Is IT the Panacea?

Howdy y`all

I`m Sorry to take your space Dr Daudpota but I would like to make a request to Chowk Staff, if possible, to designate a special section on the site which relates to all Charitable organisations working in Southeast, i.e. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh etc etc. The spot would include such details as their contacts, history, missions, their systems of functions, methods of fund collections, annual outcomes, personal experiences of people who`ve worked for charities, useful ideas, methods of setting up the organisations etc etc and we could all contribute our own little bit to this knowledge.

I`ve heard many people say that Chowk is a bekaar vela place meant for useless chatter and maybe it`s true but I`m not quiet willing to believe that just yet. A single water molecule is nothing but get enough of them and they become `wet.`

All in favour say `yay`.

Umer Murtaza Phoenix.

Isa:

I will differ with your understanding on the following. You do not seem to see the full picture here. I guess it may be that we have not caught up with the term ``ebusiness`` and are still latching onto ``ecommerce.`` Something to look into.

``There is also great interest in electronic commerce, which is promised to increase internal and external trade, something we are told is a good thing.If one is to go by how `e-commerce` has developed in the West, the main thing that has resulted from it is consumerism, with increasing emphasis on global greed. It is unclear how our experience will be any different. It seems likely to lead to our elite spending even more money on luxury items from here, there and everywhere.

With government departments in a chaotic state, is there any hope of `e-governance` helping out? Information technology may be wonderful but it
cannot perform miracles. Surely a rectification of the ``manual mess`` is called for before (or at least concurrently with) introducing IT into
government departments. But the previous government was and the present government is unwilling to do so, as can be witnessed by their reluctance to improve efficiency, recognize and reward talent, and downsize themselves.``

While there is this hoopla about IT, there has to be this basic awareness that it`s not everyone`s cup of tea. Something on a different note:

Capital Opportunities: Microcredit in Asia and the U.S.

A Film and Discussion with Entrepreneurs
Thursday, April 5, 2001
6:00 - 8:30 p.m. (Reception at 8:15 p.m.)
Tinker Auditorium, French Institute Alliance Française
22 East 60th Street, New York, NY 10022
Advanced Payment Required to Register.
$5 Students w/ ID $7 Member/NGO $10 Nonmember
To register with a Credit Card, please call the Box Office at (212) 327-9276, or send complete information including your name, address, phone, fax or email address. by fax at (212) 517-8315. If paying with a check, please send payment ten days before the event.

Screening of ``Sixteen Decisions`` followed by a panel discussion with:
-Roshaneh Zafar, Kashf Foundation, Pakistan
-Jayshree Vyas, SEWA, India
-I Gusti Made Oka, Bank Dagang Bali, Indonesia
-Milton Balcacer, Credit Where Credit is Due
-Valerie Davis, Project Enterprise
-Moderator: Nancy Barry, President, Women’s World Banking

Take Care.



AAmir:

Good Correction!

It seemed that the Indian discrepancies were given a Pakistani name.

Take Care.

Dr. Daudpota,

Thank you for this very relevant article. It is about time it dawned on the powers-that-be that even an IT revotion will hardly solve Pakistan`s basic problems -- as pointed out by scout#1, jay and krashid.

hamidm... you`re getting good at this... latching on to one dubious point in an article and seemingly missing the relevance of the rest...

rgds,

PM

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Progress in IT should just be looked at in the context of IT alone. It is not going to be, nor is it supposed to be, the direct solution of all the social problems of any country. I am not quite sure why people attempt to assume that it should be. Countries advance through a combination of factors. These include a high literacy rate, a non-feudal system, women`s rights, a secure defense, a just judiciary, etc. and most of all excellent leadership.

IT is not going to be able to create all of the above. However, this does not mean that IT should be sidelined. It should be pursued like it is currently being pursued in Pakistan. The purpose of Information Technology is not to create a stable political system, nor to spread literacy at the primary level in every village. That is the job of the politicians and the ministry of education, respectively. It is not the job of the Ministry of S&T, or of any kind of IT policy. If the Ministry of Education cannot educate kids in villages, it has a lot to do with its own inefficiency. If Pakistan has an unstable political system, it has a lot to do with the corrupt and incompetent practices of the politicians. IT should not be made the scapegoat for that.

The primary purpose of IT in Pakistan, for the moment, should be to earn foreign exchange directly through software exports and indirectly by making Pakistani businesses, govt. etc. more efficient. That`s it (even the USA has not been able to turn IT into a means of mass education yet. So Pakistan shouldn`t be to worried if it cannot do so either). The foreign exchange thus earned can be used to build schools in villages etc., at a later stage.

It`s a simple business concept. One crore rupees if directly spent in building village schools may result in, lets say, a one-shot construction of one hundred schools. If that one crore is spent on creating an IT university which can, lets say, produce five hundred graduates each year, then those graduates could bring in enough foreign exchange to build twenty village schools every year (not just once). Spending money directly on village schools in this case is not the best solution.

Pakistan needs to jump on the IT wagon as quickly as possible, and with as much finances, energy, resources, and sacrifices as required. Every extra penny needs to be put into this. Pakistan needs to put up IT universities from one corner of country to the other. As many as possible. Throw all caution to the wind. Pakistan needs to produce IT graduates like rabbits produce babies. Good ones, average ones, below average ones, young ones, old ones, boys, girls, wives, husbands, great grandmothers...everyone and anyone. It doesn`t matter, for the time being, where these graduates end up. If they all go to the USA, let them go. Provided there are enough of them, within ten years, these graduates will have set up off-shore IT offices in Pakistan which will be exporting software in billions of dollars. At that point, all the IT graduates being produced in Pakistan will have chances to be employed in Pakistan. No Pakistani software company can be successful unless it can export software to the USA and Europe. And expatriate IT professionals are the best links these software companies have with their potential markets.

The biggest mistake Pakistan can make right now is to change from a capatilistic approach regarding IT, under which the most capable (who perhaps maybe the most wealthiest also) are given the opportunity to start the companies that will lead the IT revolution in Pakistan, to a socialist approach where the funds for this revolution are de-allocated and spent directly on welfare projects.

Give a person a fish, you feed him for a day. Give him a fishing pole/teach him how to fish, you feed him for life. IT universities and graduates could become the fishing poles for Pakistan. As long as there are enough of them, a portion of the money they generate will itself indirectly find its way into the Pakistani villages; even if its generated in Silicon Valley. As a personal example, I have far more capacity to contribute to Pakistan financially and technically now, sitting here in San Francisco, then I would ever have had if I had spent the last ten years in Pakistan. The combined market cap of the two Pakistani IT companies listed on the Nasdaq, at their peak, was about 1/5th of the market cap of the whole Karachi Stock Exchange. It is true that most of the money from these market caps ended up with the Pakistani owners and American investors. However, if those two companies stay around and grow in Pakistan, a lot of that money is someday going to trickle down to the village schools.

To paraphrase a famous quote; Pakistan needs to build its IT universities even if every Pakistani, rich or poor, has to eat grass (and even if every graduate from these universities ends up in Germany and the USA).

Opportunities like the current IT revolution come around once in a half a century. If Pakistan misses out on this one due to some mis-guided, though well-intentioned, socialist agenda of using the money allocated for IT on welfare projects, it will be making a huge mistake. One must first generate money and then distribute it. Not the other way around.

I have had a chance to meet Dr. Ata-ur-Rahman and talk to him and a couple of members of his team. I was quite impressed. All the moves they are making are in the right direction. They deserve and need all the encouragement and finances they can get their hands on. Even if they succeed in half of those initiatives, Pakistan will be well on its way in the IT arena.

THE COMPUTER DIAGNOSIS

A man, who was a non-beleiver in IT, complained to his friend, ``My elbow really hurts, I guess I should see a doctor``. His friend offered, ``Don`t do that!!! There`s a computer at the drug store that can diagnose anything, quicker and cheaper than a doctor. Simply put in a sample of your urine and the computer will diagnose your problem and tell you what you can do about it. It only costs $10.00.

The man figured he had nothing to loose, so he filled a jar with a urine sample and went to the drug store. Finding the computer, he poured in the sample and deposited the $10.00.

The computer started making some noises and the various lights started flashing. After a brief pause, out popped a small slip of paper on which was printed:
You have tennis elbow.
Soak your arm in warm water.
Avoid heavy labour.
It will be better in two weeks.


Late that evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was and how it would change medical science forever, he began to wonder if this machine could be fooled. He decided to give it a try.

He mixed together some tap water, a stool sample from his dog and urine samples from his wife and daughter. To top it off, he masturbated into the concoction. He went to the drug store, located the machine, poured in the sample and deposited the $10.00. The machine again made the usual noise and printed out the following analysis:

Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener.
Your dog has worms. Give him vitamins.
Your daughter`s on drugs. Put her in rehab.
Your wife`s pregnant. It ain`t yours---get a lawyer.
And if you don`t stop jerking off,

Your tennis elbow will never get better.

HamidM#2

Dr. Isa is in self exile like most expatriates and ex-patriots Pakistanis for very long time.

May be the article being printed in Islamabad left its flavor.

I think consumerism of foreign items will be the result.

Whether it will be good or bad will depend upon foreign companies`s commission to beaureaucrats, price and choice to people and money to multi nationals.

Kharidne Ko Pesa Bhi Amrika Dey, Maal Bhi Amrika Dey, or Humare Hisse Mein Naa Sirf Maal Balke Qarza Bhi. Maal Hazam. Qarz Baqi.

Nuskha Bohat Aazmooda Aur Accha Hai.

At least children of our beareaucrats can study in Ivy and non-Ivy league schools. And people will earn the money for taxes and ``Qarz Utaro, Aakhrat Sadharo``

Dr. Isa #

Although you have touched the education only.

But recent water crises with its devastating effect on psychology of people.

The results of recent local bodies election.

The voicing of concern by Islamist parties.

The effort to create a king`s party.

All point out to one direction. We need political reform first and foremost.

If our ruling elite thinks that it can compete in the world with participation and effort of people in a puppet way, it is still living in fools paradize.

Although IT is good and is not only demand of time, but also politically correct. But I think without addressing the political issue and participation of masses in nation building, each day is putting us behind one more day.

Scout # 1 According to economic theory there is no selfless act. If conditions are conducive Pakistanis whether living abroad or at home will participate in nation building for themselves and their future generations.

Daudpota,

You were concerned about pakistanis leaving the country after It courses. The following from dawn of today solves your problem. Urdu, the most lyrical, beautifull language for IT education, Java in Qwaali style by Bismilla Galib Khan based for Khidki 2000. Who said pakistanis are unimaginative, they have solved befor being identified by the allegedly educated of pakistan.

``Many students complained that in the majority of the IT institutes teachers had given lectures in Urdu. This scribe visited some of the institutes and found that in the majority of them teachers were delivering lectures in Urdu. Ironically, the language of computer is English and many of the students are interested in working abroad. One finds it incomprehensible how would they cope with the situation once they finish their studies and go for job-hunting.``

regards

jay

To Mr Daudpota,

Befor getting into the nitty gritty of rupees and paise how about a bold social statement that pakistan is a country that values knowledge and education above every thing else. In that statement a recipient of the nobel prize should come high on the totem pole.

How about a Abdus Salam Institute of Advanced Technology, to honour the only pakistani to receive a nobel prize, and from the chowk posts, I understand he remained a pak citizen till the end.

That would be too much to ask, is it, or it will be too much for the educated on the chowk to accept that the search for IT and modernity has to be subsumed under the ..... If education is search for truth, accepting the reality should be the first step, and how conveniently you have missed that.

Education, even if it is IT does not take place in a vaccuum, it takes place in a social context, a context that values and confers honour on a shaheen over a nobel laurette, sends the clear message. Wake up.

regards and best wishes

jay.

.......yet another brilliant revelation from the hallowed halls of islamabad`s academia ....

``If one is to go by how `e-commerce` has developed in the West, the main thing that has resulted from it is consumerism, with increasing emphasis on global greed. ``

duh? ........... and all this time i thought it was all about providing consumers with choices, managing the supply chain, reducing structural costs, increasing liquidity, increasing productivity, reducing transaction costs, increasing collaboration in design and development, increasing mobility, etc., etc...... thank god mr. daudpota is in pakistan and ariba, siebel, commerce one, ibm, i2, and others are safe ..... they have enough problems without being accused of contributing to the rise of hedonism and consumerism .........

........ it all started with the allama iqbal ``open`` university, preston college (sic), the madrassa at faisal masjid and the hamdard college of alchemy ........

Why can`t both things be done simultaneously?

Development of IT technology hand in hand with the improvement of basic education.

I think the problem Pakistanis face is with organization and selfishness. If we can organize and prioritize ourselves consistently, we can form a system where revenue from technological developments can be cycled into education/health reforms in the country. This isn`t rocket science. It`s a pretty basic principle most developed/developing countries follow.

Expatriates and Pakistani nationals who have the resources and money need to be involved directly with this process.

What we don`t need is a new IT professional upper class living in marble palaces opposite slums, the usual class difference inherent in Pakistan.

Lastly, Thank you for the thought provoking article.