Some time back I had the honour to meet the Pakistani Development Minister Umer Asghar Khan while he was in Denmark. We discussed different aspects of how the Pakistani community abroad could increase the speed of development in Pakistan. Different well-known tools were mentioned, such as FDI (Foreign Direct Investment), establishment of subsidiaries, teaching in Pakistani educational institutions, and so on.
One of the new point raised by the Pakistani Ambassador present at the meeting was the lack of contacts to the younger generations of Pakistanis abroad, in particular Pakistanis born abroad. His idea, which I´m going to share with the rest of Pak.Org, was to create a database of Overseas Pakistani degree holders. The Ambassador mentioned that the Pakistani government as well as Pakistani companies lacked contacts and the network with the Pakistanis working in same sectors and industries abroad. My idea was to create a virtual site, where people in Pakistan as well as us living overseas could put data about ourselves, in a way that the data could be updated and maintained by all of us.
This could be some sort of an Overseas Pakistani Alumni Club. What do you guys think about that?.. Fraudia bhai the ball is now on your side
I am in full support of this idea, a database not only of professionals but something searchable by experience, industry etc etc.
As great of an idea it is, a database is only as good as the data in it. what ensures the integrity of that database? what if people start clowning around and enter useless crap in it. if I am a professional or a company trying to look for a professional in a certain type of industry, after how many tries would I give up on the database after it gives me useless results? i email someone and either the whole posting was a hoax or the contact info is not updated.
Additionally, privacy would be another factor.
These are some concerns that there has to be some way to control. the idea is great and I will be willing to help in such initiative.
There also is talk in another thread of creating a pakistani business professionals associations, we have them for engineers and doctors, its time we have them for the business folks as well.
So here are my thoughts. This type of initiative takes a lot of effort and time, currently I am over committed as it is, but InshaAllah I would like to devote more energy to some initiative as such. Who can get the ball rolling now though?
I am totally with the idea … I am happy that government is not involved in it .. yep you heard me or read me correctly .. these kind of initiative should be taken on NGO level (non-governmental ) .. Integrity of the data is a legitimate issue .. but that all depends how you collect and how often you update the data .. I am willing to put my knowledge behind the idea .. I work as a marketing analyst .. and part of my job is to analyze customer data from databases .. analyzing their accuracy and performance .. for b2b and lva world …and I bet we will find lot desi-database experts .. in terms of programming and marketing .. and I can personally pull some contacts for website and programming and management .. but I have to get lot of positive responses and help .. not just help solid commitment since this will be a non-profit organization .. we need lot of volunteer work .. thought???
Email me … I am in Chicago [email protected]
Hey one more thing
These things are hard to explain
For some it seems strange... to swallow
The frontier of our minds
Is the last place we find
But maybe the first place we should go
You familiar with the Pakistan American Chamber of Commerce here? a great place to find people who have connections because if this thing is pursued, its a huge undertaking and more resources you have the better.
Another idea would be to bounce this off of Safi Qureshy and see how he can help or find others that are like minded.
This is indeed a great service if it can come together. Rooster, I am not very far from where you are and a couple of other folks here on this forum. I will be more than happy to come on board for this project.
Cool more windy land people ! Yes I have heard of Pak Chamber of Comm. , do you have any idea how can I contact them (email, website or mailing address? ) .. I am going to write a marketing plan to initiate the process and I would love to see people brain-storm ideas .. the more the better, I have thought of this idea before but never passed the ‘Khiali Pulao’ stage .. but this time I am serious that’s why I am formulating the process, and I would definitely would need lot of help and feedback to put this project to use … email me how, when and who can participate.. the more the better !
Hey one more thing
These things are hard to explain
For some it seems strange... to swallow
The frontier of our minds
Is the last place we find
But maybe the first place we should go
Rooster Blues, I am involved with the Pak-Am chamber of commerce so I can be yer contact. Why dont you come to one of the meetings sometime? The best one to attend will be in two weeks.
This is a great opportunity, and we can get tons of publicity via the journalist contacts here.
My parents are in town so busy with that until sunday, lets plan to meet up sometime next week.
they dont have a website yet, the group was just jump started by Salik bhai who is one energetic guy. They are committed to setting up a website and have events list, contact info etc etc on it.
They are planning to do so much i.e. assistance for students, assitance for new immigrants, assistance for people who want to start businesses etc etc. The group is very non-political in its nature i.e. not divided along party lines or sect etc as some groups suffer from, and they are looking for committed young people to come on board to bring new ideas, energy and impact to the group. (somehow they thought I would be good heheh) but this looks like something of your interest.
Hi
It is brillaint idea to organise a database of preffessionals aboard.
One of the things Pakistan is suffering from is skills deficiency. It seems like all talented people are moving out of the country.
I would be happy to do my bit if any, all the best.
Zafar, Ghalib, Rooster, Who-Me and Max thanks for the support guys. I´m looking forward to hearing some more ideas. Meanwhile I´ll be working on a beta version of a web interface. I would love to hear more about Fraudia´s and R-B's feed-back on their meeting with the Chamber of Commerce as well as the other VIPs in Chicago.
[This message has been edited by Ramis (edited October 20, 2000).]
Would be great if that could be done. Due to lack of time besides work and studies, I can’t contribute to this very much. But if you need help, contact me and I’ll try my best.
Umer, the Pakistani Brain of Austria
[This message has been edited by Umer (edited October 20, 2000).]
A great idea, I have been discussing the same idea locally which will includes all professional muslims. Privacy is a problem but I guess we should be able to come around that problem.
Also, why only be a maindak in a well. Why not think big and include all professional muslims on the list. Think about it yaar.
OK so there are people around who are interested .. good to know .. before we start asking people (and there are lot of em who will help) we need to establish what kind of help we are looking for .. in other words we need to figure out goals and organize efforts along that line…. I will get together with Mr.Fraudia and will keep you guys posted about the chamber of commerce meeting .. ‘who—me’ I agree DOPP sounds like dope .. but that’s not established yet .. so ‘Ramis’ we will work on it … Khan-Shaib your idea is good but we have to have a mechanism in place .. see there are millions and millions of muslims around the globe and it requires a full time comitment and resources to create datbase on that scale .. building a database for Pak-Pros will be a big project in itself .. so lets start from there
Hey one more thing
These things are hard to explain
For some it seems strange... to swallow
The frontier of our minds
Is the last place we find
But maybe the first place we should go
Khan Bhai I too find your idea great, but as R-B said, we´ve gotta start somewhere, and I guess starting with Pakistan, isn´t that bad an idea?! The good thing with databases is that you canalways expand with other categories and new entries.
R-B I think that we learn a lot from the existing job-sites, like stepstone, futurestep etc.
**
Have you folks made any progress? With newer members joining everyday, maybe to discuss this idea again, will help bring in more volunteers to the cause.
Ahmer and I discussed pretty much the same thing over lunch last week. This is a darn good idea. Maybe we need someone to take the lead on this and mobilzie the masses.
I haven't seen R-B and Ramis here for sometime. Are they still around? Raise your hands, folks?
R-B is away for a bit....he was trying to get to Pakistan over the holidays, looks like he made it.
Ramis launched his Danish board and is likely busy with that project.
I have recently been introduced to the Can-Pak Chamber of Commerce as a result of the fund raising we are doing for Fahim Ahmed in Toronto. Perhaps I can follow up on this idea. Watch this thread for updates.
the idea is interesting..
you will face a massive problem with regards to data from European Union citizens and residents.. UK Data protection Act 1999 (and other variants by countries)
you will have to comply with these regs for all info held of EU citizens etc.
My solution is that we don't need a full detailed database available on the internet.. we can have a database with say
member ID number & email (would be good if it is that site based email) (something like compuserve's numeric email - no idea who the person will be . just a number)
we need qualification details of members.. not their life history - school, dates attended, work history etc.
this way we will have a fairly robust knowledge management system without any privacy issues.
location of the person - ooh boy, is there a city where you can't find a desi? so not a big issue at all.
so there, problem solved.. if any help needed, I volunteer.. try me at [email protected]