr. Younas Iqbal Sheikh CCO of Warid Telecom said “cellular technology holds the key to development and growth of the economy in developing nations, since their reach is un-matched in terms of connectivity. The Warid Payment Gateway has the potential to revolutionize the way small & large businesses transact on a daily basis in Pakistan with the ultimate beneficiaries being Pakistani citizens, whether it is a cattle farmer selling his products to a multinational dairy on a daily basis, a small business owner making routine payments to suppliers, or a large financial institution making B2B payments.”

Mr. Suhail Jan, VP Sales & Distribution of Warid Telecom said “once again technology has linked people closer to convenience and we are proud to be a part of the first such collaboration given our celebrated history of industry firsts. The features of this type of service will allow us to leverage our experienced distribution channels to benefit all local stakeholders; from telecoms to partner banks, to customers, retailers and the government, and be able to provide the public with secure and expedient financial freedom.”

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Ariful Islam said “Meezan Bank envisions becoming the leading Islamic bank in the world and recognizes the power of innovation in drivinglong-term growth.  This initiative will enhance collaboration between banks, mobile operators, merchants and distribution networks and will bridge the financial services divide between banked and unbanked customers.”
Arshad Majeed, Group Head Operations of Meezan Bank said “At Meezan Bank we understand that branchless banking will be a critical platform in providing access to financial services in Pakistan. This arrangement will extend benefits of Shariah-compliant branchless banking to millions of Pakistanis.”

Ali Abbas Sikander, CEO of Monet said “We are building an interoperable and collaborative eco-system which benefits all the stakeholders of the financial services in Pakistan to extend outreach to large financially excluded segments. The power of collaboration would allow Financial Institutions to look beyond technology, and focus on utilizing its benefits to offer products that give them access to new customers with a branchless advantage. Monet technology developed in partnership with Fundamo, Access Group, TPS and IBM is robust, secure and scalable to service large branchless banking deployments. The same has been approved by SBP for its existing deployments.”

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Pakistani Students Gear Up for Shell Eco-Marathon Asia 2013

Thirteen student teams from Pakistan’s top universities are preparing ultra energy-efficient vehicles for Shell’s annual super-mileage competition, the Eco-marathon. The competition will be held from July 4-7, 2013 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where over 1,000 students from 16 countries in Asia and the Middle East will come together for the fourth time on the Formula One circuit at Sepang.
 
To showcase the progress the teams have made on their vehicles before the competition, Shell Pakistan Limited is organising a launch event at NUST campus in Rawalpindi. Participating teams will test their cars on May 18, 2013 under the supervision of technical and safety experts, and will take the track on May 19, 2013.

In an effort to motivate the students to go beyond the competition, Shell Pakistan will be giving out special awards to Pakistan teams during the launch event. Awards will be given to teams who have built their vehicles around Shell’s high safety standards, have turned innovative ideas into reality and which have kept achieving a sustainable future of energy in mind. A panel of judges from academia, industry and the government will be viewing the vehicles at the launch event and awarding the best performers in these categories. The event will be followed by a press conference and award ceremony.
 
“Shell Eco-marathon brings together young and brilliant minds, who will be this country’s future leaders,” said Omar Sheikh, Chairman of Shell companies in Pakistan. Shell Eco-marathon provides a platform for students to push the boundaries of fuel-efficiency that are part of Shell’s innovative approach to help tackle the challenges of the new energy future.
 
Using the experience gained at Eco-marathon events over the last 4 years, students from Pakistan continue to develop fuel-efficient vehicles that could one day be part of the solution to global energy challenges.

About Shell Eco-marathon

The Eco-marathon is a super-mileage challenge, created by Shell, designed to inspire student innovation and develop future technologies that represent game-changing fuel efficiency and transportation performance. Participants are challenged to design, build, and test vehicles to go the farthest distance using the least amount of energy. This year, about 150 student teams from 16 countries all over Asia will hit the tracks of the Sepang International Circuit with their “Prototype” and “Urban Concept” category vehicles.

 The Prototype category invites student teams to enter futuristic cars – streamlined vehicles focused on maximising fuel-efficiency through innovative design elements, such as drag reduction. The UrbanConcept category focuses on more “roadworthy” fuel-efficient vehicles.  Aimed at meeting the real-life needs of drivers, these vehicles are closer in appearance to the higher-mileage cars seen on roads today.

 For both Prototype and UrbanConcept categories, teams may enter vehicles using any of the following eight energy types: hydrogen (fuel cell), solar, battery electric, gasoline, diesel, Shell Gas to Liquids (GTL), Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) and Ethanol E100.

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Warid launches its ‘Scrolex’ app for iPhone users

Warid Telecom, the leading innovator in Pakistan’s telecom industry has released the latest App for people using an Apple iPad. The application is called ‘Scrolex’ which is a word game to challenge and exercise your mind in a fun and easy way in order to improve your vocabulary and linguistic skills.

Scrolex causes word recognition centers in the right side of the brain to activate, thereby improving a player’s cognitive skills over time. Users are given the challenge of completing both vertical and horizontal grids to guess the correct word using the clues and make up a chain of words with increasing difficulty at every level.

This application is available exclusively for Apple iPads (iOS 5.0 and above)

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Glow by Warid Continues Supporting Young Leaders

Glow by Warid, Pakistan’s premier youth brand, continued its mission of engaging and enabling the youth of Pakistan by sponsoring the second Media Fest of Kinnaird College for women. The Media Fest was organized to allow students, aiming to major in media studies, to unleash their talent.

The two day fest was organized by the Kinnaird Media Society. Teams from Punjab University, Government College University, University of Engineering and Technology, FAST, SIMS, Beacon House School and Green School participated in the event. The short films competition was won by UET while Government College took home the winning prize in the print advertisement competition; WWF’s team was declared the runners-up.

Glow by Warid has always strived to provide a platform to Pakistan’s youth through which they can express their talent. Glow by Warid’s support in conducting this Media fest is yet another step towards enabling Pakistan’s youth, which was also appreciated by the Kinnaird Media Society.

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Warid Brings Mobile Internet Sharing Service

Warid Telecom, leading the way of innovation in Pakistan’s Telecom industry, has introduced another industry first with its latest mobile internet service for its valued clients, Mobile Internet Share. This service allows Warid Prepaid customers to gift mobile internet bundles to a friend or family member at astonishingly low rates. 

Customers will be able to purchase 10MB and 100MB buckets for Rs.30 and Rs 99.99 respectively by sending the mobile number and amount via SMS to 7777. To use Mobile Internet Share a customer will send XXMB in an SMS to 7777 (e.g. 100MB0321xxxxxxx).

This is another exciting offer from Warid in its continuing commitment to provide innovative services to its valued customers and reflects the company’s persistence in developing products that accurately reflect the needs of the market.

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KASB Bank Chooses Wateen for Connectivity of 55 Branches

It’s been an exciting start to the New Year and now we’re at the end of the first quarter of 2013 with a number of successes behind us and more in the future. In another major commercial deal for this year Wateen Telecom recently won another deal from KASB to connect 55 branches for them on top of the first phase of connecting 24 branches. With this award, Wateen is now providing connectivity to 79 out KASBs 104 branches around Pakistan. Wateen is also engaged in other dark fiber and Network management monitoring services projects with the bank and is working closely to provide highly effective and optimised solutions.

KASB is one of Pakistan’s leading investment and commercial banks with 30 years of experience in financial and investment markets. It is a significant achievement that a bank of KASBs quality continues to choose Wateen Telecom as its partner in the expansion, management and upgrading of its existing network and shows the trust that Wateen has built with its partners and customer by providing timely and efficient roll out of projects.

Wateen’s expansive fiber foot-print, which spans more than 13,000km across Pakistan, and its high quality standards through state of the art technology make it the preferred choice of large enterprises looking for a trusted and reliable partner.

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Local Hosted Content Shines in Internet Connectivity Crisis

This past week and the next two weeks was and will be a challenging time for users and providers alike who use the internet. Three international sea cables (SEMEWE4, IMEWE and EIG) that provide the majority of digital communication between Asia to Europe were cut. 

The two Pakistan international communication gateway companies that provide internet backhauling services to all the ISPs of Pakistan, PTCL and TWA, both depend on these cables for international communication and therefore internet bandwidth coming into Pakistan dropped to 40%. It is expected to take up to 3 weeks or more before the ships dispatched to fix the problems are able to get the cables operational again.

This event coupled with the recent global DDOS attack attributed to a company in Amsterdam which almost crippled the global internet puts a spotlight on the risks involved with internet companies that cater to Pakistan’s 30 million strong internet community but host all their content internationally.

Until recently, hosting internationally made sense – Pakistan’s internet community was not big enough to justify focus on the market, the datacenters and support facilities were not at international standards and costs were 3-5 times that available internationally. Therefore most content providers hosted their content abroad and many did not even bother to setup caching or backup-sites domestically.

However recently, as the broadband market developed in Pakistan to where according to PTA, over 2.2 million homes are connected to the internet by licensed operators, there has been major investment in improving data center facilities by most major licensed broadband operators In Pakistan. These new data centers can compete with any international facility and the costs are also comparable. For instance, managed datacenter services cost only 20-30% more than equivalent services acquired in California’s silicon valley, the global hub of all datacenters. Compare this slight cost to the advantages of hosting locally and it is hard not to see why it makes sense to host content locally if your business wholly or partially caters to the Pakistan internet community

“When you look at the high quality of datacenter facilities now available locally, and the recent decline in prices, factor in average internet connection latency reduced from above 300ms to sub 20ms, and add in the advantages of local access and support, the case for international and domestic content providers to host in Pakistan becomes too strong to ignore”, says Salman Ansari, President SAATC, one of Pakistan’s foremost IT and telecommunication consultants.

Zulfiqar Qazilbash, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Transworld Associates, one of Pakistan’s two tier 1 internet providers talks about why a company that provides internet backhauling services to most ISPs in Pakistan built a datacenter in their landing station. “The TWA Landing station is the defacto internet hub of Pakistan. It is the automatic peering point of all operators that use TWA bandwidth directly or indirectly and is peered with the other internet provider. The Tier 3 datacenter located inside the premises, provides unmatched value proposition to Pakistani operators who has collocation needs. For one thing, by collocating at the Landing Station, you have dramatically controlled your last mile vulnerability, since you are connected to the internet gateway note in the same building. Secondly, there is no better peering location both for international and domestic traffic. Thirdly, you get to leverage the infrastructure and engineering support that powers Pakistan’s internet. Who else can offer that?”

A case in point is the popular job portal, ROZEE.PK.  It is visited by over 60% of the country’s Internet users annually. To service its 16 Million annual unique visitors, it requires 45 fault tolerant load balanced servers. Previously, it used to collocate its entire server farm between Silicon Valley and Germany since datacenters in Pakistan were expensive and did not offer the required worry free support. “Transworld’s decision to provide datacenter services at their internet gateway node was a game changer for us”, says Monis Rahman, Chairman and CEO of ROZEE.PK. “The world class facility allowed us to lower latency by a factor of 10 and we have the ability to service our Pakistan clients even if there is a major internet crisis such as the one that occurred last week.  Our servers have stayed humming while providing a better usability experience to our customers”.

With local and international content providers that focus on Pakistan’s internet community now able to leverage advanced hosting platforms like the TWA Datacenter, it is hoped that more internet based applications and services will henceforth be available to the population. Internet can be a powerful and cost effective medium for solving the education, health, e-commerce, e-government and other problems of Pakistan.

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Wateen Organizes Creating Winning Teams Workshop

Wateen Telecom recently concluded a 2-Day comprehensive Training Workshop for managers on ‘Creating Winning Teams’- The Magic of 1 in Lahore. The main objective of this training was to develop an influential cadre in the management that is able to effectively achieve targets and bring about grassroots level change in the organisation. The initiative comes under the umbrella of Wateen’s values and was meant to inculcate those values in employees at every level.

The workshop was especially designed for the upper tier of the management (managers and above) so that they could manage and lead their teams in a more effective way. The training was divided into two main segments: Managing Self and Managing Others which were its key highlights. The training’s primary focus was to identify and develop their leadership, communication and team building skills through interactive feedback sessions in order to help managers develop a personal strategy that enhances their effectiveness and influence with others at work.

Wateen Telecom has developed a unique system of training and motivation designed to bring employees together by giving them a genuine stake in the company through their personal development and organizational capacity. It also focuses on bringing out the best in individuals so they can transform the environment around them and function better as a team.

Commenting on the importance of the workshop, The Chief Transformation Officer, Asad Rezzvi said “we are an organization that highly value our employees and invest in them.  Business success only follows the cultural success of an organization, therefore it’s imperative to develop leaders in Wateen that inspire and lead with their performance.”

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Wateen and Nutshell successfully conclude South Asia Leadership Summit

Wateen Telecom successfully concluded its participation in the Nutshell Forum on Collaborating for Change, that was held in Karachi on the 2^nd and 3^rd of April 2013. Wateen Telecom was a gold sponsor for the event this year. The forum was a cross-border initiative to bring together the best corporate minds from across the sub-continent and breed a spirit of sharing and cooperation among them. The conference included keynote speeches by a number of prominent corporate executives from India and Pakistan including Wateen Telecom’s Chief Transformation Officer Asad Rezzvi. This Conference was directed by Dr. Upali Mahanama – Srilanka, Conference Director, and Author of Marketing Skills in Management.

More than 500 delegates attended the forum from different countries in the South Asian region and Wateen Telecom Chief Transformation Officer Asad Rezzvi represented Wateen as a panelist and a speaker at the event.

The forum opened with an address by Mohammad Azfar Ahsan, the CEO of the Nutshell forum and was followed by a number of addresses by prominent personalities including former Finance MinIster Shaukat Tareen who spoke about Collaborating for Change. He was followed by Rajeev Dubay, President of Mahindra & Mahindra who spoke about “Unleashing human potential”. A number of other speakers followed including Former Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Atta ur Rahman, who spoke about “Unleashing your Creative Potential”, and Chairman Accenture India, Avinash Vashistha who spoke about “Imagineering the Future, Disruptive Innovation for Sensible Growth”.

Following the themes of unleashing the inner potential of people and organizations, Wateen Telecom’s Asad Rezzvi spoke about “The Challenge of Transformation – A Test of Leadership”. He shared his experience in transformation of Wateen Telecom and shed light on the challenges Wateen faced during the transformation. He also talked about the Human values in an organization and how one can achieve excellence in profitability.

The forum ended with an address by Chief Guest Dr. Adeebul Hasan Rizvi, Founder SIUT, whose topic was “Value of Leadership for Society”.

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Warid Offers Postpaid to Postpaid Balance Transfer Service

Warid Telecom, leading the way of innovation in Pakistan’s telecom industry, brings another fascinating service for its customers; “Postpaid To Postpaid Balance Transfer”. This service will allow Warid Telecom’s postpaid customers to share balance with each other. “Postpaid to Postpaid Balance Transfer” service is yet another industry first by Warid Telecom.

Through this service Warid Telecom’s postpaid customers can share their balance with other Warid postpaid customers by sending “BRecipient NumberTransfer Amount” to 2424. This service is in line with Warid Telecom’s focus to continuously provide innovative services for the convenience of its valued Customers.

Warid Telecom’s Chief Commercial Officer, Mr. Younas Iqbal Sheikh commented on the new service saying, "Warid Telecom has one of the most loyal postpaid customer base in the Pakistan Telecom industry and we are always looking to facilitate these valued customers through innovative and convenient new services. The Post to Post service will provide our subscribers with a 360 degree solution to low balance and payment situations.”

Warid Telecom already provides its customers with Prepaid to Prepaid and Postpaid to Prepaid Balance Transfer services. The recent addition of Postpaid to Postpaid Balance Transfer is further evidence of Warid Telecom’s innovative and customer centric approach.

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Wateen Participates in First Ever PITB Information Security Conference

Wateen Telecom, Pakistan’s leading converged communications provider, was recently invited to participate in the prestigious first ever Punjab Information Technology Board Information Security Conference. Wateen Telecom was represented at the event by its Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Faisal Sattar. The event aimed at creating awareness around information security and the challenges faced by organizations in the ever-evolving sphere of cyber security and business continuity.

The conference brought together various stakeholders from the government, industry, and academia to share their knowledge and experience and debate how to effectively combat the latest threats to Information Security. A number of prominent CIOs, Information Security Heads, researchers and professors attended the event. This conference raised awareness about information security and increasing collaboration among universities, industries and government institutions to address this important issue. Dr. Umar Saif, Chairman PITB and Nahil Mahmood, Founder & President, Cloud Security Alliance Pakistan, were the people behind this one-of-a-kind event, which was held at the Arfa Technology Park Lahore.

Commenting on the event, Mr. Faisal Sattar said, “With the rise of ‘bring your own device’ and commercialization of IT, Information Security should be given paramount importance by any organization in order to ensure business continuity and negating the more obvious threats of reputational damage and competitive disadvantage. This initiative by PITB is an inception towards the massive transformation required for creating awareness in this region and we at Wateen are certainly evangelists for such enterprises.”

Wateen also provided live updates and notifications about the event on their Facebook and Twitter accounts for the blogging and online community.

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Glow by Warid partners with Pakwheels.com for Lahore Auto Show 2013

Glow by Warid, Pakistan’s premier youth brand, partnered with Pakwheels.com in orchestrating the 2013 Lahore Auto Show, which was held in Lahore at Liberty Market on 17th March 2013.

The event featured over 500 cars and was attended by automobile enthusiasts from across the country. The Auto Show aimed to promote the Pakistani car industry, while also providing young fans with an opportunity to see some amazing vehicles while also highlighted the dangers of street racing and reckless driving.

Representatives from Glow by Warid were present on hand to provide visitors with exciting opportunities to learn about and download the latest Warid applications at the APPs Lounge setup at the venue. Glow by Warid also provided the attendees with an opportunity to participate in activities and contests to win prizes such as mobile handsets.

The auto show was followed by an award ceremony and a captivating musical performance by Club Caramel. PakWheels.com along with TDCP organized the event under the auspices of the Government of Punjab and PHA, to enrich the Rang-e-Lahore celebrations.

Warid has a long-standing relationship with Pakwheels, having partnered with the digital brand on previous car shows. The telecom giant has also collaborated with Pakwheels on the creation of a unique mobile app to bring car buying and selling to all Android mobile phones using version 2.1 and above. Customers can buy and sell cars and view price information of popular car models in Pakistan. The PakWheels Android application allows users to quickly and easily search and locate used cars in their city and enable them to put their cars up for sale.

Warid’s involvement with auto enthusiast is also evident in the new Hari Bati app, which shows users street traffic information on a map-based interface. The app allows users to mark frequently visited routes and receive constant updates regarding the traffic situation directly on their handsets.

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Wateen Telecom Delivers Fiber Optic Network in Sindh

Wateen Telecom, Pakistan’s leading converged communications company has been awarded a PKR 449 million project to develop an extensive optical fibre network in Sindh. The USF Sindh project entails the laying of over (1,037) km of an optical fibre network in Southern Telecom Region. An amount of PKR 449 Million will be provided by USF in the form of a subsidy; the rest of the cost will be borne by Wateen. 

The new optical fibre network will connect 17 unserved cities and towns.. Wateen has joined hands with the Universal Service Fund Company (USF Co.) to undertake this project of national importance, which will go a long way in bridging the digital divide in the country. The project, funded through a USF subsidy, will provide state of the art digital infrastructure in remote areas of Sindh, and could be further exploited to build IT, telecom, education, health and business services in these areas.

This protect has been inaugurated by Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on 23 February 2013, in Sanghar – Chak # 11 along with a number of telecommunications and health and education projects.

This new project is in line with Wateen Telecom’s commitment to lead the digital revolution in Pakistan. Wateen is already working with USF on four optical fibre projects in underserved areas of Balochistan and Sindh, with subsidies worth a total of PKR 3.7 billion. These existing projects entail optical fibre networks spanning over 4,563 km (in Sindh and Balochistan) 

Commenting on the project, Mr Zamindar said, “Wateen’s vision is to take Pakistan into the digital revolution of the 21st Century by offering complete communications and media solutions, including telephony, internet, data and TV/multimedia to the public at large, and to make Pakistan a regional communications hub, inter-connecting the East with the West and Central Asia with the Middle East, participation in USF regions aligns with Wateen’s vision of taking Pakistan into the digital broadband revolution of the 21st century while promoting education and literacy through these means.”

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Flick.pk an Islamic Video Sharing Website Launched

Flick.pk is recent launched and ready for use. It is authentic and reliable source of family education and entertainment in Pakistan and the world. 

You can take it as an alternate controlled media site to ensure the content, particularly videos posted are in compliance with the principles, values and teachings of our sacred religion Islam as well as the ideology, creation, culture, founders and people of our beloved country Pakistan.

One of the powerful feature introduced is that you are able to import videos already uploaded on the internet. There is no need to upload them again on Flick.pk although you may as you like. Currently supported sites for import include Youtube, Vimeo, Blip, DailyMotion and Metacafe.

Flick.pk has a mission to provide education and entertainment that is in compliant with all of our cultural and religious values. You can comfortably let your kids watch videos at Flick.pk without worrying about the content. They have humans in place for approving all the videos submitted on Flick.pk.

You can upload your own videos and you can also import a video from other websites on Flick.pk. For importing a video, click on the "Suggest video" link under your name on top-right corner, enter the URL of the video you want to import and click the "Submit" button. Your video will be available automatically immediately after approval by an admin. Currently you can upload video files upto 500 MB in size. Flick.pk works on all smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

For uploading a video, click on the "Upload" link under your name on top-right corner, browse the video you want to upload and click the "Upload" button. Your uploading will start, and it will take some time to complete. Your video will be available automatically immediately after approval by an admin.

Go to the site, make your account and start uploading or import videos. This is our own Pakistani community. Lets use it.

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Wateen’s Free Wi-Fi Hotspots at Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) a Hit with those in attendance

Wateen Telecom, Pakistan’s leading converged communications enabled internet connectivity by deploying high speed Wi-Fi Hotspots at Lahore Literary Festival (LLF).

The inaugural LLF, was held on the 23rd and 24th of February at the Alhamra Arts Complex, with aims to revive the spirit of art and creativity in Lahore. The festival is a first step in re-establishing Lahore as the cultural heartbeat of Pakistan and enriching the cultural experience of the city’s residents by creating an institutional platform for fostering and furthering Lahore’s literary traditions.  According to certain estimates around 30,000 people attended the two day festival.

As part of its support for the Festival and Lahore’s revival as Pakistan’s cultural capital, Wateen Telecom provided guests and visitors at the event with continuous high-speed wireless broadband. About 2,000 people per day took advantage of free Wi-Fi Hotspots that was being provided by Wateen Telecom at the Alhamra Arts Complex for the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF). At this two-day highly successful event more than 4,000 people registered for the service, which they used to download and upload content utilizing Wateen’s continuous high-speed wireless broadband.

In addition, Wateen placed experiential kiosks specially designed for the Literary Festival at the venue. The kiosks, known as ‘Freedom Booths’, had laptops fitted with web cameras through which visitors recorded their video messages about their experiences at the Festival.

Commenting on Wateen’s involvement with the Festival, Mr. Naeem Zamindar, CEO Wateen Telecom, said, “The Lahore Literary Festival was great event not only for those involved but for the citizens of Lahore. All of us got a chance to attend some amazing sessions on literature, culture, history and art. We at Wateen are proud of the fact that we facilitated those who attended the Festival by enabling them to blog, tweet, post pictures and share videos from the festival with not only their friends and loved ones but everyone across the globe.”

As a further commitment to supporting the arts, Wateen permanently donate the necessary WiFi equipment to the Alhamra Arts Complex for continued future use.

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Plan9 Creates Pakistan's First Angel Investors Club

Plan9 has taken over the tech space in Pakistan by a storm. Recently, formed under the astute leadership of Dr. Umar Saif, Chairman, Punjab Information Technology Board, it held its first ever “Investors Conference” at the Arfa Karim Software Technology Park, Lahore, in collaboration with My Biz Pakistan and Angel’s Den.

The conference was attended by like-minded, accomplished and passionate businessmen, entrepreneurs and tech stars where they discussed and shared their views on how to help the startups grow and prosper with the right kind of financial investments.

The aim of the conference was to create an opportunity for leading businessmen, globally accomplished angel investors and academicians to discuss the need and potential of investing in the local IT industry and how we can put a halt at the alarming situation of brain drain. 

Noted guests at the event included Chairman PITB Dr Umar Saif, Syed Babar Ali, Babar Ahmed, Bill Morrow, Hussein Kanji, Rob Kniaz, Zahoor Motiwala, Shahid Niaz, Hafiz Awais Ghani, Noman Ahmed Khan, Salem Rehman, Osman Saifullah, Taimoor Hazir, Badar Khushnood, Humayun Mazhar, Afaque Ahmed and significant others. The conference was chaired by Bill Morrow who is a “Serial entrepreneur, who has been creating, building and selling businesses for the last 25 years. He is founder and CEO of Angels Den, Europe’s largest equity funding facilitators, bringing business Angels and entrepreneurs together” and it was skillfully facilitated by Amer Qureshi, who is a business advisor.

Commenting on the event, Mr. Nabeel Qadeer Project Head of Plan9 said, “We’ve successfully managed to put a significant mark on the entrepreneurial landscape that exists in Pakistan. Presenting to you, Pakistan's first Angel Investors Group. *Plan9 Angel Investors Club*. Everything's possible"!

Recognizing the potential of the Plan9 startups, one of the top incubated teams at Plan9, Eyedeus, received a grant of 5000 USD, for their innovation, devotion and unwavering passion.

Hafsa Shorish, Marketing and PR Manager- Plan9, addressed the audience cheerfully and closed it on a candid note by saying, “Let’s not hijack these ideas, let’s finance these ideas because Plan9 does not let you kill your dreams, it provides you with an environment to execute it.”

This conference proved to be a stepping stone in shaping a promising future for the upcoming techpreneurs of Pakistan and it would not have been a success without the genuine efforts of the Plan9 team and the support of the business and tech community.

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Plan9 Holds Its First Ever Bloggers Meet-Up

Plan9, Pakistan’s first technology incubator formed under the wing of the Punjab Information Technology Board, held its first ever Bloggers Meet-up at the Arfa Karim Software Technology Park, Lahore, in collaboration with Abacus Consulting and Oracle Pakistan.

The event was attended by professional, amateur and aspiring bloggers where they discussed and shared their views on Pakistan’s growing online market and the challenges it faced. Noted speakers at the event included Chairman PITB Dr Umar Saif, Mr Mohammad Khan, Ms Zarin Shoaib, Mr Zia Imran and Ms. Ulrike Reinhard.

Commenting on the event, Mr. Nabeel Qadeer Project Head of Plan9 said, “Pakistan has one of the fastest growing IT industries in the world and at Plan9 we aim to play a fundamental role in promoting the country’s IT sector. This bloggers Meet-up is one of many events aimed at bringing together amateur and professional IT personal under one roof where they can share ideas with lots of people who share the same interests without the need for digital avatars.”

Plan9 is Pakistan’s first technology incubator formed under the wing of the Punjab Information Technology Board and is housed in a state of the art infrastructure located on the 9th floor at the purpose built Arfa Software Technology Park. The aim of the project is to promote and be the catalyst for a new wave of technological entrepreneurship in Pakistan.

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Wateen Brings Employees Transformation Portal For Paper Free Environment

Wateen Telecom choses Vurke (a global human resource, outsourcing and technology solutions provider) for employees as part of its transformation portal online to create a world without paperwork, no more running around trying to sign forms and no more chasing the paper trail, with the click of a button you can get all your administrative work done. This will save time, money and most importantly energy.

Wateen's Transformation Portal wateen.vurke.com is now live: from this point when employees want to submit a request for:

• Leaves
• Travel
• Vehicle
• Hotel
• Stationery
• Visiting & ID card

In addition employees will also have the following features to facilitate their workflow:

1. An Idea Box so employees can submit any and all ideas they have for improving any aspect of the business or the culture. 
2. E-Pay slips are available online. 
3. Employees medical benefits balance is also available.
4. The enterprise address book is also online, so if they need to find the contact of anyone in the organization they can do it with a single click!

The next phase will be to bring the communication and discussion forum online to facilitate a vibrant and dynamic dialogue, and also be able to recognize its teams and celebrate their wins!

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Dell Selected by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government for Distribution of Free Laptops to Students

Dell has been selected to provide the provincial government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) 25,000 Inspiron3420 computers which will be distributed to students in the province.

The initiative is the largest of its kind ever in the province and is designed to help enable students and people of KPK to become productive and contributing members of society and to give back to the province. The first round of distribution will be conducted on Feb 10 at Peshawar University.

Speaking about the initiative, Project Director KPK, Adeel Khan, said “This project is agreat leap in terms of equipping our youth to meet the challenges of the modern world and to keep Pakistan a competitor in the global knowledge economy. Dell’s involvement goes a long way in guaranteeing the success of this initiative.”

Shahzad Aslam Khan, Country Manager Dell Pakistan & Afghanistan, said we look forward to working with KPK as they increase technology access and the learning potential for students. Mobile computing devices have become essential to daily life — at work, at home and increasingly, in academic institutions. Students are leveraging devices of all kinds to access information, collaborate with their peers and teachers, and produce dynamic content inside and outside of the classroom.  At Dell, we believe these devices can help support teaching and learning – and have the potential to personalize the learning experience for each student.Dell is delighted to work with KPK in this important program and is committed to providing these devices by meeting aggressive time lines and ensuring highest product quality.

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Bank Alfalah and Warid Telecom Join Hands for Branchless Banking

Bank Alfalah Limited (BAFL), Pakistan’s 6^th largest bank and Warid Telecom, both owned and operated by the Abu Dhabi Group have joined hands for their upcoming branchless banking services in Pakistan. The technological support for this collaboration is being provided by Monet and the pilot testing launch is currently underway as approved by the State Bank of Pakistan. The two companies have been working extensively to develop a branchless ecosystem which will offer a range of customized products and services tailored to suit the evolving needs of various stakeholders including consumers, institutions, SMEs and the government.

‘We are pleased that both companies have been working in conjunction to successfully execute our shared outlook on introducing our branchless banking services. Once launched in the market, we are optimistic that both telecom and banking customers will benefit hugely from the enhanced access and convenience provided by this innovative offering. We will continue to explore joint efforts in order to provide innovative, technology driven value-additional propositions that increase access to financial services and hence reduce the gap between the ‘banked’ and ‘yet-to-be-banked’ in Pakistan,’ said Atif Bajwa, CEO Bank Alfalah.

Muneer Farooqui, CEO Warid Telecom while commenting on the occasion said “The future of the telecom industry in Pakistan lies in providing technological solutions that cater to a wide range of customer requirements which are not necessarily linked to communication only. The synergistic relationship between Warid Telecom and Bank Alfalah is a natural fit and the launch of Mobile Financial Services is another step in the right direction, where we look forward to using our collective resources and experience to provide further convenience to the Pakistani consumer.”

As we enter 2013, Bank Alfalah continues to operate through a network of 471 branches across 163 cities in Pakistan in order to provide consumers, corporations, institutions and governments with a broad spectrum of financial products and services, including corporate and investment banking, consumer banking and credit, securities brokerage, commercial, agricultural, Islamic and asset financing.

As an organization entering its 8^th year of operations, Warid Telecom prides itself on being contemporary, approachable and constantly innovating. With achievements ranging from having one of the largest post-paid bases, most loved youth and prepaid brands, international roaming and nationwide coverage at over 7,000 destinations in Pakistan, Warid Telecom's selection of value added services makes communication effective and enjoyable.

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PITB Launchs Data Centre and Cloud Computing Service in Karachi

The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) has launched its Data Centre and Cloud Computing Services for public and private sector, the launching ceremony was held at the Sheraton Hotel, Karachi. This marks the establishment of the Government’s first Public cloud by PITB. The PITB will offer all required services of a Tier-III (Intl. Standard) compliant Data Centre and cloud computing to host applications and services of public and private sector at the Arfa Software Technology Park Data Centre.

The cloud computing services project, which is named “Cloud for Everyone”, offers customized and on demand packages of VPS Hosting, Hosted Exchange, Sharepoint and Website Hosting. These services have the capability to cater hosting and IT needs of well established businesses as well as start-ups at an affordable price range. PITB Public cloud and Data Center services will help business to have a secure and reliable IT infrastructure. 

Dr. Jawaid A. Ghani former Chairman PITB graced the event and appreciated the efforts made by PITB towards the development of IT industry in Pakistan. He commented that such initiatives will bring a culture of innovation in Pakistan for economic prosperity and will help SMEs to bring their business to new technological heights. During the event, Project Director, Mr. Sajjad Ghani presented a detailed description to the attendees regarding the technological features, services and benefits of cloud computing.

PITB has taken this step in order to provide world class IT facilities to small and large businesses and public institutions. They can opt for data centre facilities to manage their IT operations as part of streamlining and running their businesses efficiently.

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Malik Naureed Awan and MMA Group of Companies Exposed as Scam in Pakistan

The owner of MMA Airlines and many other companies such as the name of MMA have been exposed to be fraud. It is being claimed by TV channels that the owner Malik Naureed Awan is an international fraudster who has fled dubai due to his illegal work. 

If you got a chance to be in Islamabad over the recent months, you must have seen excessive advertisement of MMA forex, MMA Bank and MMA Airlines on every major road.

A 26-year-old Pakistani businessman from Abbottabad, Malik Naureed Awan, who also happens to be singer Annie Khalid's Husband, claims that the worlds forex market is $3.9 trillion, and his company share is $1 trillion of conducting business. I wonder how did he even dare to tell a lie on a media so bluntly. He even allured anchors for personality boost to provide them forex account trading for income purposes.

It is said that 99% Online Forex Trading companies in Pakistan conduct fraud. They use fake online trading software where they can control each and every thing. They transfer client's money in their abroad accounts and then control client's trading.

Take a look at the profile of MMA Group of Companies:

• MMA Airline is part of the MMA Group of Companies which has interests in heavy machinery and equipment trading, financial services (forex trading), advertisement and events management.
• The company's business spreads across Ireland, Switzerland, Uganda, South Africa and the UAE. 
• MMA Online Trading Services (MMA Forex) is one of the world's leading online forex trading brokers, with over 100,000 registered customers worldwide, and volumes of more than $20 billion a month.
• Awan said he started his business in forex trading in Ireland by setting up a company in 2006 with a team of finance professionals and experts.
• However, MMA Group's origin lies in MMA Heavy Machinery, set up in 1995.
• Having several branches in about 75 countries, mostly in Europe, MMA Forex made its entry in to the Middle East in 2010.
• MA Forex is backed by a major financial institution with over $17 billion in assets under management and is rated A+ by an S&P affiliated rating agency.
• The company launched MMA Bank GT in Zurich, last year.

Watch this video for more details:

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Minhaj-ul-Quran Website Minhaj.org Gets Down

Those of you trying to access http://minhaj.org may have noticed that this website is undergoing some problem for last 24 hours now. minhaj.org is down and it is failing to receive a 200 OK HTTP status code as a response at the moment. This means that the website is currently unavailable and down for everybody (not just you).

Minhaj-ul-Quran International (MQI) and Minhaj youth seem to be sleeping without considering the fact that Tahir ul Qadri Sb wants them to be active on social networks even more than before in fighting against the propaganda that is being raised against him. 

For example what is the reason of unconditional support of MQM which is a dangerous sign for the nation. Just before the Jalsa, MQM's top Rabita Committee leader sent a tweet message to US state department congratulating on the successful Jalsa. Why would MQM send a Mubarak baad message to US government? What is MQM and US government up to?

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Etisalat Group CEO, Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar Elected to GSMA Board

Chief Executive Officer, Etisalat Group, Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar has been elected to the GSM Association (GSMA) Board. Mr. Julfar joins 24 other global CEOs and senior executives reflecting the largest operator groups as well as smaller independent operators with global representation.

GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, spanning more than 220 countries and uniting nearly 800 of the world's mobile operators with more than 230 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers and Internet companies, as well as organisations in industry sectors such as financial services, healthcare, media, transport and utilities. The GSMA also produces industry-leading events such as the Mobile World Congress and Mobile Asia Expo.

Mr. Julfar will work with the GSMA Board and the GSMA to help shape the future of mobile communications and develop a new future for the individuals, organizations and governments throughout the world. Mr. Julfar will serve on the GSMA Board for a two-year term from January 2013 through December 2014.

“Group CEO Etisalat, Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar’s representation on the GSMA Board is a source of great pride for the whole Etisalat family”, said President & CEO PTCL. “This success is a testament to Mr. Julfar’s dynamic role as the leader of one of most vibrant and fastest growing telecommunications companies in the world”, he added further.

As Group CEO of Etisalat, Mr. Julfar is driving Etisalat to have a direct impact on the social and economic growth of the 18 international markets it operates in. His role includes the delivery of the Group’s commercial, technological, financial, business development and overall organizational goals as Etisalat strives to become one of the world's top telecommunications companies.

"It's a pleasure to welcome Mr. Julfar to the GSMA Board, and we are all looking forward to working with Etisalat Group on the GSMA's efforts to advance the strategic priorities of the operator community," said Franco Bernabe, Chairman of the GSMA Board and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Telecom Italia Group.

Etisalat operates across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, catering to consumers, businesses, international telecommunication companies, ISPs, content providers and mobile operators. Etisalat has been at the forefront of the Middle East's technological revolution and for close to forty years, the company has developed and grown to become one of the world's leading telecommunications companies.

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