KESC Launches Unique "Empowerment Program" to Pay Electricity Bills of Social Welfare Institutions - ProPakistanis

KESC Launches Unique "Empowerment Program" to Pay Electricity Bills of Social Welfare Institutions

Ever since the present management has taken over, we have seen our role as going much beyond that of just supplying electricity to over 20 million people of Karachi and we have consciously developed a 360 degree value creation model that guides us in defining our role in much broader terms. We firmly believe that KESC's own turnaround and sustainability is fundamentally linked to the economic, social and environmental values that we create for a diverse set of stakeholders whom we serve and engage on a daily basis.

We call this model KESC’s SEEDS – that is, KESC’s Stakeholder Engagement and Enrichment Drive for Sustainability.

SEEDS is a holistic approach that fully recognizes the impact of our performance in sustainable development across our stakeholders’ universe. SEEDS essentially drives four distinct programs and these are – ESG Initiatives, Social Investments, Stakeholder Engagement and Thought Leadership. Our social investment program, aims at investing our resources, including time, into sustainable projects that can change the social and economic landscape of our city.  Under our uniquely developed model, we are committed to expand the empowerment program to ensure that public welfare institutions are enabled and empowered to create even higher value for communities that they serve. A large number of purely welfare-driven institutions in health and education sectors were given relief in billing and infrastructure development projects. During the last couple of years, our employees have invested around 150,000 hours into various social causes under the Employee Volunteer Program. We would continue to build on this legacy of selfless service. At KESC, we look at how these interconnected communities can be harnessed to have direct sustainable economic and social impacts beyond just one-dimensional financial and shareholder value.

As part of its Social Investment Program (SIP), Karachi Electric Supply Company, has launched a unique “Empowerment Program” to provide relief to social welfare organizations in health and education sectors. To qualify for the empowerment, it would need to be a charitable organization operating in the public welfare domain in the health or education sector located and operative within the limits of KESC distribution territory. It must be an independently registered NGO (non-governmental organization) with declared Articles and Memorandum of Association, whose accessibility of operations must be open to general public without any specific community focus or restriction. The qualifying entity must be providing at least 70 per cent of its services to deserving individuals free of cost or at minimal charges acceptable to KESC. In general, the entity must be a non-profit institution, totally non-political and non-government institution, and not associated or linked to any business house. Magnitude of operations of such entity would need to be relatively large, having direct annual impact on minimum of 5,000 individuals belonging to underprivileged segments of the society. Such institutions would generally enjoy good reputation among public and their credibility would be beyond any doubt.

Under this program, KESC signed the first memorandum of understanding with Indus Hospital recently. Under the program KESC would bear 50% of Indus Hospital’s cost of electricity every month.

Indus Hospital provides quality medical care in its wide ranging clinical departments and also provides post graduate medical education to deserving persons free of cost. The services provided by Indus Hospital include hi tech coronary angioplasties, life saving cardiac bypass surgeries, cutting edge laser interventions or restorative orthopaedic procedures. Indus hospital serves around 550,000 patients annually free of charge.

Mr. Tabish Gauhar, CEO of KESC, said on the occasion that: “KESC has always considered itself an integral part of life in Karachi and we have always tried to go beyond our core function and act as a responsible corporate citizen. We are driven by our philosophy to create sustainable social value for the less fortunate segments of our society. Empowerment Program for charitable institutions is just another humble effort to contribute towards the betterment of public life. By supporting and enabling active social welfare institution we are creating value driven partnerships aimed at social sustainability of underprivileged communities. We fully acknowledge the great work being done by the Indus Hospital and we are delighted to be able to extend our small contribution through our Empowerment Program.”

According to the memorandum signed by Tabish Gauhar, CEO KESC and Dr. Abdul Bari Khan, CEO of The Indus Hospital, KESC would provide 50% free units of electricity to be consumed by Indus Hospital every month.

Under this social welfare arrangement, KESC would be paying 100 per cent of the electricity bill of MALC every month, which provides free medical aid to a large number of leprosy, eye and TB patients all across the country including Karachi. By the end of the past year, MALC had treated over 800 leprosy patients; had operated upon 4,575 eye patients; and had registered over 10,000 TB patients. Cure rate of leprosy patients by MALC is recorded as 97 per cent.Dr. Abdul Bari Khan, CEO of Indus Hospital, said in his remarks: “This step taken by KESC allows us to save money spent on utilities and spend on the poor and needy patients. It has a direct impact on our ability to deliver quality health care. As we expand our Hospital infrastructure and move towards a University model in the coming years, we hope to develop a long term relationship with KESC. The Indus Hospital thanks the KESC Leadership for such an empowering initiative".

The second memorandum of understanding was signed with Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre, aimed at providing relief to social welfare organizations in health and education sectors. Under KESC’s Social Investment program, the Company would be extending relief to various healthcare and educational institutions serving the poor on purely humanitarian grounds. KESC would pay electricity bills of these welfare entities in part or in full, thereby subsidizing their energy cost in recognition of the noble causes these institutions are pursuing.

The memorandum was signed by Tabish Gauhar, CEO KESC and Dr. Ruth Pfau, founder member and Vice President, Board of Governors, Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre.

Mr. Tabish Gauhar said on this occasion, “KESC feels very blessed over providing a humble contribution towards the betterment of patients receiving free medical care at MALC. We pray for their early recovery and hope that God gives us enough resources to continue helping the needy and deserving. MALC is serving the less privileged patients of the society for over half century free of charge and we fully appreciate its services to humanity.”

Dr. Ruth Pfau of MALC said in her message, “MALC is extremely thankful to KESC and highly appreciates its contribution for the un-served communities in the country. It would not have been possible for us to sustain the Leprosy Centre without the help of benevolent organisations like KESC. There is surely a great need for such initiatives for the NGO sector that is providing valuable support to the underprivileged in society. The savings generated through subsidized electricity from KESC would help us in better serving the patients and providing them better medicines to live in a society where they are usually treated as outcasts.”

Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre is one of the largest NGO in the country running Leprosy Elimination, TB and Blindness Control Program with its headquarters in Karachi, serving as a secondary referral facility for Leprosy patients from all over Pakistan who are treated free of charge. Dr. Ruth Pfau had joined the small setup of MALC back in 1960 as a young lady doctor from Germany who gradually developed it into the National Leprosy Control Program providing comprehensive care and rehabilitation facilities to patients at 157 sub centres spread across the country.

KESC Management

Cybernet Holds Introduction Events for its Cloud Solution - ProPakistanis

Cybernet recently held events to introduce their infrastructure service to the IT market in Pakistan.

The events, titled “Leveraging the Cloud to Build a Smart Organization” took place in Lahore and Karachi on the 18^th and the 26^thof September respectively.

The service, branded as RapidCompute is claimed by company as Pakistan’s first cloud computing service and falls under the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IAAS) category of cloud computing.

Speaking at the event, Mr. Imran Khan (VP Corporate Sales) explained the idea of building a smart organization in detail. He touched upon the ways through which an organization can engage IT infrastructure and services experts to manage their IT needs and as a result, find more time to concentrate on their core businesses. According to him, RapidCompute provides organizations with the flexibility to instantly scale up or down their IT resources to match their business requirements.

The second speaker, Mr. Zaeem Arshad (Division Head – RapidCompute) identified the criteria to assess an enterprise cloud offering. This includes storage, network, security, support and automation. He provided a basic demonstration of RapidCompute’s self service portal, which allows customers to provision their RapidMachines at practically the blink of an eye. He also mentioned the applications – CRM, ERP, HR and Payroll among others that can be run on RapidCompute with significant ease. He felt that backup and Disaster Recovery are two areas where cloud can serve the customers really well. In his opinion, the sole involvement of local engineers to setup RapidCompute was the most important achievement for Cybernet.

Mr. Salman Siddiqui – Channel Sales Lead, Microsoft Pakistan was also at hand to talk about RapidCompute’s Service Provider License Arrangement with Microsoft. This allows RapidCompute to bundle licensed Microsoft software with its RapidMachines at monthly charges. These charges are a fraction of the cost that companies have to bear today for perpetual licenses. He stressed upon the commitment that Microsoft being one of the largest global software vendors has to partner and support cloud computing in Pakistan.

The event was concluded by Mr. Danish Ali Lakhani (Chief Operating Officer) who thanked the attendees and explained that Cloud is the next evolutionary step in terms of computing. A Pakistan based cloud computing service such as RapidCompute is a step in the direction of providing sustainable computing infrastructure services for the local industry.

Telenor Selects Rozee Solution for Talent Acquisition - ProPakistanis

Rozee.PK today announced that Telenor Shared Services Pakistan (TSS Pakistan), a division of Telenor Pakistan, has selected the ROZEE.PK Top Employer Recruiting Solution to facilitate its talent acquisition, said a statement.

As one of Pakistan’s leading brands, Telenor places tremendous importance on hiring the best talent in the market. Through its partnership with ROZEE.PK, Telenor has augmented its search for talent to ROZEE.PK’s database of 3 Million registered professionals and 10 Million annual visitors looking for top jobs in Pakistan.

Statement said that Telenor Pakistan chose ROZEE.PK because of its strong leadership position in Pakistan’s talent acquisition market, large talent database and powerful filtering technology.

“Our organization is a rapidly growing employer of young, talented Pakistanis”, said Imran Ashraf, Head of TSS Pakistan.

Monis Rahman, Chairman and CEO of ROZEE.PK, commenting on the partnership said, “We are delighted to add Telenor Pakistan to the ROZEE.PK platform. Leveraging ROZEE.PK’s strong database of Telecommunications industry professionals will accelerate Telenor’s time-to-hire while reducing costs. At the same time, ROZEE.PK’s 10 Million annual visitors will benefit from employment opportunities at one of Pakistan’s leading companies.”

Extending the best professional and technical assistance to Telenor Pakistan will help Rozee.PK recruit high quality personnel and effectively realize all associated efficiency and productivity gains.

6 EASY WAYS TO EARN REWARD EVEN AFTER DEATH.... PLZZZ READ & SHARE!! - ProPakistanis

1) Participate in building a Masjid. Muslims Pray, you earn.

2) Donate a wheelchair to a hospital. Patients use, you earn.

3) Give a copy of Qur'an to someone. People read, you earn.

4) Place water cooler in a public place. People drink, you earn.

5) Plant a tree. People & animals use for food or shade, you earn.

6) And the easiest of all is to share this message with people. INSHALLAH! Ameen..

500 Million Android Devices are Active, Globally! - ProPakistanis

In front of iPhone 5 event, which is the sixth generation of the handset, where everyone’s eye is on Apple but Google sees it as a good time to remind everyone that by far Android is still bigger than iOS.

So, to make this aim done Hugo Barra, Google’s Director of Product Management for Android, shared the news on his Google+ account as:

500 million Android devices have been activated globally and over 1.3 million Android devices are added every single day.

More amazingly, when we saw these stats back in December 2011, Google’s Andy Rubin had then said that 700,000 Android devices are activated every day, and in July 2012 the activations grew to 900,000.

Furthermore, back in February, Andy Rubin confirmed that 300 million Android devices had been activated, at a rate of 850,000 a day. Afterward, at this year’s I/O conference, Google announced that 400 million devices had been activated, with one million new Android devices coming online per day.

In comparison, 410 million iOS devices have been sold as of July.

Surely, all these success for Android with big hitting handsets such as Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC One X that helped Android to strengthen its position in the market. It has been apparent that Samsung Galaxy S III, which hit the market late in May 2012, has been sold more than 20 million devices.

Other than it, Apple also used to take part in this game as by frequently announcing daily iOS device activations up until 2010, which may or may not have concern with the fact that Android Surpassed iOS in 2011.

What's Coming Next?

What's Coming Next - Stay Connected.

The Future is Cloudy: ProPakistanis

By Naeem Zamindar

What is the future? Most people look at the stars, seers consult crystal balls and oracles use all manner of sacred herbs, smokes and mirrors to try and predict it. But for those who use technology, the future is already here. Every day brings exciting new advancements in the fields of communication, miniaturization and digital technology.

In the field of communications the future is looking cloudy. The advancements in 3G technology in most developed countries have yet to trickle down to Pakistan. 3G is a technology that allows for high speed data transfers to mobile devices, without the intervening lag and slowdowns that affect regular copper-wire mobile technology.

Fiber optics lies at the heart of 3G technology. In Pakistan many mobile towers are connected using copper wire rather than fiber. This means that data transfer takes place over the same medium that we used to use for regular telephone technology. Currently companies like Wateen are replacing copper wire with fiber optic cables around the country, using them to link higher educational institutes, banks, mobile towers and government offices for instant or high speed data transfers. Once mobile companies have access to fiber connected networks the possibility of genuine 3G technology will become a viable option.

This is then where the cloud comes in. Before he died Steve Jobs said that in the future,“We’re going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the Cloud.” Cloud Computing is the idea of file sharing remotely whereby users can pick what parts of a particular program, or piece of video etc. from a general database that will exist in cyberspace; a ‘cloud’ of virtual information from where one can pick the bits and pieces that one needs, directly accessible from your digital device with no need for interfaces or syncing or any of the other requirements that regular PCs place on users.

Developing the cloud around the world are cutting edge technology companies, but building a high speed data transfer network is one of the primary requirements of cloud computing – the kind of network that technology companies such as Wateen Telecom are trying to build. It is through recognizing the requirements of our country and the shape of things to come that we work together to develop the systems necessary for the whole country to move forward. In this case, competition takes a distant second place to the requirements of our people, enabling their goals and increasing their opportunities to help themselves.

As Pakistan’s leading converged Information, Wateen has already taken bold steps towards realizing the possibility of easy access to information for all Pakistanis. Part of this means creating the actual infrastructure upon which this information will travel; to this end, Wateen, together with the Universal Services Fund (USF), has already rolled out optical fiber networks to far-flung parts of the country.

Developing Cloud services is the next step in this evolution. I believe that within the next two to three years, cloud-based computing will become the premium service offering for all telecom consumers – from individuals to small and medium-sized businesses to large enterprises and government entities. The product offerings will range from simple storage and to running complex business processes in cloud-based models. Wateen has already entered into alliances and partnerships with strong brands for infrastructure and application of delivery of such services in an efficient and cost effective way.

The benefits for businesses are obvious enough – cost-effective solutions to software and storage requirements: rather than buying expensive software or data storage packages, businesses can now ‘lease’ software or storage space in the Cloud. Moreover, the need for physical equipment becomes redundant, bringing further savings. For individuals, the opportunities are countless – not only can the average consumer now store terabytes of personal data, they can also avail of software solutions that might have hitherto been out of their budget.

Cloud computing also means smaller and smarter devices – by eliminating the need for physical storage, device manufacturers can now focus on designing tablets and smart phones that are sleeker and increasingly more portable. Imagine being able to ‘carry’ an entire database of high-resolution movies that you can view whenever and wherever on your chic new tablet. For a country like Pakistan, Cloud computing also means easy access to information for anyone possessing a data connection and a device. Wateen is already working closely with the Punjab IT Board to create virtual libraries of learning, with all textbooks and other curriculum stored in the Cloud. No longer will students need access to physical libraries, no more will universities and colleges need to invest in gargantuan physical storage systems to house data. Everything will live in the Cloud!

This is no science fiction. It’s already happening across the globe. With the right drive, and by continuing to work together, there soon won’t be any need for oracles and horoscopes, because the future will be here. It will be visible for us to see every day, as the quality of our lives and the lives of those around us improve. I can already see the future, ladies and gentlemen, and it is Cloudy.

Regular Computer User Must See This by ProPakistanis

What I Hate About Android Smartphones: ProPakistanis

• Android will never show you correct SMS time. If you turn on your phone at 8am, and you receive pending SMS messages. It will tell you received/sent time 8am, instead of the correct time when they were sent. So you won't be able to know when your friends send you SMS.
• You cannot charge your phone battery in offline mode. It will force start.
• Android phones come with SMS sending limits. 100 SMS per hour sending limit. If you are sending an Eid Mubarak SMS which is of 5 SMS, Android phone will give you serious headache after sending it to only 20 people.
• Till Android 4.0, Android didn't update their SMS application. All came with very basic SMS messaging features. Even cheap Chinese normal phones (3USD priced) phone have more messaging features than an Android phone.
• You cannot change themes in your Android phones.
• Different Android devices, diferent hardware. So most of applications, specially games come for expensive Android phones only. I like iPhone at this place, there they have only one hardware series.
• New software every year, makes my Android phone outdated. Very limited software update support by manufacturers. Apple is still giving support to its 4 years old device. Microsoft have announced that they will give support to their devices for at least 18 months.
• No good games, all low entertainment games come with ads and good games are not free, and most of them do not work on 50% of Android phones, only on high end devices.
• No proper Urdu/Arabi/Farsi language support. Finally after 5 years Google have announced that they are going to improve Urdu, Arabi, Farsi language support in Android 4.1 JellyBeans devices. Now you gotta waste more money to buy another Android phone with Android 4.1 version software.
• When an Android phone screen is locked = wifi goes offline which disconnects Internet connectivity, SMS app on sleep, pending SMS sending fails, processor sleeps to save battery.
• No stable multitasking till Android 2.3. There was very stable multitasking in old Symbian OS of Nokia phones (eg Nokia 6600) where it is possible to run more than 4 applications at a time and switch between them very easily.

Rozee.pk Starts Charging for Job Postings: ProPakistanis

Undoubtedly, the largest job portal of Pakistan, Rozee.pk has stopped offering free job postings for employers. Now, employers need to pay Rs. 850 per job to view all CVs that they receive for a specific job, or otherwise they will be allowed to view maximum of 5 CVs per job post.

It must be noted that applying for job is free like it was before.

At this point of time, an important note for those who are applying for jobs on Rozee.pk is that you may see a significant decline in response from employers. At the same time, employers may start hunting for other freely available job portals, such as mustaqbil.com, apnijobs.com and others.

If you want to apply for a featured job, you will have to pay Rs. 850 via cheque/draft or credit card.

Difference Between Dual Core & Core 2 Duo Processors by ProPakistanis

Dual Core:
Intel produced a computer processors series with two processor chips is called Dual Core. In simple words it is power of two processors in one. They are cheaper and slower than Core 2 Duo processors.

Core 2 Duo:
Intel advanced their dual core processors technology with improved clock speed and larger cache are called core 2 duo processors. They are a little more expensive and faster than dual core processors.

There are more advance processor technologies available now.

Punjab Laptops Get Wrecked by Twisted Media: ProPakistanis

Punjab’s laptop scheme has become controversial, so is the case with Mr. Shahbaz Sharif. It is yet to ascertain if this whole campaign against Mr. Sharif is outcome of Prime Minister’s conviction, as political silos are hot like hell, or  allegations against laptop scheme are for real. We will try to evaluate few of them below.

From what it appears, all political parties are currently doing their best to outperform others in blames, accusations, allegations and what not. Media has apparently decided not to remain behind too.

This whole scenario has engulfed the laptop scandal with fierce beating that it got from media with some sensitive and reasonable questions. But at the same time media men are throwing serious rubbish, something that they are notorious for.

Let’s take an example of Mubashir Luqman. Before we get to our discussion, please watch this video clip from his show on Dunya TV on May 1st, 2012:

I won’t discuss the pricing of laptops or the decision of Punjab government to give away laptops instead of building schools – this is something that can be argued and should be argued for better and transparent governance.

But I will rather focus on other matters such as Mr. Luqman has claimed that the Laptops were not manufactured by Dell company, instead they were manufactured in China. Probably he is of the view that these laptops are china-made fake copies of dell. Sir; you need to pay a visit to computer market and look at the back side of laptops to straighten your facts. It will help.

Then he goes on to compare Youth initiative laptops with another model of dell without mentioning the model of laptop. Following is the screenshot of the comparison:

Mr. Luqman further alleges that operating system in Punjab Laptops is not original but a pirated copy of Microsoft Windows. He also regrets that Punjab government could be in real trouble if Microsoft gets notice of this incident. Maybe Mr. Luqman was misinformed on this as Punjab Youth Laptops come with Ubuntu OS – which is an open source free operating system.

Mubashir Luqman astonished everyone by claiming that Punjab Laptops (which are actuallyDell Inspiron N4050 with variations in processor and RAM) is a 15 years old technology. Well I am not kidding here, you can watch above video yourself to see what exactly he said.

Maybe Mr. Luqman hadn’t the opportunity to buy or operate a computer 15 years ago (somewhere around 1997) when we had to pay the price of a laptop for just 16 MB Ram.

Mr. Mubashir Luqman also terms Punjab Youth Laptop 400 times slower than the original Dell laptop without mentioning his gauges.

Again, this whole scheme could be a waste of money. Maybe 4 billion rupees could have been used for better education, or maybe for another education department for lot better means. But it is really shocking, disgraceful and shameful to twist facts, rather telling direct lies, just to support an argument.

Even worse, this TV show was translated and distributed by a newswire (Online News Network) to whole media. They went even further by claiming that actual price of laptop was Rs. 19,500 which was bought by Punjab Government for Rs. 37,700.

Have a look at following clipping taken from today’s Jang Newspaper: