Adil Najam: New VC of LUMS and my Inspiration in Blogging...His last blog at ATP before joining LUMS

Khiyal Rakhna: ATP Turns Five Today! It is Time to Move On. Thank You For Your Companionship.

Blog URL: http://pakistaniat.com/

Today – June 11, 2011 – All Things Pakistan turns five years old!

Today, sitting in Lahore, Pakistan, I write in the realization that it is now time to move on.

This is not a ‘Good Bye’ post – it is, in fact, a ‘Thank You’ post. Nor do I want this to be a ‘looking back’ post – I would much rather that it be a ‘looking forward’ post.

For me personally, it is time to move back to Pakistan.For ATP, the blog, it is time to turn off the lights.

Five years ago we set out with the mild ambition to have a conversation with a few friends on all things Pakistan – from the profound to the trivial. What followed was a more intense, more engaged, more elaborate, and more fulfilling conversation than we could have ever imagined. Well above 10 million visits later, it is now time to move on.

But we promise that we have no intention to tune out. We know that this conversation will continue. This was never our conversation, it was yours. We intend to keep listening in. We hope you will let us do so in all the myriad forms and formats that have now become available for this exploration of our Pakistaniat – our Pakistaniness – to thrive. We have chronicled our own story and evolution in our posts (the ATP Credo, the Tangay Walla post, 1st anniversary post, 2nd anniversary post, 3rd anniversary post, who reads Pakistaniat post,4th anniversary post) and now is not the time to repeat those arguments or even to look back.

I can say with some pride and great joy that we have had some small part in the construction of an important conversation. It has not always been an easy conversation. Our national predicaments have made it an often sad and occasionally angry conversation. But it remains a vibrant – and vital – conversation. We hope that in these five years ATP has contributed some to this conversation, and has contributed to it positively.

So, today, I write in gratitude. Thank you for your companionship. Thank you for your patience. Thank your for dropping by. Thank you for making this your own. Today, we are happy in the knowledge that the conversations we had wanted to seed are thriving. Technology has provided an array of new formats – from facebook totwitter and beyond. There is a mushrooming of blogs and formats, and we hope that in some small way we have contributed to them. We know we have thrived and found sustenance (and ideas) in this new and bold world of Pakistan’s Blogistan. We thank our blogging colleagues, our many many writers, and our even more many readers for the excitement they have added to our lives.

I realize that the timing of this will lead many of conclude that it has something to do with my own move. While the two are not unrelated, they are actually less related than you might think. It was, in fact, back in November 2010, that Owais Mughal and I had decided that we would do this on this date and in this manner. Owais had already moved to Singapore and my own professional commitments had begun to mount. We did not wish to end with a whimper nor just fade out abruptly. Five years seemed like a good innings to both of us. Let me take this moment to thank Owais for his support and companionship. More than anyone else he has made ATP possible and allowed it to last this long. Without him, it would have faded long ago. And without him it would have been not just a lonelier but also a much less interesting journey. Thank you, Owais, my friend. Thank you for everything! (As an aside, I should add that Owais and I had never met until fairly recently and for years ran this together without even having met – such is the magic in Blogistan).

Do I have regrets – yes, but too few too mention. I wish we had written fewer obituaries. I wish we had not had to talk about national angst and tragedies as much as we had to. I wish we more time to write all the posts that remain unwritten in our personal lists – more pleasant things than those that were floating in the daily headlines. Yes, I do also wish that some of our readers had been a little more kind to us and to each other in their comments – but, I also realize that we live in unkind times and the viciousness of our environs can sometimes seep into our own language and thoughts. More than anything else, I wish the unkindness of our times will become less, allowing us to be a little more considerate to each other than we sometimes seem to be.

Good byes, they say, should never be long. But this is not a good bye. So, until we meet again, dear friends, take care; khiyal rakhna.

UIIT Open House 2011: Why it becomes our national duty to participate in this event

It has been a long time but way back in 2005 when I joined National University, FAST, Islamabad, I never realized that in the next half decade, I am going to meet people who will gradually change my perceptions and views to such an extent that it may be difficult for me to even realize myself after just half a decade but it happened and I am so glad and honored that it did. One of the things that I learned in FAST (despite it being an upscale, private and upper class oriented institute) from my mentors and teachers like Dr. Aftab A. Maroof, Dr. Anwar m. Mirza, Dr. Rauf Baig, Sir Arif Khattak and many more that it actually is beneficial to rise above your self and look at the broader national interests as the advantages derived out of this approach can ultimately transcend to yourself as well in a more satisfying and honorable manner. The names I cited above may not be familiar to many as they don't appear in self appreciation filled columns of national dailies. Neither does electronic media consider the spicy enough to invite them in their talk shows. Frankly these gentlemen don't bother about such things as well. They believe in serving the way they deem fit and that is sufficient for them.

The purpose of writing all this tale is to familiarize you with the circumstances which have caused me to write this blog. In 2009, I joined University Institute of Information Technology, a small, almost non existent centre of IT and CS education in a grand Arid Agriculture University of Rawalpindi. The institute seemed as misplaced in an agriculture university as a camel on north pole. On the eve of my joining UIIT, a lot of voices around me were telling me to reconsider my decision based on some "hard" ground realities. But UIIT had a special attraction for me.

This institute was perhaps the only place (and still is) of IT and CS education where a child of a poor man didn't need to dream of some OSP or "financial help" to get quality education. Where anyone from anywhere in Pakistan could get admission provided they met the open merit criteria (remember the transparent test fiascoes happening all around these days...in UETs and NUSTs). This was the only place where 80 percent of students winning admission never needed to lower their ego to keep their education going. And remaining 20 percent always had financial situation available. And by the way those 80 percent students were also not of upper class background. They belonged to lower and lower middle class of the society. And this particular institute nurtured them to compete with all the other students coming from such trendy instituters. This institute, in my opinion, is a treasure for whole Pakistan where 1400 students get a chance to acquire best CS and IT education for as low as 8 thousand rupees and maximum high of 20 thousand rupees per semester. This was my motivation to Join UIIT and same was true for several others. It was our way of returning to society what it bestowed upon us. And we have been very happy with this decision.

One more way in which we have been trying in our own way to help these students is by conducting annual Open House event since 2009. In this way, we have been successful in presenting these students to the software houses where even the name of this institute was previously not known. Today, we are proud that in these events, we were successful in sending many talented students to these organizations. This has been my pet project at UIIT and conduct of the event every time has been like a dream come true.

And the same time has again approached. UIIT Open House 2011 is going to be held tomorrow, 27th July, 2011. We have again put our best effort to use in making the event successful. We have displayed the best projects, collected the best research work and made the best arrangements possible to make the event a truly memorable experience. Now, it is up to you to stand up and make your contribution. We expect you to come forward and visit us. Appreciate the talent of the students. Ask your friends in influential places to visit us and induct suitable students in their organizations. Make these students realize that Pakistan value talent irrespective of your background, ethnicity, region etc. Show to the world that we are a nation of 180 million people and everyone of these 180 million people is going to shoulder everyone. That is how nations evolve and that is how our nation will evolve finally.

We live in times of opportunities. We have missed many opportunities as a nation in the past. When we were young, we always lamented those who let the opportunities pass. Today, we have the power. We can grab this moment for our nation. The only question is...Shall we also let it pass? I hope I know your answer but still I am afraid of our history. Best of luck for those who have promised themselves to support us in this initiative.