Mr. D. Y. Kim was appointed as the President of LG Electronics, Gulf FZE in January 2012. With deep insight into the electronics industry due to its professional and educational path, Mr. Kim has been with LG Electronics since 1989.

Mr. D.Y.Kim was recently in Pakistan and we had a chance to interact with him for an interview via email.

Following is what he had to say about LG and Pakistan’s electronics markets.

ProPakistani: How the recent economic meltdown has affected LG globally?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: While we are currently facing few ups and downs in mature markets, emerging markets in Middle East have offered significant growth opportunities for LG over the last few years.

It has also driven us to maximize efficiency and upgrade our technology to remain competitive in the various markets. As a strategic initiative, we have adapted our portfolio to include more varieties in each of our product categories.

ProPakistani: Do you think this situation has reduced the spending power of the consumer?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: The spending power of consumers has reduced significantly but over the years with the global economy stabilizing, people are beginning to invest more in consumer electronics. LG products such as home appliances, mobiles, IT products and home entertainment are now necessities in the modern consumer’s life so are still an essential part of their spending. Additionally, with competitive prices, premium quality and excellent after sales service, it is a worthwhile investment.

ProPakistani: How do you see consumer electronic market in Pakistan?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: Pakistan is price driven market however, at the same time there is potential where people would like to enhance their life style as they have huge influence from Middle East markets.

LG as a Global brand would like to contribute towards a segment where people are more into life style enhancement rather than just to have products which are disposable. In line of our strategy we are strengthening our brand shops network and provide consumer complete hands-on experience and provide right choice of products which enhances their life style with reliability.

ProPakistani: Which is your best performing division in terms of sales in Pakistan?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: We are already market leader for Home appliance products i.e. Absolute No. 1 and we are catching up the leadership position in flat panel through Cinema 3D Smart TV and mobile phone through LTE technology across the globe, we would like to facilitate Pakistan Consumers as well with our cutting age technology.

ProPakistani: How do you plan to compete with unbranded/Chinese products which are heavily flooded in Pakistan electronic market?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: As we have mentioned earlier that we would like to enhance the life style of the consumer of Pakistan. We would not get into the volume game with all other brands however, our mission is to provide cutting edge technology to Pakistan consumers and enhance their life style experience regardless consumer demographic as long as they willing experience cutting edge technology through reliable brand.

ProPakistani: Do opening of brand shops signifies new investment by LG in Pakistan?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: We are keen …… and Pakistan is important market for us due to obvious reason: “population”. We have differentiating strategies whereby we would like LG to standout as a premium and life style enhancing brand. In order to do so, brand shops network is important from where we can educate consumer and give them real hands on experience about LG latest technology which enhances their life style and justify our slogan Life’s Good.

ProPakistani: How is your C&D center going along?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: This is a part of our strategy whereby we are reinforcing the importance of the technology, experience and equity with the brand. In order to enhance the life style of the consumers, care & delight is the real tool for us whereby we can provide real experience not only LG product but after sales experience which make their life’s Good and hassle free.

ProPakistani: Do you plan to open more C&D and product galleries in other cities of Pakistan?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: This is part of long term strategy in Pakistan so my answer is yes , we are looking at right location an space whereby we can give real life style environment & experience to the consumer of Pakistan, we have plan to cover all metropolitan cities.

ProPakistani: How is your relationship with Ruba group nurturing?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: We always are very selective in having a partnership. Since RUBA is the biggest group of Pakistan with the complete infrastructure to handle global brands, our relationship is getting stronger day by day. Brand shop is real demonstration of our relationship where both originations are committed and confident to server Pakistan consumer’s better and stylish product through cutting edge technology.

ProPakistani: Future plans for Pakistan market?

Mr. D. Y. Kim: We have multiple plans for Pakistan market, as we have mentioned that we are expanding our brand shop network across the country. We also have a Plan to launch a TV program whereby LG would like to contribute towards Pakistan community and provide education to the Pakistani youth. The quiz program will be conducted on renowned TV channel where students can participate through online and participate for the quiz program which is purely based on the intellectual basis.

Owing to the technology having improved and sharpen our lives to a much larger degree, in addition to stressing its involvement in different facets, inclusion of Information Technology (IT) applications in health sector also need proper attention.

Health Information Technology (HIT) refers to the use of IT and its applications by health personnel, patients and service providers etc. The usage may cater to cover a multitude of purposes i.e. keeping health records, facilitating appointments and assisting the physician etc.

Involvement of HIT in health sector is spreading at rapid pace in developed nations. However, in developing countries, particularly Pakistan, its applications are limited to administrative and financial purposes.

Our health system needs proper consideration. With an annual population growth of 2.1%, initiatives to tailor the health-sector to modern tech-tools seem mandatory for sake of a prosperous healthy Pakistan.

There is an urgent need to consider using HIT in the country’s health sector, as major occurrences of medical accidents occur due to lack of collaboration between medical practitioners, inaccessibility to latest medical tools and unavailability of patients’ log in emergency cases.

In a proper functional HIT, the medical records are computerized, internet is used for sharing documents, electronic identification for patients is used, and the system is fully centralized. Due to their nature of demanding quick care and treatment, health-related matters need integrity, quality of service, promptness and fast delivery. Using latest information technology tools promises such objective.

Some of its applications include reduction in paper work, which, in addition to lowering the chances of medical errors, is also eco-friendly. Also, the maintenance of a patient’s medical history in digital form relieves him from taking medical test repetitively. By accessing health information actively medical-professionals can get themselves updated with latest trends and latest communication tools can allow long distance collaborations.

For underdeveloped countries, the major reason preventing them to include HIT is the lack of proper IT and telecom infrastructure. However, in our case, the technological advances allow even far-flung areas to get connected via Internet, which can be considered as backbone of HIT. Moreover, the country is blessed with talented IT professionals and engineers. However, it lacks planning and support from the respective authorities.

Some of the suggestions are as:
In addition to planning and initiating the idea, training arrangements should be made for concerned medical as well as technical professionals. A fragment of such professionals should be cross-trained and HIT related courses should be included in the medical curriculum.
To evaluate its feasibility, research and statistical studies need to be carried. Proper allocation of funds is also necessary as in previous fiscal year, among Rs. 663 billion allocated for public sector development, only Rs. 16.9 billion were fixed for health division.
Due to cultural and social setup, general tendency to adopt a change is lower. To help solve such quandary, the authorities must emphasize the need to adopt HIT.
Initially the newly HIT-based setup should run in parallel with conventional system and to rule-out chances of starting errors, back-up arrangements must be available.

National Bank of Pakistan recently entered into an agreement with Microsoft Pakistan. The signing ceremony took place at the National Bank of Pakistan Head Office in Karachi.

The Microsoft Enterprise Agreement will enable National Bank to use Microsoft Virtualization, Unified Communication, Business Process Automation, Private Cloud technologies as well as Premier Support to provide enterprise class technology support services.

The agreement was signed by Mr. Kamal Ahmed, Country General Manager, Microsoft Pakistan and Mr. Mahmood Siddique, CIO, National bank of Pakistan. Also present at the ceremony were Sayed Hashish, GM Microsoft NEPA, Mounir Bouzoubba, Business Manager, Microsoft NEPA Abid Zaidi, Commercial Segment Lead, Enterprise Group, Microsoft Pakistan, Asim Haque, Vice President, InfoTech Pvt. Ltd. and Faisal Misbah, Business Unit Manager, InfoTech Pvt. Ltd.

Talking about the agreement, Mr. Kamal Ahmed said, “Microsoft believes in providing custom based solutions to its customers. This accord will not only help optimize the IT infrastructure of National Bank but the software solution provided by Microsoft will enable the bank to achieve maximum efficiency.”

The Microsoft team has worked closely with National Bank’s IT team to discuss and understand bank’s needs.

Microsoft virtualization provides an end-to-end solution that can profoundly affect nearly every aspect of IT infrastructure management lifecycle. It can drive greater efficiencies and flexibility across any organization’s IT infrastructure. From accelerating application deployments to ensuring availability of systems, applications, and data to taking the hassle out of rebuilding and shutting down servers and desktops for testing and development; to reducing risk, slashing costs, and improving the agility of your entire IT environment—virtualization has the power to transform your infrastructure from the data center all the way to the desktop.

Mr. Mahmood Siddique, CIO, National Bank of Pakistan said, “Keeping abreast with the changing financial world and meeting the banking needs of our customers effectively and efficiently is very important to us. Through an integrated IT infrastructure that Microsoft is developing for us, we will be able to deploy, manage and help secure timely solutions for our clients.”

With fewer servers to manage, the IT staff is saving time throughout the day. For example, the task of matching virtual machines to storage volumes takes one to two hours less each day than previous server virtualization technologies required. Provisioning a new virtual machine also takes dramatically less time—minutes versus hours—than provisioning a physical server.

National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has announced that it will include name of polling station in service reply (as SMS) specifically launched for verification of vote status.

Though it didn’t clarify on when the information about polling status in verification SMS will be included.

Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in collaboration with NADRA and mobile phone operators had launched the world’s biggest SMS service for 83.2 million Pakistani voters, besides displaying new electoral rolls across the country.

Name of polling station would also be included in SMS reply in future, so that a voter can have the knowledge where he/she would cast vote.

Critiques are opining that NADRA and ECP should have included this (polling station) information at the launch of the service, as customers will have to repay for vote verification SMS service to know about their polling station.

How to Check your Vote Status?
Simply send your CNIC (without dashes) to 8300
Example: Send “3740541882200” to 8300

You will soon receive a reply with following information:
Your CNIC Number
Polling Station name, with. District, Tehsil and city/town/village
Block Code
Serial Number

Charges:
Rs. 2 plus tax per SMS

Note: Reply message is likely to have words in Urdu (unicode). You may not be able to read the text message if your phone doesn’t support unicode.

Election Commission said that it has purposefully not included the voters’ name and home address to avoid any privacy violations. Still, according to some, inclusion of polling station information can pose risk on privacy of individuals.

Service has been used by more than 6 million subscribers in Pakistan, since its launch last month. Those with any objections in voters’ status can contact 50,000 display centers, specifically established for corrections.

NADRA revealed that Mobilink’s share in total SMS utilized for the purpose is 31.17 percent. Telenor is second as far as using the particular service is concerned. Its share is 28 percent. Ufone is third in a row with 22 percent in total SMS, Warid with 10 percent and Zong with 9 percent in total SMS share.

Cyber Internet Services (Cybernet) and Augere Pakistan have signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) to explore mutual business opportunities including the provision of
redundant connectivity to clients and enabling 4G LTE services in the future.

“This cooperation between our companies will enable Cybernet to strengthen its promise to deliver resilient connectivity to its enterprise clients. By accessing Augere’s robust and low latency network especially in many hard to reach and poorly served areas, Cybernet will be able to enhance the reach of its network and the diversity of its product portfolio.” said Iqbal Ali Lakhani, Chairman Lakson Group.

David Venn, Group CEO of Augere added, “The alliance between Augere,whose brand Qubee is the fastest growing consumer broadband service in Pakistan, and Cybernet, a market leader in the enterprise data connectivity segment, is a win-win situation for both organizations. We look forward to working closely with Cybernet and leveraging our collective assets to the ultimate benefit of Pakistani Internet users.

The company heads of both companies also discussed the potential for high bandwidth broadband in the country and the opportunities created for consumers and content producers with the introduction of 4G LTE technologies. Both organizations currently operate networks in the 3.5 GHz band which can be upgraded to support 4G LTE in the future.

The companies are also members of the Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) a virtual open platform to advocate cooperation among global operators to promote TD-LTE.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf has denounced its supporters who use explicit language on social media networks against critiques (of all levels) for defending their party.

An official statement issued by PTI said that PTI cannot take responsibility for acts of any individual or any content posted by them to which it has no administrative control.

“But as a party policy it does publicly denounce individuals who use abusive language or engage in illegal activities”, the statement said.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf further said that it does not support any form of hacking of website(s), Facebook pages or Twitter accounts regardless of how adverse the point of view might actually be.

PTI Social Media Team does take this opportunity to reinforce the message of “Social Media Responsibility” as presented by the Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, urging supporters to show dignity and respect when discussing politics online.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf was alleged for covering supporters using abusive and explicit language against anti-PTI individuals. They were also alleged for hacking Facebook pages of anti-PTI TV anchors/shows.

PTI has specifically disowned “Insaaf Cyber Team”, a self proclaimed cyber team working for PTI, that was involved in hacking of various facebook pages that were against PTI.

National ICT R&D Fund has launched this new initiative of assisting undergraduate students with their final year projects.

ICT R&D Fund said that it aims to promote, enable, and encourage R&D culture at the grassroots level by funding relatively high caliber R&D projects initiated by students under the mentorship of faculty members in chartered universities of both Public and Private sector.

Through this initiative the Fund will provide financial support to selected Final Year Projects (FYP) of undergraduate students enrolled in ICT related disciplines like Computer Science & Information Technology, Electrical, Electronics, Telecom, Computer, and Software Engineering.

The funding under this initiative covers the cost of purchase of equipment and other miscellaneous costs associated with the development of the prototype or working model. A maximum of up to Rs 75,000/- can be provided to a single Final Year Project (FYP).

Recommendations for currently ongoing Final Year Projects (FYP) should be submitted to the Fund through the respective Head of Departments on the prescribed Recommendation Form. You can get the form downloaded from here.

All the recommendation received will be evaluated by a committee of experts constituted by the Fund. Final decision pertaining to the selection of any project for this initiative shall be taken by the National ICT R&D Fund.

The last date for submission of forms to National ICT R&D Fund is March 31, 2012.

Zong has entered into next level of its partnership with Manchester united. As part of this partnership, Zong will be sending 32 young boys to Manchester United Soccer School for a 1 week training camp. ZONG is giving this first of a kind opportunity of being a hero to the football fans of Pakistan.

If you want to be one of 32 lucky footballers, then read on to know complete details on how to get onboard to fly to Manchester United School.

Zong will be identifying schools teams with max number of 16 players per team. First 120 teams to register will then be given a chance to prove their mettle by competing against each other.

For the selection of players, school soccer coach/PE coach will be consulted by ZONG Manchester United Staff at schools. 16 players identified by the coaches will then come together to form a team.

In order to help the young individual players, a team briefing will be organized. In which they will be provided guidance for the complete registration process along with the dates of all the fixtures.

These trials will be conducted in major cities of Pakistan which includes Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad/ Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad. A Team of professional coaches will conduct these skilled based trails and select the best players to form 8 teams, consisting of 16 players in each team. 3 teams will be formed in KHI, 2 in LHR, 1 in ISB/RWP, MUL and FSB each.

Following will be the trials format:
Trials will be conducted by individuals who play in the senior Football League, Nationally. They will be neutral in their decisions.
The 5 days of Trails will be divided into 3 days for Drills. Pro’s will judge players based on performance of Drills. Drills will set up for each key position Goalies/Defenders/Midfielders/Forwards. This will be our first Filter
The last 2 days of Trails will be shorter Games (20 min games) conducted by the same group of individuals. This will be our second and final filter.
The officials will then take one day to finalize candidates and Teams
8 ZONG Team players will be announced at the Dome and online and via SMS to the individual players
Decision of the Pro’s will Final

Individual players need to have their registration confirmed after their data is registered on the portal. Once player is registered he will receive a message on their ZONG-Man Utd SIM with trail date and times. Players will also receive trial format and process, which needs to be followed.

Football matches will be held among all these teams and the winning team comprising 16 players will be sent to Manchester United Soccer School. Apart from these 16 outstanding players during the matches will also be going to the school.

All of those who want to participate in these nationwide football tournaments will be required to purchase and activate ZONG-Man Utd SIM to enter the tournament.
ZONG-Man Utd Football scouts will be visiting schools for registering the future stars of football in Pakistan.
ZONG-Man Utd Dome will be set up at grounds where people can experience the world of Manchester United.

Major newspaper (including DAWN) and TV channels yesterday carried this story by APP claiming that widespread availability of cheap unlimited text message plans has made the service as preferred mode of communication for youngsters and its excessive use is leading to health problems among them.

Report said that SMS has surpassed rest of the forms of daily interaction amongst youngsters like face-to-face conversations, voice calling, etc.

It said that 60 per cent of youngsters send and receive over 125 text messages daily to interact with their peer group.

Report claimed that excessive texting is leading to a number of problems for kids such as insomnia, depression, lack of eating, isolation etc.

Almost 90 per cent of those interviewed by APP admitted that they sleep with their cell phone lying next to them and thus, keep slightly awake most of the time during their sleep.

Majority of respondents admitted that they are often awakened by a phone call or a text message after going to bed and the lack of sleep has affecting their work and progress.

On a related note, very similar survey with almost similar results was conducted by Indian industry body Assocham back in July 2011. Interestingly APP’s findings exactly match with this study done by ASSOCHAM. And don’t get amazed if we tell you that we had revealed exactly similar impacts of SMS/Night Packages on youth back in July 2008.

Here’s what exactly we reported in 2008:

Microsoft envisions the professionals from industry working in close contact with the students and faculty from the education sector, where professional experience along with the knowledge of current technologies being used in the IT industry and the creative new ideas from the minds of tomorrow can help produce the next breakthrough in the IT Industry.

Keeping it in mind, Microsoft plans to initiate the first of its kind Industry Academia Collaboration event with the focus set on Windows Phone7 Application Development.

Microsoft Pakistan in alliance with P@SHA, HEC, wi-tribe, ProPakistani and Comsats is holding an Application Development Appathon & Exhibition at Comsats Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad.

10+ top universities from Islamabad and Lahore with more than 100 students are expected to participate where they will publish and showcase their applications.

Microsoft said that this apps exhibition will be giving students a chance to visit their stations, see what they have developed and discuss how they have done it

Students willing to participate and showcase their work to not only Microsoft but the Industry and Academicians present there, can get themselves registered with Microsoft for the event.

The competition is unique, in that the participants are not restricted to developing applications only on the assigned dates of the competition. Instead, the applicants can start developing their applications NOW. What this means for them is that there is no time restriction. Develop as much as you want, in the development environment you desire.

The participants will be welcomed to COMSATS Institute where they will be required to upload all the applications they have created to Yalla Apps Marketplace using Student Cards which will be provided to all the participants on the day of the Event. A brief agenda of the event is as follows: