IT NEWS

TPS, a provider of cards and payment solutions has developed a solution to assist and enable visually impaired individuals to make transactions at ATMs.
The special solution called, VIP CASH, has been developed by TPS to facilitate banking institutions in providing ATM service to the visually impaired.

To use the service, the VIP customer (visually impaired customer) needs to insert an audio jack into the ATM which will trigger the specialized flow. The ATM will voice over each and every activity of the user into the headphone.

To keep the system simple for the VIP customer, cash withdrawal and balance inquiry are the features being offered. This solution has been implemented in Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan and is running smoothly; more banks are expected to be added to this list soon.

This is an exceptional initiative as over 2 million people in Pakistan are visually impaired, half of which reside in urban areas. According to a survey, about 75% of people are not born visually impaired but become so as they grow old.

It is high time that banking institutions in Pakistan take an initiative to provide equal services to the visually impaired, as is the case in most parts of the world. In USA alone, there are more than 100,000 ATMs to facilitate the visually impaired people.

Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) has signed an agreement with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – the leading wildlife conservation organization – for implementation of ‘Green Office Program’ at PTCL’s corporate head office.

The program is aimed towards reducing resource consumption, subsequent costs, and carbon footprint of the company that would eventually help in environmental conservation.

The agreement will enable PTCL to monitor and reduce its carbon footprint in collaboration with WWF and work towards developing green organizational practices. Once the criterion is fulfilled, PTCL will be certified as a “Green Office”.  

Speaking at the occasion, Syed Mazhar Hussain, CHRO PTCL, said, “Environment and energy crisis are the key issues our country is facing at the moment, and it is the responsibility of every individual and organization to take necessary measures in their respective domains for conserving the environment.”

He further emphasized that PTCL, being the largest telecom operator of the country, has always encouraged and supported such initiatives. PTCL is actively pursuing a ‘Green Office’ strategy and this agreement is geared towards reducing the company’s energy consumption and engages employees to play their role in climate change mitigation and urban sustainability issues which will help in environment preservation. 

Shahzad Safdar Khan, Executive Vice President, HR Services PTCL; Shahab Akbar Durrani, General Manager, Admin and Maintenance, PTCL; and other senior executives from WWF & PTCL were also present at the occasion.

Reduction in carbon footprint is the key to sustainable future, specially at a time when Pakistan is facing severe energy crisis. It is the shared responsibility of all organizations to join hands for better utilization of country’s energy resources and minimize the impact on the environment.

Users of Google Glass will get to meet and compare their techie headgear this weekend at a spot where appearance is everything.

On Saturday in Los Angeles, the Internet company is holding a 3.6-mile run from its offices in Venice to the Santa Monica Pier and back. They'd better hope it's a cloudy day: Instead of sunglasses, runners will be sporting Google's face-mounted computer, Glass. (Though Google, conveniently, is now selling clip-ons.)
Anyone who owns one of the US$1,500 devices can participate. They'll even get to try out fitness software on Glass made by Strava, which makes a GPS tracker and performance analytics software for athletes. That way they can see how fast they ran while trying to be discreet taking celebrity photos.

Google must really want people to get on board with Glass. The device, though still in beta, first shipped to developers early last year and has generated tons of publicity, but the company's still pushing to get the product out in front of people.

Space at the event will be limited, Google said in a post on its Google+ page for Glass. "Join your fellow Glass Explorers for a 3.6-mile jog to the Santa Monica Pier and back while we take the latest Glassware, Strava, for a spin," says an invitation posted Friday on Eventbrite. The run starts at 9:30 a.m.

Who knows how many Glass wearers actually live in L.A. and would want to be seen running around in the conspicuous headgear. The gathering might make them targets for ridicule or worse: Some Glass wearers have literally run into trouble while wearing the unit out in public, partly from people worried about the product's video recording features.

Even in the tech hub of San Francisco, a wearer apparently was attacked this month for wearing Glass while walking through the city's Mission District. Gentrification in that area has caused some of its longtime residents to lash out against tech folks in general.

Google is not giving up, though. This week the company held a one-day online sale of the device to the general public, which ended in a sell-out, according to Google.

Events like the run this weekend should help the company get Glass in front of less tech-savvy people. On a warm holiday weekend at the beach, it may even look a little bit cool.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on the request of Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has asked the media representatives not to sensationalize and mis-report 3G/4G auction.

The three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Jawwad S.Khawaja resumed hearing of the case.

At the outset of the hearing, Chairman PTA Dr. Ismail Shah pointed out that there had been some mis‑reporting in the press and there were indeed contradictory reports which were vastly opposite to each other, and some were misleading.

He expressed the apprehension that any mis‑reporting may have an adverse impact on the auction, which is due to be held on April 23. Dr Ismail Shah said, “It appears that the four bidders who are qualified and will be participating in the auction are market players familiar with the Pakistani Telecommunication environment.”

He further added that the four bidders, on account of their specialization and sophistication in the industry, may not be influenced by such press reports.

The court observed that media persons should avoid such misleading reports and this of course does not in any manner affect the reporting of these proceedings or the scheduled auction accurately in the media.
Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja remarked that it is not in dispute that the Radio Frequency Spectrum defined in section 2 of the Pakistan Telecommunication Act, 1996 is an asset which ultimately belongs to the people of Pakistan, but is for that purpose legally owned and vested in the Federation.

The Attorney General for Pakistan told the court that the proceeds of the auction are proceeds which belong to the Federation because the same are amounts paid by bidders for the sale of the Radio Frequency Spectrum.
Later, the court adjourned the case till 3rd week of May.

irman PTA explained that why 3G — and particularly the 4G — spectrum auction was necessary for the economic and national growth of the country. In fact, he said, the economy was being impacted negatively with all the delays and abortive efforts to auction next-gen services in the country.

Mr. Tariq Sultan, Member Finance and DGs of PTA also accompanied Dr. Ismail during the briefing.
Dr. Ismail said that over 500 operators in 203 countries are offering 3G services, while over 101 countries have 4G services.

He said that auction process was initiated when the Government of Pakistan issued a policy directive on Spectrum Auction for Next Generation Mobile Services.

PTA started the process for hiring reputed international consultants to design and manage the auction process. After meeting all the procedural requirements and PPRA Rules, ‘Value Partners Management Consulting Limited’ was selected on 23rd November 2013 from among five shortlisted applicants. The contract with the consultants was signed on 19th December 2013.

Dr. Shah explained that PTA has ensured that entire process from hiring the consultants to auction design and implementation is transparent, efficient and according to the very best international practices. To this end, PTA has held detailed consultations with all stakeholders during the entire process to ensure that everyone is on-board for this important event.

Chairman said that each and every aspect of the auction is being documented and will be available for general public after the auction.

Spectrum Auction Process

PTA published the final Information Memorandum, developed together with Value Partners, on 17th March 2014. A total of 50 MHz was offered as part of the auction, where 30 MHz was offered in the 2100 band and 20 MHz was offered in the 1800 band.
The auction is designed in two stages

1. The Sealed Bid Stage for demand exploration
2. The final auction on April 23^rd, provided demand received is greater than supply.

Based on the received sealed bid on 14^th April 2014, it is now clear that received demand is greater than supply, said Chairman PTA. Therefore, the final auction will be conducted on 23rd April 2014 as planned.
For the auction, PTA has chosen the Simultaneous Multiple Round Ascending (SMRA) Auction mechanism. SMRA is the most preferred auctioning mechanism and is widely used in modern day auctions worldwide. It is also preferred over the traditional open cry out auctioning model as SMRA allows both auctioneer and bidder flexibility to simultaneously bid on lots of their choice, privacy and time to make educated decisions during the auction.

Some of the recent auctions conducted in United States, Sweden, Norway, Hong Kong and Canada were all SMRA based auctions.

Spectrum Lots

Dr. Ismail said that spectrum lots are designed with aim to increase competition. He said that final information about lots’ configuration – for both 3G and 4G spectrum – is kept confidential for now.
It maybe recalled that as per earlier information lots’ configuration was as following:

• Lot A:
  • One 3G spectrum of 10 MHz from 2100Mhz
  • One 4G spectrum of 10 MHz from 1800Mhz
• Lot B:
  • One 3G spectrum of 10 MHz from 2100Mhz
  • One 4G spectrum of 10 MHz from 1800Mhz
• Lot C:
  • One 3G spectrum of 5MHz from 2100Mhz Band
• Lot D:
  • One 3G spectrum of 5MHz from 2100Mhz Band

Earlier on, it was communicated that 3G and 4G spectrum in Lot A and Lot B were tied. Meaning that, operators had to buy 4G if they were to buy 3G spectrum from Lot A or Lot B. However, this may change during the final auction.
Exact lot configurations are being designed with maximization of over all benefit in mind, the Chairman said.

Base Prices

• Base price for 10Mhz block from 2100Mhz is US 295 million
• Base price for 10Mhz block from 1800Mhz is US 210 million

PTA said that these prices were calculated after extensive market assessment and spectrum valuation by the PTA consultant, Value Partners.
A successful bidder must pay either 100% upfront or 50% of the winning bid amount within 30 days and remaining 50% with markup @ Libor + 3% will be paid in equal annual installments over a period of 5 years.
Licenses to successful bidders will be issued for a period of 15 years.

SMRA Auction Features

• All lots are auctioned simultaneously over a series of rounds.
• In each round, bids will be submitted on individual lots at the announced prices.
• At the end of each round, a standing high bidder is identified for each lot.
• The standing high bidder is committed to the lot and cannot withdraw.
• The standing high bidder is released from its commitment when outbid by another bidder.
• When a lot receives at least one bid, the price for the lot increases in the next round. The bid increments will be upto a maximum of 3% of the last bid price, which will be decided by PTA after each round in consultation with the Consultant.

Expectations

Spectrum auction to make mobile broadband services available to consumers is a landmark event in the history of Pakistan’s telecom sector.

Pakistan’s telecom industry is several years behind the rest of the world where 3G networks have already matured and operators are in the process of launching 4G networks since 2010. Offering spectrum in different bands allows the Government to maximize revenue (The combined base price value of 50MHz spectrum brings greater than $1 Billion investment into the Pakistani economy)
Offering both the 2100 and 1800 bands allows telecom operators flexibility to deploy both 3G and 4G networks and offer the most advanced mobile services to their customers. For the consumer, availability of high speed mobile broadband services in both urban and rural areas will encourage a more connected community and promote e-commerce related activities.

It is hoped that next generation mobile services will be an enabler towards GDP growth, introduce more innovative e-services such as E-medicine and E-education to facilitate population in rural and remote areas of Pakistan as well. The deployment of 4G technologies will also provide our Engineers and technicians to acquire the latest skills and thus become competitive in the international market.
The successful auction of this spectrum is expected to create 900,000 + jobs in the Telecom sector and will have multiple benefits for the economy of Pakistan.

Chairman PTA appreciated media’s role during the whole process, except once instance. He invited the media personals on April 23rd, 2014 to witness the 3G and 4G spectrum auction.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has reaffirmed its vision that people are the biggest asset of the company. This was stated at the seminar about PTCL ‘Human Capital Benchmarking Survey 2014’ organized by the company in collaboration with HR Metrics.

Senior HR professionals of Telenor Pakistan, Mobilink, Ufone, Warid Telecom, Zong, Nayatel, Wi-tribe and Techaccess Pakistan participated in the event and were briefed about the vision behind PTCL’s ‘Human Capital Benchmarking Survey 2014’.

In his opening speech, Syed Mazhar Hussain, CHRO PTCL, gave a warm welcome to the participants and highlighted the purpose and benefits of Human Capital Benchmarking survey.

Zahid Mubarik, Chief Consultant HR Metrics, briefed the participants about the scope of Human Capital Benchmarking Survey. The HR forum aimed at establishing the importance of tools that can assist companies in measuring efficiency, effectiveness and outcome of HR practices. The program highlighted action planning and benchmarking to improve workforce productivity and demonstrate contribution to bottom line in financial terms.

Head of Human Resources of various companies, with their rich and dynamic experience, shared their views and opinions about the current HR Practices at the occasion. They asserted that the primary source of production in economy has shifted from physical to intellectual capital; new economic realities are putting pressure on HR to act as strategic business partner and demonstrate exactly how it creates value for the organizations and society as whole.

Worldwide, the business leaders demand rigorous, logical, and principles-based frameworks for determining the connections between human capital investments and organizational success.

Numbers and ratios are the universal language of business and a key responsibility of HR is to articulate the logical connections between progressive HR practices and important organizational outcomes, and demonstrate those connections with data and ratios.

The CHROs congratulated PTCL for taking the initiative to arrange such an event, as it brings all the HR professionals at one platform to work on standardizing HR practices.

Ufone has initiated a campus drive to select and train youth from different top notch institutions, for yet another edition of its ‘Summer Internship Program 2014’; after successfully conducting it in the previous years.

The Campus drive, which began on the 12th of April and will conclude on the 24th of April, will recruit students from institutions throughout the country such as GIK, NUST, NUCES, FAST, Bahria University, UET, NED University and LUMS.

The selection process will be rigorous besides being highly competitive, and project based internships will be offered to students after initial assessments and interviews.

Expressing her views about the initiative, Syeda Kiran Altaf, Head of Recruitment at Ufone said, “SIP 2014 will be more competitive than last year; we try to give these kids as real an experience as can be, but ultimately, it’s the interns that make it a great initiative.”

Students performing well during the internships will be given certificates, shields and giveaways besides other prizes, whereas, exceptional internees will be offered a job at the organization.

Through this drive, young and talented individuals will be nurtured to face the challenges of the corporate world; moreover, the drive is a recognition of the immense pool of talented youth the country has to offer.