Archive for November 21st, 2008

Isn’t It Time For 2008 QoS Survey?

Published by Babar Bhatti on November 21, 2008 under Consumer Rights, Infrastructure, Mobile Companies, Mobile Phones, PTA, Telecommunications, Wireless

A reader recently mentioned the issues with making and receiving calls on her mobile phone. That reminded me that it has been almost a year that PTA released detailed quality of service (QoS) survey. That was back in December of 2007 and we wrote about the decline in quality of the mobile phone services. Eleven months later, its about time for a new report on the quality of service  but we have not seen any announcement yet from PTA.

If you are wondering how PTA carries out these quality of service (QoS) surveys…. here’s a picture how it is done.

MIT Business Acceleration Program: Award Ceremomy On Nov 24

Published by Babar Bhatti on November 21, 2008 under Business, Education, Entrepreneurship, ICT, Information Technology, Pakistan, Telecommunications

The Business Acceleration Program (BAP), offered by MIT Enterprise Forum of Pakistan aims to accelerate the growth of companies in early stage to the next level. The 2007 winner, second and third place finalist have a come a long way and are now valued at US $ 20 M, US $ 8 M and US $ 850 K. All of them were valued at less than US $ 1 M at the start of this program last year.

Founders, Dr. Zahir A. Syed and Syed Azhar Rizvi have taken a concept in emails to successful implementation and deserve kudos for their pioneering efforts to assist the entrepreneurs in the IT sector and even beyond Technology. I had the honor of meeting them in Karachi earlier this month and was impressed by their dedication and drive.

This year’s BAP program started in April and the participants went through the mentoring and coaching process. The list was narrowed down to five finalists and the awards ceremony will be held on Nov 24th, 2008 at Avari, Karachi. Five of the best start up and early stage IT firms are competing for the top slot and the winner will be going to MIT for week long training program EDP ( Entrepreneurship Development Program) in January 2009.

The finalists in the running are:

  • Cogilent (BrightSpyre) Solutions : Provides online hiring automation solution for employers, headhunters and recruiters.
  • CyberSoft : CyberSoft develops debt collection software solutions.
  • Kraysis : Kraysis provides third party independent software quality assurance services. Recently won APICTA and P@SAHA awards.
  • SofCom : Sofcom provides products in the area of Human Capital Management, Process Monitoring, Quality Assurance and Quality Control.
  • Voizar: Voizar provides a wholesale marketplace to trade VoIP capacity.

The Judges for this year’s event are:

1. Ken Morse, MD MIT Entrepreneurship Center
2. Imaran Sayeed, Senior Vice President Global Industry & IT Solutions, Keane Inc.
3. Jamshed Khan, Vice President, Investments – Quantitative Services Group, RiverSource Investments.
4. Muddasar Malik, CEO BMA
5. Omar Hussain, President and CEO, Imprivata
6. Naeem Zamindar, Vice President & Head of Broadband Business Division, Mobilink
7. Jauher Zaidi, CEO Palmchip
8. Zafar Khan, CEO Sofizar