Tech boss on Pak
By Techgirl

As Head of the one of the powerful tech companies, he is one of the most influential men in the world of technology.  He is worth Billions and is consulted by the Presidents and Prime Ministers of many countries.

He had written a detailed article on Pakistan covering every facet of that country.  Can you guess who this Tech Tycoon is?  (Answer at the end of this article).  Excerpts of his article below

“
Pakistan, a Muslim country, has spent about half of its independent life under military governments.  Today, Pakistani leadership celebrates the ruling coalitions success in almost finishing the first five year term in history (previous leaders indicted by the courts, assassinated by extremists or brushed aside by the generals.)  In meetings last week with the senior General, Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, they made the case for a new and updated image of Pakistan: one of the largest democracies in the world, with a vibrant and open press, an upcoming demographic dividend of hardworking young people, and a highly educated elite leadership of the country.  Islamabad and Lahore, where we visited, were relatively safe and certainly safer than Afghanistan.  It was clear to us that Pakistan has an image problem.

Pakistan also has a power problem, as in electric power.  Power is now off two hours out of three all day and all night.  Estimates are that the country has enough generation capacity (hydro and oil based) to handle all the load, but corruption, power stealing, poor payment rates and the classic mistake of underpricing power compared to its real generation cost means that industrial production is threatened.  Everyone of means has a UPS, and the air-conditioning seldom works on a 45 Celcius day.   Our meetings often were literally in the dark, a common enough occurrence that people did not even remark about it.

Pakistanis are on their way to full mobile penetration with more than 110 million users, and all effective political communication programs now rely on SMS.  3G licenses are underway and the start of a real software industry can be seen.

Against this backdrop, another side of Pakistan emerges.  The consensus is that the military drives the foreign policy of the country with unforeseen consequences.  Alleged use of extremist groups to fight in Kashmir enables a criminal element to flourish, and the hosting of the Taliban in the autonomous regions (called FATA) to the north and west in the mountains turned an ungoverned area into a very dangerous area.  The Army Generals explained the difference between fundamentalism (which they support) and extremism (which they fight), and the political leadership explained that the extremism now comes from “seminaries” where youth are indoctrinated, housed and fed in the rural areas where there are no opportunities at all.

Until recently a strong US ally, Pakistan is now on very good terms with China, and has improving relations with India (with whom they have had three wars.)   The development of a nuclear stalemate between India and Pakistan seems to have forced them to pursue accommodation and trade is now increasing rapidly.  The press are generally hyper-critical of the United States policies in the region and take the view that the India-US relationship is driving much of our countries behavior.  The drone strikes are universally condemned as a violation of sovereignty and their constitution and are subject to much negotiation between the two countries.  The bin Laden raid is viewed with strikingly different perspectives in the two countries.

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The identity of this Tech boss and the full article can be found at this link.

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog techgirltalk.blogspot.com.  Techgirl has been ejected from Twitter for satirizing an Indian Minister.  Her satire blog has links to her Times of India interview detailing her being kicked out of Twitter, and then being invited back.