Umair.com: An Interview

aicha,

isnt it obvious, I havent been too great a fan of some of this writings here. If they turned out to be the well reasoned thoughts of an intelligent person that would have undermined my whole belief system :-)

b_d`s

``...Phew thats a relief!``

Why is it such a relief : ) pls do tell

So this Umairr Khan is not ROmair, Phew thats a relief!

For a few minutes in a parking lot in the Bay Area one night I meet with one of the most open faces I have ever come across in my life . . . Umair, long life to you . . . where chowk takes all of us nobody knows but one thing is for sure . . . it pulls many of us out of the environment induced stupors we find ourselves in especially on the sub-continent . . . epitomise the migratory nature of the species human and meet again and again and again at crossroads throughout life . . . chowk, the medium, not the solution. Salute all those who made and continue to make it what it is, every colour every sentiment . . . by the way . . . as and when there is a ``chowk cafe`` anywhere let me assure you that the race has already begun to see that Delhi comes first . . .

shankar #286: There might be a photograph of Umair Khan on one of his companys` websites. My own guess is that he probably looks quite different from me. But since I have never met him, or seen him, I cannot be certain. Umair, along with Amir and a few others, seems to have been a common first name for newborns of my generation. So you will find quite a few Pakistani Umairs (and a lot of Amirs) in their thirties. I hope that answers you first question.

I ended up changing from Umairr to ROmair because, for some reason, many of my replies as Umairr would not show up on Chowk. It`s a Hindu conspiracy. They have hacked this site, gotten to the cgi scripts, which are handling the replies, and have successfully modified them. Pretty soon they will in our homes, on our TVs and Satellite Dishes, in our VCRs and cassette players, and in our magazine shops. Or has that already happened :-)

I am trying to track down Pakistan non-profit IT related (or partially IT related) organizations/groups etc. Here are a few:

www.dareecha.org, www.open-us.com, www.most.gov.pk, www.pseb.org.pk, www.pak2000.org, www.apsenagwc.org

Any inputs would be appreciated.

Thanks Umair and Safwan for chowk, without which my days would be empty and my imagination unchallenged.

Interesting interview Umair. So, is Clickmarks hiring? That seemed to be the obvious question to me.:-)

Re: YHL

Like what? Like Rutgers is an Ivy school?!! LOL

Ciao!

FerozeK,

Skeptics like yourself are going to wake up to a new reality very soon.

Yasser

Dear Umair,

Good on you buddy, you`re an inspiration to all of us.

Take care and best wishes

Umer M Phoenix

Re: Temporal # 10

First of all, great work Umair and hope you succed against all odds...

Secondly, Temporal, sorry to bust your bubble, but IT will never work in Pakistan. The country needs to invest about 25-30 years of solid expenditure into an educational infrastructure geared towards producing IT professionals.

Pakistan needs to make its IT name on the basis of producing quality IT related software and not by infringing on copyright laws!

It needs to make sure that these professionals have a job in Pakistan and do not feel allured towards distant shores with their attractive salary packages.

IT needs to be taken out of the hands of civil servants who do not know the difference between a fishing net and the internet and put beyond the intentions of the Pakistani bureaucrats who are more easily corrupted than most hard drives in the market and given to the private sector.

The cost of IT related books have to be brought down to planet earth so that an average student, whose parents are not defaulters, can buy a book on IT without asking the IMF/Paris Club for an educational structural loan!

The government, if it has any clue (highly doubtful,)will stick with its support of the IT policy for the next 30 years and not reverse its course right after October 12, 2003 if military does find a road map back to the barracks.

It should encourage an atmosphere of intellectual freedom and tolerance, because the IT thrives on freedom of expression and IT professionals should not feel that they be will jailed and executed for profaning Islam by injecting a western technology, the epitome of the Jewish-Hindu-Baptist nexus agaisnt the Muslim world but Pakistan in particular, into the land of the pure and corrupting the innocent youth of Pakistan!

Ciao!

very impressive indeed !

Congrats Umair,

It is indeed a real honour to know that at least some Pakistanis are doing exceptionally well in IT.

You make Pakistan proud. And its about time, someone did.

Sincerely,

Asim

Anyone who can get 1 million dollars out of another person for a business investment has my respect. Anyone who can get more than twenty is quite unique, and perhaps one in a million.

From a business analysis point of view, I would have to say that I am not sure how successful your Wordwalla venture is going to be. It is technically one of the best email sites, but I think it is a few years too late. Had it come out right around the Hotmail time, you could have been Sabeer Bhatia. How is it doing?

Clickmarks seems to have a shot. How is it doing in comparison to AvantGo and the likes? Is it along the same lines?

Finally, you have indicated that your companies have 21 millions of funding. Is this total funding, or just the last round of funding? Start-ups, on the average (at least that`s been my experience) burn up around 15 million per 100 hundred employees per year. Considering you have around 90 employees, how long are you funded for?

Less than 1% of potential businesses get funding, and amongst them, only a fraction can take a company public. So if you can take one of your companies public, you will have beat the odds by a great margin. However, in today`s market, the tough part really starts, after the company goes public. I hope you are well prepared.

I am a great admirer of entrepreneurs; being a microscopic entrepreneur myself (the microscopic applies not to me, but my entrepreneurship venture). Here is something that keeps me going when the funds aren`t coming in, business is slow, and people are predicting failiure:

``It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,

and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls

who know neither victory or defeat.`` (Roosevelt)

Something perhaps more applicable to warfare, but perhaps equally applicable to the business world. Good Luck, and Godspeed.

Umairr

Romair #13

[...While it is good to point out weaknesses in the Pakistani society, one should be careful, lest one goes overboard...]

I agree with you, and apologize if I have stepped on some toes or hurt some feelings.

I am not thinking of a Chowk Cafe as an IT ‘business’ venture. I think of it as an internet cafe we find around the world these days usually at the street level and easily accessible.

Denied a regular and free expression of their will through ballots among other factors (lack of untarnished public institutions, lack of learning, poverty, and the bigoted baabaa brigade induced dogma) the most popular barometer of public dissent in P. was and is burning public property. People disagree with a government measure or are egged on by the opposition and they merrily round up public buses, taxis, etc. and send smoke signals to those higher up on the desi totem poles.

Please check the archives, and look for ibn warraq’s regurgitation by Solitude alone. There is enough nitro-blasphemy in those posts to burn down a few fleets.

Burning of Chowk Cafes was in that context.

There is enough lack of restraint, poor choice of words and thoughts, deliberate provocation, and malicious misrepresentations in this ‘free’ format. And even if desis in the diaspora have been afflicted with those genes, what can they do here? Burn or destroy their screens and PCs? Passionate yes, foolish no!

That is why the burning and destruction of public property remains a uniquely desi phenomenon there.

[... One should keep one`s perspective, when pointing out these issues. For every television that has been broken by fanatics in some remote corner of Pakistan, there have been tens of thousands that have been manufactured. For the one printing press that has been burned down, there are many that are functioning well...]

If I didn’t know any better, I would be offended. How can you equate mob violence with the replacabilty factor?

regards,

t

Umair,

Congratulations.

Thanks to Chowk, I`ve got to know many Pakistanis who have won my respect. Now, more than ever, I am convinced that our 2 countries have the same goals & aspirations & should live as good neighbors & friends.

I`ve asked this question before. Perhaps it is quite naive, but I havent got an answer: Are you the same Umairr who interacts frequently on Chowk & whose posts I mostly agree with?!