Since the two mad Pakistanis who have come up with ‘Ideas Hut’ happen to be bloggers as well so, they have now got Ideas Hut a place in blogosphere by creating a dedicated Ideas Hut blog.

So, welcome to our blog! Here you will get updates about our project, views about the ideas being discussed along with information regarding their implementation and a lot more. Not to forget all this might get sprinkled by occasional rants as well :)

The most prestigious awards of the Pakistan ICT Industry P@SHA ICT Awards 2008 are being held today (October 31, 2008). Ideas Hut’s Fariha Akhtar is live-blogging the event right here:

P@SHA ICT Awards 2008

(10/31/2008)  Powered by: CoveritLive

8:53	Awards ceremony has formally started

8:53	Quranic recitation

8:56	President P@SHA addressing the audience,thanking the sponsors

9:04	Chairman P@SHA telling the audience about the state of Pakistani industry

9:08	Dignitories from both the IT industry and academic sector can be seen here

9:11	Imran Zia says impact of global recession can be dealt with by benefiting from the outsourcing opportunities that have appeared because of it

9:13	Here comes a really optimistic sentence from Imran Zia, he says “Look at the amount of talent present in this room” and consequently think about nurturing and utilizing it

9:14	Imran Zia ends his speech

9:17	JehanAra talking about the recent earthquake in Balouchistan. She has just officially launched the P@SHA relief effort for the earthquake victims

9:18	Sakiya Zaidi will be taking care of the donation collection activity

9:19	Dr. Qasim Shaikh from Natioanl ICT R&D fund addressing the audience

9:20	He says our mandate is to turn Pakistan into a “knowledge economy”

9:22	He shares that research in Pakistan is coming up to international standards and there is an open funding process by National ICT R&D fund to fund research

9:24	He shares his concern that National ICT R&D fund doesn’t get many proposals from industry. Most of the research proposals come from academia

9:25	He shows in interest in funding innovation and according to him in simple terms innovation is “removing bottlenecks from the value chain”

9:28	He shares an example that bottlenecks in mobile video value chain can be thought about

9:29	He presents a concept of “innopedia” based on the concept of wikipedia where people could discuss value chains and the bottle necks in it., a way to use the power of masses to innovate

9:30	Dr. Qasim ends his speech after asking for proposals

9:31	Jehanara being a hard core Mac User finding PC a little difficult to use :)

9:32	Jehanara talking about the objectives of the P@SHA ICT Awards

9:33	One of the most interesting objectives is to create opportunity for winning companies at APICTA

9:33	Judging process being introduced, she says we look at innovation and scalability mainly

9:34	The initial judging process was carried out online with the participation from the customers of the nominated companes

9:36	Benefits include a cool ICT Awards, promotion of winning team’s products at all local and regional events that P@SHA participates in during the year

9:36	CIO plans to present case studies on winning companies’ products/services hence promoting them

9:37	Awards categories being introduced

9:38	Categories to acknowledge service sector achievements have been also added

9:38	Mr. Ashraf Kapadia from Systems Limited and ex-president of P@SHA is on stage

9:40	Last year winners being awarded the shields now as last year they couldn’t be during the ceremony

9:44	Netsol, Kalochi Technologies, PixSense, CDF Software, KalSoft, Amaana, Si3, SecureBytes among last year winners

9:45	Take a deep breath…the announcements for this year’s awards about to be made

9:46	Judges being introduced, Imran Zia, Jehanara, Jawwad Farid etc among the judges

9:47	Jugaari Pvt. Ltd. wins the best communication product award for Jaadu…cool!!! :)

9:48	Jaadu is being sold at the apple store for more than $25 and has been reviewed in a number of international publications

9:49	Since Jehanzeb is in US for his Ph.D so his mother-CEO Jugaari receives the awards

9:49	Merit Award goes to FiveRiversTechnologies for FoneiTell

9:50	Foneitell is a web operated GPRS application

9:52	Media Award goes to PixSense

9:53	The Merit Award goes to Post Amazers for Safeguard Commander

9:54	Best of E-Learning applications: UltraLearn from Softech Worldwide becomes the winner

9:55	Snapshots of winning applications being shown in the presentation and JehanAra says the demo of winning application would be available on p@sha website after the ceremony

9:56	Best of E-Health applications- most difficult competition face in this category

9:56	CureMD EMR for CureMD becomes the winner

9:57	AdamSoft Int’l gets the Merit Award for Doc Comply

9:58	Second merit awards goes to Marriala Consultants for eClinic

9:58	Dr. Zaheer Syed from MITCEF being invited on stage

9:59	He presents the best in e-community category

10:00

See’n'Report becomes the winner

10:00

P@SHA ICT Awards being covered live on See’n'Report

10:01

Choopal gets the Merit award

10:01

it’s Chopaal actually- a community application

10:02

e Logistics category: LumenSoft Technolgies gets the winner award for Candella

10:03

Best Financial Application: TPS becomes the winner for IRIS

10:04

Merit award goes to Plexus Pvt. Ltd for Investment Management System

10:05

Best of R&D Category which didn’t get many entries in previous years but got the largest number of application this year.

10:06

Palmchips Pakistan Pvt. Ltd grabs the Winner Award fr GeoTel

10:06

Merit Award goes to Jehanzeb Sherwani for HealthLine- a PTCL funded project

10:09

Best of Startup Companies: all the young enterpreneurs look anxious :)

10:09

Kraysis from LUMS gets the Best Startup Award- a company to focus only on QA

10:11

Best CallCenter/BPO Companies Category: Over Technolgies becomes the winner

10:13

Best in Brand Development Category: KalSoft gets the winner award, their revamped website being praised and it looks wow!!

10:14

Best of Innovative Work Enviroment: Nuvica becomes the Winner :)

10:16

Ideas Hut being praised :)

10:17

Ammar Yasir’s Teabreak.pk being praised :)

10:18

Both IdeasHut and Teabreak have got participation from Nuvica employees

10:19

Mr. Azhar A. Rizvi gets the Best Corporate Social Responsibility Award

10:24

Mr. Azhar Rizvi projects DAISY Initiative, Pediatic Children’s Surgery Initiative and other Education Initiatives being talked about

10:24

Best in Tertiary Student Project: Zubair Shafiq gets the winner award for i-NIDS

10:26

So that nobody feels left out, goodies being given to everyone…a little moment..nice :)

10:27

Zubair Shaikh being given a Dell Laptop: Bearing Point sponsored gift for the winner…a huge laptop box arrives :)

10:28

All the attendees were asked to fill the feedback form in the beginning of the event so that a lucky draw for a dell LCD could be carried out :)

10:29

Award ceremony being closed…dinner is ready and goodies bags are being given away

10:31

The band who played the drums include two creative people from TRG and one smart guy from Bank Al-Habib

10:32

Salaina and Rabia Gharib get the best media support award

10:33

Winners being called on stage for a group photo

10:34

Oops..JehanAra forgot to announce the awards for sponsors..now the sponsors being given the awards

10:37

Mubasshir from DELL carrying out the lucky draw

10:37

Omair Mirza from Ensign Communique’ gets a brand new LCD from DELL…wow..i need one too :P

10:39

Now the Judges are being given the awards :)

10:40

Just a correction: the guys from TRG and Bank Al-Habib are going to present after the dinner

10:41

People get up as dinner is being served

10:42

JehanAra tells that there is also going to be an Open MIC session after the dinner for all the talented people out their who think they sound good…that’s what i say :P

10:43

We have got 325 guests at today’s event..huge number ..*eyes wide open* :|

10:44

Judges, winners, sponsors gather on stage for the photo session

10:45

A guy from Wateen comes and asks me if I’m done with my live blogging session because they want to take the equipment out once I’m done…i say no :P

10:47

He asks if I’m happy with the speed…great speed man…I can blog all my life if i get such great speed..no glitches at all. Well done Wateen and thanks for giving me the opportunity to live blog till the end of the ceremony :)

10:48

Loud music being played…the drummers are doing a very good job…a really lively atmosphere :)

10:52

There’s this nice lady sitting with me who says she will take care of the laptop so now ‘am also off for dinner guys’n'girls :)

11:12

Ok, i’m done with my dinner, must say the dinner was yummy :) I tried yakhni pulao, kabab and salad…salad was the yummiest :)

11:20

The band is playing nicely and different people are grabbing the MIC one by one..I’m waiting to meet Dr. Umar Said, oh yes I’m his fan and JehanAra has said she’ll make me meet him :)

11:22

I think I shall end the live blogging session here because I have to return this laptop to the P@SHA volunteers…thanks for providing me with the laptop P@SHA. Shall blog about the event later as well but taking a leave for now.Bye!

11:23

“Got an idea that could change the world, or at least help a lot of people? Google wants to hear from you — and it will pay as much as $10 million to make your idea a reality.”

Got to read this interesting piece of news on CNN’s website here.

Further details can be grabbed on the Project 10^100 website.

“The Wright brothers didn’t contemplate the staying on the ground of things. Alexander Graham Bell didn’t contemplate the noncommunication of things. Thomas Edison didn’t contemplate the darkness of things. In order to float an idea into your reality, you must be willing to do a somersault into the unconceivable and land on your feet, contemplating what you want instead of what you don’t have.”

Wayne Dyer from the PhilosophersNote on The Power of Intention

PhilosophersNote is a nice website where you can get mini-notes that contain the synopses from different personal development books.

Many of the world’s famous ventures were started by teams of two….ever wondered why? Never mind if you haven’t :P, let me tell you one reason from my personal experience. When one of the team members is under attack of laziness, the other one is often if not always energetic enough to use the creativity revelations he/she has been getting for progressing the project and so that’s what Sohail and I do in case of Ideas Hut.

We had our first formal board meeting around a month ago in which we discussed lots of new features for Ideas Hut and they all became part of the road map. Since it was a FORMAL meeting (yeah….very much like the ones held in Fortune 500 companies :P) so, it got followed by proper MMs as well that contained the action items list. We kept adding items to that list keeping in view the feedback that we got from the Ideas Hut visitors.

Lately, while I was surrounded by indolence, Sohail got showered with creativity and decided to implement some of the action items. So, here’s the update about the new additions to Ideas Hut:

1. The grey and black theme looked too gloomy so, it has now been replaced by nice and sunny theme.
2. Many of our visitors did not like the blog look of Ideas Hut primarily because old ideas tend to get hidden by the new ones even before they get discussed thoroughly. So, we decided to change the format of Ideas Hut to increase the visibility of the submitted ideas.
In an attempt to do so, Sohail came up with the ‘Idea Browser’ and ‘Featured Ideas’ section. The Idea Browser helps one navigate through the Most Popular (determined by the ranking), the Most Discussed(determined by the number of comments) and the Latest (determined by the posting date) ideas. The ‘Featured Ideas’ section shows the editors’ picks.
3. The third section that got modified is that of the ‘Recent Discussions’ which now shows the recent comments on different ideas.
4. We have launched a Facebook group as well not just to reach the people who will be interested in contributing ideas on Ideas Hut but also (perhaps more importantly) the people who will be passionate about executing any of the ideas being discussed too. That is because we believe that ideas and plans benefit only when properly implemented.
5. To make all the avid bloggers and blog readers stay updated on what’s happening on Ideas Huts, we have come up with a space in blogosphere where I am writing this post right now. :)
6. For all those who could not get time out to read about the latest features on Ideas Hut blog or facebook group, a ‘News Section’ has been added- a quick way of getting all the updates.
7. Now you can share any idea being discussed on Ideas Hut with your friends, through an email, by using the “Email to a Friend” link in front of every idea.

Now as the journey continues, we look forward to your suggestions, comments and criticism because that is what will help us shape our baby venture into something that could help the entire community.