Nokia Likely to Launch 311, 305 – Full Touch S40 Phones – from Pakistan: ProPakistani

Nokia Likely to Launch 311, 305 – Full Touch S40 Phones – from Pakistan
Report on “Women in Pakistan IT Industry” Unveiled
Pakistan to See Its First Social Media Management and Analytic Tool
Telenor Holds Inaugural i-Champ Workshop to Empower New Digital Generation
PTA Asks PTCL to Clear Unpaid Dues
Mobilink Signs up 10 cricketers as Brand Ambassadors

Nokia Likely to Launch 311, 305 – Full Touch S40 Phones – from Pakistan

Posted: 13 May 2012 10:26 PM PDT

You remember this Nokia's Global Launch event happening tomorrow that we told you about last week? Well rumors are suggesting that Nokia is planning for the launch of two full touch screen feature phones come smartphones featuring full swipe functionality (just like N9) based on its S40 operating system.

Nokia is aiming these two models for the next billion (mobile phone users).

If reports are to be believed then Nokia will unveil two models, that are Nokia 311 and Nokia 305. Less certain rumors are also naming another model called Nokia 306.

Above images are supposedly Nokia 311 and Nokia 305, sourced by a Chinese website Mobile01 who got their hands on several screens of Nokia's upcoming phones.

An Indian website was also lucky enough to get hold of a screen from Nokia's Europe website revealing the upcoming models of Nokia 305 and Nokia 311 – adding more chances of the supposed launch of these phones tomorrow.

There are no words on specifications yet, but from the pictures above we can safely say that phones will have rear cameras above or equal to 2 MP, microSD card slot, 1100 mAh Li-Ion battery, 2 soft keys, FM Radio, GPRS support and microUSB.

Let's wait for tomorrow to see the unveiling of Nokia's phones for the next billion, with more accurate and official details. We will keep you posted with those.

Report on “Women in Pakistan IT Industry” Unveiled

Posted: 13 May 2012 10:25 PM PDT

Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) today unveiled its research report on working women in Pakistan IT industry, in a press conference held in Karachi.

The research is based on responses from 50 companies and 125 individuals – it targeted IT companies as well as large IT departments within non-IT companies.

Research report revealed that women account for 14% of the IT workforce, of which 37% are at the mid-career level while 13% are in Senior Management positions.

The data also pointed towards the presence of the infamous glass ceiling. Despite years of experience a large proportion of the women has been unable to move beyond mid-level positions.

Another observation was the significantly low number of women who hold more than seven years of work experience under their belt. This stunted retention can be attributed to the 'leaky pipeline effect', whereby life events force women's careers to often take a back seat.

In the context of HR policies and practices, a majority of women were satisfied with their work environment. While paid maternity leave, flexible hours and emergency leave were the most commonly offered benefits – there were still some companies who failed to incorporate paid maternity leave (a basic HR benefit worldwide) in their package.

The participants complained about long hours and recommended flexible and shorter work timings, transportation and day care facilities.

One gap identified was the lack of training and mentoring programs. Most of the polled companies did not extend such opportunities to female employees, despite their proven effectiveness in enhancing the abilities of employees.

Women reported that they did not feel undervalued in comparison to male counterparts but wished to see a reduction in gender stereotyping of IT roles.

Jehan Ara, president PASHA, encapsulated the motivation behind the initiative by saying that participation of women in the workforce has been shown to have positive effects on a nation’s economy.

"We aimed to not only get real facts and figures on women’s participation in IT but also aimed to explore the extent to which women are enabled and equipped to succeed in IT.

We explored key reasons which may also prevent new entries into the IT field, as well as factors affecting women’s growth. We hope that this report can be a first step towards gaining visibility for the critical roles that women play in this otherwise male-dominated industry", noted Jehan Ara.

Nadeem Elahi, Chairman PASHA, present at the occasion talked about the growth of the Pakistan IT industry in the face of domestic and international challenges. Nausheen Ishtiaq, Research Associate, was also present at the press conference.

You can download the report by clicking this link. (PDF File – 3.49 MB)

The country's IT industry is generating an estimated $2.8 billion in revenue (excluding the retail segment), making up 1.2% of the GDP. He said that buoyed by improved policies and support, this figure could easily be pushed to $10 billion mark.

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Pakistan to See Its First Social Media Management and Analytic Tool

Posted: 13 May 2012 10:24 PM PDT

Brand manager and social media consultants always remain hungry for information about their customers' engagement, interactions and requirements on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

They are specifically under lot of stress if they are managing a product, brand or service targeted for Pakistani audience – just because foreign companies dealing with social media analytics don't offer much stats/details for Pakistani Facebook pages.

To fill this huge gap and to meet the market demand Muhammad Adnan Butt, a serial entrepreneur from Pakistan, has now successfully developed an in-house social media research and analytics tool designed to optimize the digital presence of various brands on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etcetera.

From what we have heard, this social media analytics tool will be available to the mainstream market by end of May 2012.

Though plenty of information about this social media management tool is embargoed so far but from the information, that was exclusively made available to Pakistani, we can give you a glimpse of what this tool will be capable of:

It will provide better tracking and will offer profound details about your fans.
It will have this ability to highlight for a brand what has proved to be the most engaging content or what has been causing its performance to plummet.
in-depth competitive analysis allowing direct comparison to be made with the competitors
It will help brand managers to determine brand's performance when compared to any other brand/service.
Tool will be able to extract what's relevant, meaningful and emotionally charged out of the redundant data widely available, and exhibit in the form of graphs using Facebook's Graph API.
Tool will give a comparative analysis for your brand while comparing with a competition brand based on fan base, engagement rate, talk ability, interaction per fan, most responsive content type, best/worst fans, time band etc.

Check out below sample graph showing fan's interaction based on time band:

Without revealing the secret, Adnan Butt told me that brand managers will be able to evaluate fan pages of competition brands without having their admin-rights.

He further claims that his tool will be capable of providing sentiment analysis for lingual contexts, thereby offering a highly customized and localized sentiment measurement; which is otherwise made unavailable by the major competitive brands.

With this tool, it is said, that the social monitoring will be taken to a new level as the efficiency and effectiveness of digital marketing can be measured in real time. This will not only save time, but will also be cost effective and allows accessibility of detailed information through just a click.

We will keep you posted with more details once the tool is released and made available publicly by end of current month.

Telenor Holds Inaugural i-Champ Workshop to Empower New Digital Generation

Posted: 13 May 2012 10:23 PM PDT

Telenor Pakistan has launched a nationwide project that will help empower a new digital generation in Pakistan.

Telenor said that its Talkshawk I-Champ is a knowledge-based initiative that aims to provide learning and training to young people to enable them with internet access through mobile phones.

Telenor believes that mobile phones devices are placed ahead of computers/laptops for enabling masses with internet connectivity in countries like Pakistan. This is specifically valid because of high mobile phone penetration and mobility of cellular devices.

Telenor Pakistan, to achieve this goal, will partner with all provincial governments to conduct internet workshops throughout Pakistan. In this regard an agreement has been signed with Punjab government under which Telenor will hold internet workshops for class 8-10 students in 150 schools in the semi-urban and rural areas of Punjab.

To mark the initiative, a launch event was held at Children's Library Complex, Lahore, which was attended by a large number of school children, their parents and teachers. The chief guest on the occasion was Deputy Speaker Punjab Assembly Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan.

After the students took the 'Internet oath' pledging to use the knowledge for positive purposes, select contestants of a competition were taken to a training room. They were briefed on how the internet works and how information can be searched for on internet-enabled mobile phones.

There were also stage activities for the audience and a lucky draw. At the end, winners were announced and shields were awarded to them.

In a message, Acting Chief Marketing Officer Telenor Pakistan Usman Javed thanked the Government of Punjab for supporting the Telenor Talkshawk I-Champ project. "We are delighted to be partnering with the Government of Punjab to start promoting digital awareness among the youth of the province. Together we will enable them to harness the power of the internet as a means to compete with anyone, anywhere in the world," he said. "Through Telenor Talkshawk I-Champ we intend to create a healthy and conducive learning environment for children, parents and school faculty."

Deputy Speaker Punjab Assembly Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan in his remarks spoke about the importance of youth learning the positive use of technology. "Government of the Punjab is committed to providing its citizens with quality education. Part of this is our youth becoming fully conversant with today's digital technologies. It is imperative that they are able to use modern tools such as the internet for a brighter tomorrow for themselves and their families."

The winner of the Telenor Talkshawk I-Champ final competition will get to visit Opera Labs in Norway to learn more about how the internet is being used by people around the world to share knowledge.

PTA Asks PTCL to Clear Unpaid Dues

Posted: 13 May 2012 10:15 PM PDT

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued two directives to PTCL asking to clear the unpaid dues on account of numbering charges and spectrum charges for 9000 VHF links within fifteen day to avoid any further action from authority.

PTA in its notices sent to PTCL said that landline giant owes it PKR 46.04 million in numbering charges, which includes a penalty for late payment in addition to PKR 14.8 million for spectrum charges.

PTCL has been told to pay the fees within fifteen days.

The authority asked PTCL earlier several time through letters including reminders to pay the same dues to the authority as soon as possible but the company failed to comply its orders.

PTA said that these notices were sent after properly hearing PTCL's viewpoint during hearings at PTA headquarters.

Enforcement letters from PTA can be viewed here:

To read more, click: PTA Asks PTCL to Clear Unpaid Dues
ProPakistani.PK

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Mobilink Signs up 10 cricketers as Brand Ambassadors

Posted: 13 May 2012 09:57 PM PDT

Mobilink has signed 10 members of the Pakistan Cricket team as the Brand Ambassadors for Jazz – said a press release issued by the company.

A ceremony was held in Islamabad where powerful cricketing performers including; Misbah-ul-Haq, Muhammad Hafeez, Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal, Shoaib Malik, Umar Akmal, Toufeeq Umar, Asad Shafiq, Abdur Rehman and Azhar Ali were officially appointed as Jazz Brand Ambassadors.

Mobilink's Vice President Marketing, Jahanzeb Taj said; "We are delighted to create a strong and exciting alliance between Jazz and these accomplished sportspersons, who have won several accolades for the nation. Mobilink has a long standing commitment to the nation's passion for Cricket, as we continue to inspire the fans by recognizing these outstanding cricketers and sponsoring international tournaments."

Jazz is actively looking to promote cricket in Pakistan under the banner of Yeh Khel Apna Hai. These cricketers will also appear in marketing activities for the promotion of cricket amongst the masses. Mobilink partnered with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in 2007, to conduct nation-wide talent-hunt activities titled; "Mobilink – Hunt for Heroes" program.

Reaching out to more than 60 districts across Pakistan, this program strengthened the domestic cricket infrastructure, trained young cricket stars for the future and brought many new cricketers to the National Juniors team.

world on your screen

Monday, May 14, 2012