Improving Health Care In Pakistan
October 27, 2008
The U.S. Department of State has formed a telemedicine public-private partnership in Pakistan, demonstrating the power of high-speed internet connectivity in improving social services in remote areas.
Other partners include IBM [International Business Machines Corporation], Wateen Telecom, Motorola, Medweb, U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of Defense Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Center, Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi, District Headquarters Hospital in Attock, and the government of Pakistan.
Telemedicine enables healthcare providers to deliver high quality medical services for patients in remote locations – services that would otherwise be lacking or absent. The public-private partnership is using telemedicine to help broaden and strengthen technical capabilities, supporting the Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi in its outreach to the region.
“The goal of this project,” said Dr. Asif Zafar, a telemedicine expert, “is to highlight technology’s ability to overcome a significant healthcare imbalance – more than seventy-percent of the population [of Pakistan] lives in rural areas but only twenty-two percent of doctors work there.”
In addition to assembling this public-private partnership, the U.S. government contributed $220,000 to purchase state-of-the-art telemedicine equipment and services to operate the project. The Pakistan telemedicine project has already provided expanded medical care to hundreds of patients – pro-operative planning and follow-up; cardiac assessment; ophthalmology, dermatology, radiology, infectious disease, and peri-natal evaluations and medical triage for traumas and acute illness.
The U.S. Pakistan Telemedicine Project extends the United States-Pakistan Strategic Partnership, which was formed in 2006. Since 2002, the U.S. has provided more than $3.4 billion to Pakistan to improve economic growth, education, health, and governance, and to assist with earthquake reconstruction.
“The U.S. Department of State, through the Pakistan Telemedicine Project, is demonstrating the transformative power of telecommunications technology under the U.S. government’s Digital Freedom Initiative, which seeks to encourage the spread of technology to the developing world,” said Ferial Saeed, Deputy U.S. Coordinator and Office Director for International Communications and Information Policy. “Under this public-private partnership,” said Ms. Saeed, “we hope to demonstrate how technology and Internet-based connectivity can significantly improve the quality of life for remote populations.”
State Department, IBM build telehealth bridge to rural Pakistan
October 10, 2008
A telemedicine project by the State Department, IBM, and other public and private organizations has enabled medical specialists to treat patients in remote, medically under served areas of northern Pakistan, some of whom have suffered for years from easily treatable diseases.
Using wireless broadband technology, videoconferencing and the Internet, the Pakistan Telemedicine Project has connected a central coordinating facility at the Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi with a hospital in Attock District, a rural area with few doctors an
d limited medical resources.
Since late August, the program has been running virtual clinics in dermatology and ear, nose and throat specialties, performing radiology, and providing virtual grand rounds to educate local health care providers.
“We’ve had patients show up who haven’t been seen by a physician in 10, 20, even 30 years,” said Dr. Richard Bakalar, chief medical officer at IBM.
“Now these patients are hearing about this and coming from all over to register for these clinics,” he said. “And the doctors and health care personnel are very excited that they’re going to be able to treat patients they previously couldn’t.”
Motorola and Wateen Telecom, based in Pakistan, are supplying the broadband technology. The U.S. Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center will provide four medical consultants, including a cardiologist, ophthalmologist and trauma specialist.
The U.S. Agency for International Development is contributing $80,000 to cover the cost of two independent assessments of the project. And Medweb is providing telemedicine software, servers and medical input devices. The company worked with IBM on a similar project on Tristan da Cunha, the world’s most remote inhabited island.
Ferial Saeed, deputy U.S. coordinator of international communications and information policy at the State Department, said the goal was to develop a project that could showcase the transformative power of telecommunications technology.
Pakistan was chosen as the initial site because the government has difficulty delivering health care to a broad swath of its population. More than 75 percent of the country’s 173 million residents live in rural areas, but only 22 percent of its physicians practice in such areas.
Pakistan officials have been active partners in the effort, Saeed said, and the goal is to make the project self-sustaining in 18 months.
“We would like to pull out of it completely so that the Pakistani government works directly with Wateen, which is providing the technology,” Saeed said.
In the meantime, the State Department will determine practical funding sources and expand coverage within Pakistan before replicating the program in other countries. The agency has already provided funding to IBM Pakistan to provide a second hospital in another remote region with telemedicine capabilities.
Scholarships on offer at expo
July 16, 2008
UNIVERSITIES and institutes of higher learning are participating in an educational expo today (Monday) in which visiting students will have a chance to clinch scholarships. [Read more]
Week In Review: Week ending on Saturday, the 12th of July, 2008
July 13, 2008
There’s been so much going on this past week in IT and T, we’ve hardly had time to put it all together! But of course you know that’s not true, because here’s a look at this past week! (haha! We almost made a funny there!) [Read more]
Week In Review: Week ending on Saturday, the 5th of July, 2008
July 5, 2008
Another week of regular activity in the IT and Telecom scene in Pakistan. Here’s what’s been cooking across the country:
Perhaps the most surprising news was the re-assignment of Telenor Pakistan CEO, Tore Johnsen, resigning from Telenor and joining TDAC as the Chief Executive Officer. Whereas the announcement for the new CEO of Telenor will be made on first of September 2008, Tore has proven to be a great leader to building Telenor has a strong, reliant brand for the consumer here.
Tore Johnsen had been the CEO of Telenor Pakistan since the inception in 2004. Before moving to Pakistan, Johnsen served four years as Strategy Director and later CEO of DiGi Telecommunications in Malaysia. He joined the Telenor Group in 1974, and he has held a number of managerial positions and international assignments. Johnsen holds a Master of Science in addition to studies in International Business Management. A new CEO of Telenor Pakistan will be announced in due time before September 1st. The Company, operating under “dtac” brand, was founded in August 1989 to provide wireless telecommunication service in 800 Mhz and 1800 Mhz frequency bands in Thailand under a 27-year “Built-Transfer-Operate” concession granted by CAT Telecom Public Company Limited (formerly known as Communications Authority of Thailand-”CAT. We wish Mr Johnsen the very best in his new venture and have no doubt that he will be as good for Thailand as he has been for Pakistan! Sawasdee Krup, Tore!
Senior Executive Vice President HR, Ismail Taha said that PTCL is taking steps to provide prompt, better and state of the art telecom services for its customers and they hope to achieve their goal very soon. The goal, as mentioned before, is to regain a better position in telecom market. He made these statements while visiting the Customers Facilitation Camp (CMC) in F-8 Markaz in Islamabad. A. Khawaja and other senior officers also accompanied him.
The number of mobile phone users in the economic year 2007-08 has increased to 34 percent and a Government report says that during the economic year 2008-07, the number of Zong’s connection has increased with 208 %. In June 2008, the number of mobile phone users was 6.32 billion, which has exceeded 8.5 billion.
Mobilink still stands as number in telecom sector with a user ship of more that 3.19 billion. This year, an increase of 20 percent has been recorded in Mobilink’s users.
Ufone is facilitating 1.75 billion whereas, Telenor, which was at number three a few weeks ago, has acquired a user circle that is even bigger than Ufone. Telenor has the second position in Pakistan Telecom Industry and this increase has proved itself a big shock for Ufone. Other than the top three, Warid is still doing a good business but its on the fourth number. The officials of Warid Telecom say that their company is focusing more on its infrastructure and availability than other issues.
Zong Telecom has attained more than 3.2 million users in just a couple of months. It is progressing efficiently and it is being expected that very soon, Zong will have it’s own place to call home, in the Pakistan Telecom industry.
Nokia announced the launch of its latest handset, Nokia N-78 that is equipped with latest features and graphics. The media event took place at Sheraton Hotel, Karachi where Nokia Country Manager, Imran Khalid Mehmood and the Product Manager Khurram Pradhan briefed the audience about the latest handsets and upcoming projects of Nokia.
Nokia N78 is amongst the first handsets with the integrated FM transmitters that allow the tones through car stereo. It is a sleek multimedia computer that fuses map reading, photography, music and mobility in a way that gives convergence a new meaning.
The handset also has a 3.2 mega pixel camera, multimedia player, picture browser and a powerful range of technologies including high-speed connectivity via WLAN and HSPDA 3.g. Additionally, geo-tagging becomes easier with Nokia N-78. This phone has got every thing that you need (and then some!)
Dr. Lian Jeog Seok and Cybil Yoo, members of an IT organization in Korea, visited University of Karachi. They visited Umair Basha Institute of Technology (UBIT)/ Department of Computer Science. The delegation met the Vice Chancellor of KU, Professor Pirzada Qasim and the Chairman of the department. The delegations discussed the development of IT services in Pakistan as well as the academia.
The launching ceremony of two technical books, “Quality Assurance in Higher Education: A Global Perspective” and “Safety Management and Engineering: An Integrated Approach” took place at the Institute of Quality and Technology Management (IQTM) of Punjab University. The book on Quality Assurance is based on 15 research papers that have been edited by Dr. Abdul Rauf and Dr. Niaz Ahmad along with the second book which was has been written by Dr Abdul Rauf.
Quality Assurance Advisor at Higher Education Commission (HEC), Dr. Riaz Qureshi, PU Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. Mujahid Kamran, Dr. Abdul Rauf, Dr. Niaz Ahmad, Dr Javed Ahmed, Dr. Mehar Saeed and a large number of faculty members and students participated in the launching ceremony.
The Syndicate of University of Engineering and Technology approved the university’s annual budget for the year 2008-09. The budget comprises of two categories, recurring budget and development budget. Total income from recurring budget is Rs 1.559 billion while expenditure is Rs 1.610 billion.
The Higher Education Commission and Federal Government has allocated Rs 480 million and the Punjab government allocated Rs 24 million for the four ongoing development projects of the university.
DHL has provided access to its unique electronic services DHL Emailship with the help of Microsoft Office Online. Now, this service is downloadable in Asia Pacific. This service was not available in this region but now, customers can easily access shipping services using DHL Emailship.
The collaboration of Wateen and Motorola is the hottest topic of this month. The agreement, which has been signed by Wateen and Motorola, has got international acknowledgement, as the world’s leading technology magazine CIO has covered this story.
Wateen has been providing WiMAX services in Pakistan and recently it signed the biggest agreement for CPE devices with Motorola.
The ratio of Fixed lines and Wireless line (WLL) are showing a declining trend as the whole nation has moved to mobile phone services. A report issued by PTA for March 2008 says that the number of fixed line users has decreased by 6.1 percent quarter-over-quarters along with WLL subscribers, which has dropped by 4.4 percent month-on-month in May 2008.
Omair Chughtai, a telecom analyst at BMA Capital said that the decline was obvious but the data showed a massive decline, which is beyond expectations. According to him, it will take some years to stabilize landline position in telecom market.
China’s Huawei Technologies said that it has been selected by Mobilink to deploy a commercial WiMAX 16e Network in Pakistan. After Wateen, Mobilink will be the second company to provide WiMAX services in Pakistan, which will be benefiting for the country.
A representative of Huawei Technologies said that the company is going to provide its services to Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Sialkot. Huawei is one of the leading WiMAX providers in the world and until now, it has won 19 overseas commercial WiMAX contracts.
A week ago, a news item in one of the dailies said that PTA has banned the imports of handsets from china but a PTA’s spokesperson has clarified that PTA has not taken any such action. He said that PTA had nothing to do with the imports of mobile handsets or type approval of handsets, and rather blocks stolen/snatched sets through International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number when reported by a complaint.
SAMENA Telecommunications Council recently concluded Telecom 2008, which brought together top industry executives from Pakistan and the MENA region in Islamabad to share their insights on key areas of importance to the telecom and ICT industry.
PTCL, PTA, The Summit Patronage, Symbia, Cisco, CRPL, Com Info Systems, Inmarsat, Blue Ridge Networks and Satcom collaborated to organize this two-day long event. Closing day guest of honor was Mr. Qamar Zaman Kaira, Federal Minister of Information Technology.
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd announced that it has withdrawn the controversial circular of price hike in domestic leased line circuits used for internet and data services.
Representative of ISPAK, Wahaj us Siraj, said: “We appreciate the decision of PTCL management to withdraw the price increase which could have led to doubling the prices of internet for the customers”.
Intel Pakistan and Ministry of Education (MOE) recently announced an ICT for Education that aims to provide knowledge of computers and latest technologies of Information Technology to common citizens.
Under the agreement, Intel Pakistan will provide 4,500 computers to Government Schools across the country over the next five years in a continued effort to enhance the capabilities of next generation. Intel Pakistan has already donated 750 PCs to Government schools to date. It intends to provide 1,080 more computers during the year 2008.
Mobile phone operators are planning to launch their services in rural areas, which are far away from modern world but its surprising to see that the is almost no connectivity of any mobile phone operator in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Islamabad. The patients and their relatives have to face sever kind of troubles in emergencies.
The mobile network is not available inside the PIMS’s boundary. The mobile phone companies stated that they had suggested installing micro-towers inside PIMS’s boundary but the Administration opposed and no progress was made.
The Comsats Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) has introduced ‘Talent Farming Scholarship Scheme’ (TAFS) for academically bright students who have completed their Secondary School Certificate examination significantly from the cities where CIIT’s campuses are located.
The scholarship scheme acknowledges the scholastic talent of these young boys and girls through a scholarship award of Rs1, 000 per month for 24 months to enable them to complete their intermediate diplomas.
Until next week, this it the team, signing off!
Wateen brings ‘Ramchand Pakistani’ to the Silver Screen!
June 29, 2008
After raving reviews at the Tribeca Flim Festival, Wateen brings ‘Ramchand Pakistani’ to the big screen in a nationwide launch. The internationally acclaimed movie is based on a true story about a Pakistani Hindu father and son who were imprisoned in India after wandering across the border from their village in Pakistan. [Read more]
Week In Review: Week ending on Saturday, the 14th of June, 2008
June 14, 2008
Wow! What a great week for Karachi! The City Nazim Karachi, Mustafa Kamal, has announced the establishment of world’s biggest call center in Karachi. Presently, Sydney has world’s biggest call center that has 8,000 call seats but the Nazim said that the IT Park that will take two years to establish and will be designed to accommodate 10,000 call seats under one roof. The CDGK, in true Mustafa Kamal style, has also arranged trainings for call centers with foreign instructors and a cost of 60,000 rupees is being allocated [Read more]
Research and Markets: Bangladesh Mobile Forecast, 2008 - 2010 - Warid Telecom Continues to Set Pace for Subscriber Growth in the Bangladesh Mobile Sector
June 6, 2008
DUBLIN, Ireland–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c93695) has announced the addition of “2Q08 Bangladesh Mobile Forecast, 2008 - 2010: Warid Telecom continues to set pace for subscriber growth in the Bangladesh mobile sector” to their offering. [Read more]
75 Universities Compete in TechElite 2008
May 5, 2008
KalSoft, WaveTec, Trg Tech, Cybernet, Wateen, Imation, HP, Xpediant Technologies, Sapphire and Worldcall also exhibited their products and services in the exhibition area. The exhibition was very successful with hundreds of students actively participating in the different parts of the exhibition and competition.
KalSoft exhibited KalAcademy and PinnaKal. Wateen introduced latest tariffs whereas HP was there with notebooks and their latest lineup of desktops. A few companies invited students to Data Communication and Telecommunication Professional Trainings and
Faisal Qureshi, Chairman of PASHA, was the Chief Guest of the event. He gave a very inspirational speech that was warmly welcomed with a standing ovation. Telling the students about his life, he insisted on living in this country and reshaping it. He concluded his speech saying, “Future is ours and we are going to change it. Do not wait for someone else to come and make your life better. You have potential and one batch of your University is equal to an entire software house. Isn’t that brilliant?”
Later, the Chief Guest and Professor Abdul Azeem Siddiqui (Chairman CISD) awarded the winners with mementos and cash prizes. PAFC received the first prize in the Hardware category, NED placed first in the Network Security and Software categories while
Faisal Qayyum (SVP KalSoft), Raheem Lalani (VP Trg Tech), Shahzaib Akhtar (CTO, Wavetec) participated in the award ceremony and all the sponsors along with Syed Rashid Ahmed (SVP, Head of PS&QM, TPS) received the mementos from Abdul Azeem and Faisal Qureshi. The event was very successful and received very good response from the students as well as the industry.
A growing number of companies are encouraging students and creating awareness using such events and exhibitions, which is helpful for the students, allowing for growth to take place in the local industry, supported by the local industry.
Wateen sponsors exhibition in Dubai
April 11, 2008
The first curated exhibition at Art Dubai brings a new creative dimension to the fair, giving a voice to emerging artists from Pakistan.
‘Desperately Seeking Paradise’, which is sponsored by Wateen Telecom, features eleven artists from Pakistan whose work circumscribes the many pathways and many notions of paradise that possess us today. Amongst the participants are artists such as Rashid Rana, Naiza Khan, Farida Batool, Imran Qureshi and Mohammad Ali Talpur. Set against the backdrop of Dubai, the work reveals a sustained, self critical panorama, equally humorous, argumentative and innovative. [Read more]