Message in the Bubble Burst

Why worry about these bania-type things? Doing these low level computer jobs are way beneath you guys. Leave those to the sambar-swilling dark skinned savages with funny long names (usually involves lingam or at least moorthy!!!!).

You guys are proud warriors. Do not forget your great heritage and descent from some illiterate central asian soldier. Stay with your core competence and re-focus on the jihad stuff. Why not try to de-stabilize Iran? After all Shia`s are more-or-less infidels. This could gainfully occupy those parts of your population that are not currently involved in murdering people in India or Afghanistan.

Pakistan`s IT industry in tiny. It is a fledgling industry. Infact it is not really even an industry. I think Pakistan`s textile export revenue is around $6.3 billion, while Pakistan`s IT revenue may only be around $100 million (not sure).

IT is going to stay around in the world. It is not going away. One cannot use the NASDAQ as the only barometer for the importance of IT. The NASDAQ crashed because too many MBAs started forming IT companies. They were out to make a quick buck through marketing and services and did not offer any solid technical products. A giant website selling shoes online, started by an MBA, was never going to as robust as an IT company developing the latest routers or application servers, started by Engineers. The next wave of IT startup companies will be led by Engineers and not by non-technical MBAs. My guess is around 2006-2007 is when things will really pick up again

Pakistan should not try to put the cart before the horse. One cannot just have an IT boom just like that. The expectations in Pakistan are and were way too high.

For Pakistan, the first step should be to concentrate on a few quality universities. IT universities are very easy to set up and require little infrastructure. Pakistan has the students, it has the buildings all, but it doesn`t have the professors. Pakistan needs to recruit IT professors from all over the world, and give them the same or higher salaries and benefits as 747 Captains in PIA. They are worth more in the international market. That is the only way to recruit such professors.

Pakistan has had success with some universities. LUMS is quite good. GIK, at its peak was ranked as the 9th best engineering university in Austral-Asia, by Asian international magazines. So within a few years after it had been set up, it was in the same league as Indian IITs. But Pakistani universities keep losing their professors and have kept falling down the list. NUST is now the highest ranked in Pakistan at around 20th in Asia.

The other thing Pakistan needs to concentrate on is expanding its local industry and creating a market for IT locally. I don`t think Pakistan can get much of a share of the off-shore market, now. The Indian companies like Wipro, Satyam, Tata, Infosys etc. own this market, and will not let any company compete with them.

If Pakistan can get the above two done, within 6 to 10 years, it will have the pre-requisites for an IT boom of some sort. Until then it should just concentrate on the building stage, and lower its expectations.

nazarhayatkhan #9: A piece of friendly advice. You may take it or leave it. But here is my two cents. I have exposure in Engineering, Math, and IT. I have taught Computer Science and Math courses in US universities. I would advise your son to stick with Computer Science. He will be making a big mistake by switching to Mathematics. A Ph.D. in Computer Science is still the hottest degree in the world. In academia alone, their unemployment rate is in negative numbers in the international market, i.e. there are more jobs than individuals with Ph.Ds in the computer science degrees. The only people I have seen getting Ph.D.s in Computer Sciences regularly are Chinese, Indians and East Europeans. And they aren`t enough in number to fill the US demand, much less then demand of the whole world.

I have rarely seen a person with a Computer Science degree look for jobs in other fields in the industry. While you will see many individuals with Mathematics, Electrical Engg., Mech. Engg, Industrial Engg., Business, Aerospace Engg, etc. etc. in the field of Software Engg, or trying hard to get into this field.

This is not to say that pure sciences are a bad field. They are good also. But I think Computer Science will be in much more in demand. So if your son is specifically interested in pure sciences and wants to do research, specifically in this area, then more power to him. However, if he is making a change from a job point of view only, then he would be much better off doing a Ph.D. in CS. Tell him to give me a call if he finishes a Ph.D. in CS. I will hire him in a day. That`s the least one can do for an ex-PAF colleague - even for one who was a misfit in the Air Force :-)

If the e-government project gets going in real earnst down to the Tehsil level, there will be lot of jobs in IT.

There was the IT band wagon. But Computer science/IT are not core sciences. Like engineering. (our Government is spending 3 billion on education and 160 billion on defence - So I do not buy the lip service by the Government)

My son who was doing computer science at Arizona State University just revealed to me few days back, close to his final semester, that he was Majoring in Mathematics and intends to continue in this pure science to the PHD. Good decision, I thought.

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hrrehman is not going to like this...now his beard will be on fire too...

Post 4: True to some extent.

And, that`s why in Pakistan`s case, I laid the blame on internal anarchy not for the sake of picking up the traces of an old issue but for the sake of taking the bull by its horn. If the body is physically injured, you cannot expect the mind to function at its best. Despite the fact that the mind is not directly impacted by the injury. Is it even fair to blame that body for poor performance ?

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I am one of those stupid persons who wasted 26000 rs to educate one of my daughter in so called IT education. I was so mesmarised that I began to dream of starting my self part time education. For 26,000 Rs. my daughter got nothing she says. They told us in beginning that she can soon be getting job in usa etc. They sold dreams. The instructors were not very educated. Few of them who were USA returned they were in recruiting rather than teaching. Its was great robbery under name of IT education and opportunity of getting jobs in usa. Its sad all Hype bu DR.Atta was Lafangebazi. A bad money robbing by USA return white collared criminal selling cruel fake dreams of usa.

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Tayyab,

Good Points. I think the Government needs to have one focused group conducting research and analysis on industry trends. This group needs to hook up with other areas that can leverage this group`s expertise. I am sure something like that must exist; but to what extent it is followed that`s still in the air.

Change requires blessings from the sponsors otherwise those trying to burn midnight oil to do miracles will end up nowhere. In Pakistan`s case, a significant % of the change is bottom up vs. top down. Probably that is why it takes a longer time to implement what needs to be implemented.

On your concern about the Software Houses: In my 7-8 years in management and technology consulting in various industry verticals, predominantly Financial Services; I have yet to come across any other vendor except from those hailing from India. That is also indicative of many other things. Mainly, if a country keeps on going though random changes internally, how the hell can that country represent anything externally. The only aspect you represent externally is on an individual basis vs. on a collective basis.
Externally, the representation carries a very distorted impression due to the following reasons:

- ethnic identities
- religious denominations

How can you expect anything else to be functional? When your country`s infra-structure can go upside down by JUI or PPP or whatever`s, one big hunger strike or any other strike, who cares about the industry trends and keeping abreast with them.

I do not mean to divert the drift of your article from its main course, I just wanted to identify an issue that is the root cause of many setbacks and failures.