Huawei P9

Huawei P9, as the lack of a suffix suggests, is a normal-sized flagship. The P9 comes with an IPS LCD screen of 5.2-inches that’s backlit by 20 LEDs. Since Huawei has made it clear that 2K and higher resolutions are of no use in normal sized phones, the resolution still stands at 1080p on the P9. The company was keen to point out that its flagship has the pretty much the same dimensions as an iPhone 6s but still has a higher-res and bigger screen.

The flagship is built using a high quality aluminum alloy and resembles the looks of the recent Huawei-made Nexus 6P. The dark camera strip on the back is another reminder of the Nexus phablet. A fingerprint sensor has also been placed on the back of the device. This time it offers improved speeds and doubles as a multi-purpose button.

Huawei’s P9 is powered by its own Kirin 955 chipset, an upgraded version of the Kirin 950. The processing chip utilises 8 cores with four Cortex-A72 ones clocked at 2.5GHz while the power saving Cortex-A53 cores are clocked at 1.8GHz. There will be two versions of the device, one will come with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage while the other one will make use of 4GB RAM and 64GB on-board storage. SD storage is handled by a hybrid card slot that also uses the second SIM slot.

We finally come down to the killer feature of the P9 series, a dual camera developed in collaboration with German Optics specialist Leica. The P9’s rear consists of two 12MP cameras, one capturing colour while the other one only sees black and white. While working in unison, they give far more detailed shots in good light while helping reduce noise during low light scenes. While the aperture sits at f/2.2, autofocus is handled by a combination of laser, contrast and depth calculation algorithms. There is a dual-LED flash like the predecessor, but the Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) is no more, possibly because a dual-camera setup can’t utilize identical OIS mechanisms.

Finally, the device boasts a battery pack of 3,000mAh. It’s charged using a USB Type-C connector. The phone will come with Android Marshmallow 6.0 based EM UI 4.1 out of the box. Global sales start from April 16.

Essentially, traffic challans, along with their photo evidence have started being dispatched to the vehicle’s owner’s homes through courier services in Karachi.

Here is how TVES Works

Traffic Violation Evidence System or TVES (as the system is been called in other cities) might not be properly detailed on Karachi Traffic Police’s official website currently, but given below is sufficient evidence that this current website will be going live very soon.

This is how the entire TVES process will work. CCTV cameras installed in various locations will be able to get a clear view of the vehicle’s number plates, recording any traffic infractions as they happen. Afterwards, the vital information surrounding the violator will be dug out of the Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) database using the license plate numbers of those who violated traffic rules.

Alternatively, mobile units manned by traffic police personnel will be taking photographs of offending motor vehicles in areas where CCTV coverage is non-existent or inadequate at best.

Once enough evidence has been collected, it will then be shifted to the TVES cell, which is currently present at the traffic police’s headquarters in Garden. If it appears that the vehicle owner has wrongfully operated outside of the law, then a ticket is immediately dispatched to his/her house address. The tickets will be delivered by traffic police officials via courier services.

The traffic police will also exercise extreme measures just in case the owner of the vehicle decides to slip up in clearing his/her dues. For example, the file of the violator’s vehicle will not be transferred in case they want to sell the car. Only when the fines have been cleared will the file transfer be possible on part of the car owner.

There are several locations present where the violator can conveniently pay their fines. It is possible that more locations are constructed in the future, and for additional flexibility, Karachi’s traffic police have also provided their contact details via electronic mail for updates, fine details and further queries.

Winning team receives a seed of USD 1 million and mentorship to launch and implement the start-up enterprise. The Prize is a partnership between Hult International Business School and the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).

The Hult Prize runs:

• hult@(s) at various universities all over the world. The teams compete at national level and qualify to participate in the regional rounds.
• regional competitions in five cities around the world i.e. Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai
• summer accelerator (Regional winners move into an incubator for the months of July and August, 2015. The location of the incubator is in Boston, MA)
• final pitch-off at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting.

The Hult Prize in Pakistan

The Hult Prize competition for 2016 was held in hult@Nust with 75 teams hailing from all over Pakistan. From them, TeamLyon (Now known as TeamNust) – a four group member team won and qualified for competing in the 7th Annual Hult Prize Regional Final held in Dubai in mid-March.

TeamNust’s project aimed at providing low-cost food to inhabitants living in crowded urban areas

The team was eventually selected from amongst 25,000 international applications and was to compete at Global Final hosted by President Bill Clinton in New York City. And though they did not win the Global Finals, it was an initiative that took the team far and wide, and showed the world that Pakistan also features world-class entrepreneurial talents.

The Journey

The journey began in mid-December named when the members of Team Lyon were selected to present their ideas to the judges in NUST. A total of 10 teams were selected for idea presentation from the 75 participating teams

The 4-member squad for Team Lyon are:

• Qazi Umer Jamil
• Usama Younus
• Usman Ashraf
• Maham Rashid

On 9th January, they qualified for Regional Rounds to be held in mid-March at Hult International Business School, Dubai. Within the available time span, the team got working on improvising the business model and supported their proposal with concrete research data and facts.

Finally, on 10th March, they were ready to present the proposal to the Hult prize challenge at Dubai where the team pitched the idea in front of a panel of international judges by the name of TeamNust.  They had a tough competition with 60 universities worldwide – including prestigious names as the  Cambridge University, London School of Economics, National University of Malaysia, University of Toronto and many others.

The panel of judges was professional and highly esteemed. They included:

• Rehan Pathan Partner, Head of Middle-East and Malaysia Arabesque Partners,
• Samih Toukan Chairman and CEO Jabbar Internet Group,
• Muna AbuSulayman Media Personality and Social Responsibility Expert Directions,
• Frederic Sicre Managing Director Abraaj Group,
• Mahmood Al Bastaki CEO Dubai Trade, Ayman Arandi CEO Iris Solutions.

Basics of the Project

The 2016 Hult Prize “President’s Challenge” is Crowded Urban Spaces and focuses on economic inclusion. More specifically it is concerned with doubling the incomes of the residents who live in some of the toughest conditions in the world through improved mobility and increased connectivity to people, products, services and capital by 2022.  Therefore to qualify, teams have to come up with an idea that could equally meet these objectives.

The project proposed by TeamNust aimed at providing low-cost food to inhabitants living in crowded urban areas – a sight that is not rare in popular cities of the world. This proposal stemmed from the close observation of low-income people in urban areas struggling to get meals three times a day. Because their routine struggle for survival, these people though extremely talented are not able to contribute to the progress of society and therefore a great amount of talent goes wasted.

Since the goal is to provide hygienic food to low-income people, the following model was proposed:

• The mess facility is aimed at providing low-cost food to local families. Food will be cooked in bulk utilizing economies of scale thus, cutting food expenditure costs up to 40%. With this food factor taken care of, women can be empowered to utilize their available time in learning new trades and contributing to the economy.
• The delivery department will ensure quick and reliable delivery of food. This department will deliver cooked food, with an aim to provide hot lunches to thousands of people every day. The idea is to target inhabitants of an area, students, workers and laborers who have travelled from suburbs to urban areas for better opportunities.

Though the team could not secure the final trophy, their idea is all set to change the world. We hope they remain motivated to work on their enterprise and take it to a fully-functional business model, helping those in need.

3G speeds of mobile operators is averaging below 2Mbps for Ufone and Telenor while Mobilink’s average 3G speed stood at 5.04Mbps and Zong topped the charts with 7.71Mbps of average 3G speeds on its network.

It won’t be out of place to mention that Telenor’s average speed for 3G network decreased from 2.2Mbps during PTA’s previous QoS survey to 1.94Mbps. However, Ufone, Mobilink and Zong were able to increase average speeds of their 3G networks since the last survey that was conducted last year.

PTA said that it carried out this comprehensive Quality of Service (QoS) Survey of 2G and 3G networks in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar to check voice and data QoS as per the required standards.

PTA said that its QoS Survey is in progress in other cities of Pakistan.

PTA didn’t survey 4G Networks this time.

Adhoc QoS survey results clearly indicate that operators 3G operators with 10MHz frequency spectrum is higher than that of the Internet data speed provided by 3G operators with 5MHz frequency spectrum.

To keep things simple, I am going to depict everything here as per the Higher Education Commission’s website. This way the readers can realize how, with HEC in the mix, the time taken to get recognition may vary. I shall not go into the details of the HEC websites functionality and they way it is designed. That is a topic for another day.

Lets get down to things.

Pakistan Universities: By the Numbers

There are 177 HEC recognized universities and institutes all across Pakistan. HEC further recognizes an additional 95 Campuses (Both Public and Private) for its certification.

In addition to these, the HEC website also lists the “Non – Recognized / Under Process” list of institutes that number 163 in total. Then there is another layer of recognition which reflects the number of institutes being affiliated by the HEC recognized Universities (see list here).

For foreign affiliation programs and getting those degrees attested, you can visit the website to get it done. Please note that without the HEC equivalence letter, you cannot move an inch. If your institute name is not in the list at the time of creating your record then select HEC as the board.

Degree Attestation: A Gold Mine?

The biggest part of HEC website is related to the degree attestation process. There are around one million graduates coming out every year, so you can just do the math here.

It’s not only the graduates who need to certify their degrees. For immigrations and getting job abroad, attestation is now mandatory. According to latest reports, each year 5 million passports are issued to the citizens of Pakistan. The number, coupled with the graduates one, is staggering.

Specially since you consider that HEC charges Rs. 800 for degree / Transcripts and 500/- for photocopies, as seen here on their website. You can estimate yourself how much money they’re earning via attestation services.

Why Do We Need to Get Our Degrees Certified?

We need to make ourselves very clear here, that due to certain factors in Pakistan, the HEC certifications has become mandatory for people applying for Government jobs, banking sector, or immigration.

If you are getting a job abroad, then you need to certify your documents from the respective Foreign Office of that country. In that case, HEC-certified papers can help since they are recognized abroad as well.

Over 5 million passports are issued every year in Pakistan and more than 1 million students graduate each year

In the case of medical graduates, things get more interesting where Pakistan Medical Council also has to play its role as an attestation destination. PMC has 98 medical institutes under their jurisdiction. So please check which ones are also recognized by HEC before going further.

For engineers, the Pakistan Engineering Council plays the same role as Medical Council. When I first tried to access their list of institutes the site crashed. You can however check it at your end. The home page is working, but its user interface is very challenging for users.

What Documents Do You Need?

People, who wish to process their certificates and degrees by HEC, need to take care of the following important things. This includes documentation, preparations, and above all, patience.

First of all, the most important document you need is your Intermediate certificate. Without this document, HEC will not take anything under consideration. So if you don’t have it, visit your Board of Intermediate Education, with your Admit Cards, Enrollment Card, CNIC, Marks Certificates and a fee of around Rs. 600/- and get it.

Be ready for long lines and waiting lists. In case, you don’t have the admit card with you. then you’ll have to visit the college and get one. The form for duplicate admit card is available from Board office. Rest is dependent on your college staff and their cooperation.

The other documents you need are:

• Original certificates/degrees from Matric onwards along with transcripts/DMCs

• Original matric certificate

• Original intermediate certificate

• Original degree

• Original transcripts/detail mark certificates (DMCs) showing date of admission and completion of program

• Copy of Computerized Identity Card

• Authority letter duly attested by a Grade 17 officer for the authorized person

• HEC Attests degrees/transcripts and diplomas awarded by the HEC Recognized Universities/Degree Awarding Institutions  of Pakistan both in public and private sector.  

Please keep in mind that you should not have plastic coated documents, since they will be rejected. Also make sure to attest all the copies from a gazette officer before coming for the submission.

The Most Important Factor

Now here is the catch.

It is clearly mentioned on the website that:

• Name of the Applicant must be same throughout his/her educational testimonials such as Matriculation, Intermediate, Bachelors and Masters onwards to PhD Degrees/Transcripts as well as on Computerized National Identity Card/ Passport; otherwise they would not be attested by HEC.

• The Applicant’s Father Name must match on the applicant’s CNIC, Matriculation, Intermediate, Bachelors and Masters onwards to PhD Degrees/ Transcripts; otherwise they would not be attested by HEC.

• Date of Birth of the applicant must match on the Applicant’s CNIC/Passport and Matriculation Certificate; otherwise they would not be attested by HEC.

• Both Degrees/ Transcripts issued on the same date, or overlapping semesters between an Undergraduate Degree and a Graduate Degree will not be recognized/ attested by HEC.

If you have any such anomalies with your CNIC in relation to educational documents, then my advice is to visit NADRA’s office and have your CNIC edited to the same name as per the degrees and certificates. In case of wrong printing of names on any of the educations documents, you’ll have to get ready for an ordeal that involves getting duplicates and documents from each of the your institutes.

Please take care of the above while you are still at your university and make sure that this kind of blunder does not happen.

The Online Registration

Now, coming to the point where everything is perfectly in order and now you need to register yourself to HEC records.

For this the site provides a simple step-by-step guide:

• Read the pre-requisites very clearly.
• You will need to sign-up with your details. In which the site will also enter your user name as your CNIC number and a password. Please be aware, the email address on which the password and user name is sent should be your own. As the email clearly states your user name and password without encrypting it.
• Once this is done, then you will need to enter all your education qualifications from Matric to the latest ones.
• In the next step you will select which degree or transcript you wish to get attested. Each will be selected and you will be shown the total amount on the screen. Edits are not possible here, so be careful or else you’ll have to start over again.
• You can also add Research Projects and Publications in the education section as well.
• For equivalence degree attestations visit here.

For the next step, the system shall display you selections regarding which Degree, Transcript and Provisional certificate you need to get attested. For each the fee is displayed and there is a quantity column for photocopies as well.

You can then select the “regional office” from where the degree will be attested and you shall present your documents to, alongside timings and other details.

After this, you can proceed to “form printing” where you can print the form alongside the details of Bank Payment Vouchers. This payment shall be made at the time of form submission, once the documents and form is verified.

Getting it Done

The timings for all this activity starts from 8:00 am, so you need to be there at least 30 minutes earlier to get in that queue. The objective here is to get a token number, which is limited to 220 people daily.

After this, your documents shall be checked and verified and in case of any anomalies, you will be asked to return back, because you will not have time to come back again.

The second queue will be for the bank, where the fee is submitted, as per the requested attestations.

It is important to mention that the attested documents are returned with the originals in 5 working days, but make it 10 for safe side. Keep in mind if you are visiting the HEC offices in Islamabad, you can get your documents back the very same day

Make sure to bring along fresh water and some eatables since its a long queue. Also, do not get frustrated or angry on employees because that is counter-productive and causes unnecessary delays. If there is an error or rejection then simply ask what to do, note it down and return back one more time. As cumbersome as it sounds, that’s how things get done here.

I wish you good luck with the process. Also, if I am missing something here, then do let the readers know in the comments below.

And for a song that was loaded with an unbeatable combo of lol-worthy visuals and even tummy-ache inducing lyrics, Tahir Shah basically became the de-facto music maestro for the social media generation.

His fans (and detractors), which he has many, has had one question on their minds. Will Tahir Shah ever return with another chart-topper of an earworm?
It seems that the time of the reckoning is at hand. Behold this tweet that is another breaking-the-internet act in the making.
Yes. He is back. And he’s ready to take on the Qandeels and Amir Liaquats that have thrived in his absence.

It is the man himself.

So when is he dropping his new tune?

Finja is jointly conceived by co-founders Qasif Shahid and Monis Rahman, who are known industry veterans with extensive domain experience.

Qasif recently led the development of mobile payment and wallet platforms at MCB Bank Pakistan and AccessBank Tanzania. He previously headed digital banking at ABN AMRO playing a lead role in introducing mobile led commerce in Singapore during the early 2000’s.

Monis is one of Pakistan’s Internet pioneers. He launched ROZEE.PK, Pakistan’s largest online recruitment powerhouse in 2007, serving 65,000 employers and 5.5 Million registered professionals. He has raised $11 Million to date in venture funding for online startups.

The mobile wallet, jointly deployed by Finja and Finca Microfinance Bank, is built on top of Finca Microfinance Bank’s branchless banking platform powered by AutoSoft Dynamic’s AutoMWALLET engine.

The mobile wallet brings several features that will help digital payments scale rapidly. The service is telco, bank and handset agnostic with the philosophy of inter-operating collaboratively with existing payment plumbing.

Finja’s Mobile Wallet, after its commercial launch, will serve all sorts of digital payment needs of Pakistanis

The product promises a zero customer switching cost with maximum convenience in the spirit of modern social networks. Finja believes that existing payment regimes are not conducive to large-scale behavior change.

“We believe banking products should look more like social networks than conventional banking products,” said Finja’s Founding CEO Qasif Shahid. “Our mobile wallet’s open API platform will allow much needed collaborative creativity from other FinTechs to be leveraged to create building blocks for a wider array of useful financial products”, added Monis Rahman, Finja’s Founding investor.

Mudassir Aqil, CEO of Finca Microfinance Bank, commented on the first of its kind partnership between a bank and FinTech, “What’s new in this partnership is the fact that a microfinance bank’s core and DNA is to lend, which we plan to leverage to incentivize behavior transformation from cash to digital payments”.