February 16, 2007	Friday	Muharram 27, 1428

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

BARCELONA, Feb 15: More than 45,000 people from all over the world attended the 3GSM World Congress 2007, the largest gathering of mobile phone companies, which opened here on Monday.

Pakistan, however, was only represented by two entrepreneurs. Adnan Agboatwalla and Sajid A. Sohail, who took part in the mega event, do not actually live in Pakistan. They have been living in the US, but they do originally belong to Pakistan.

Sajid Sohail was here as an exhibitor, representing DivX Inc of San Diego, of which he is a director. Adnan Agboatwalla represented PixSense, which he co-founded some three years ago. Faraz Hoodbhoy, son of physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy, is this company's CEO.

"Pakistan neither lacks talent nor creativity," remarked Mr Agboatwalla while discussing Pakistanis' absence from important technological events. "The only problem is that we lack vision and foresight."

He was of the view that talented Pakistanis didn't get proper support and guidance from the authorities.

"You see, one of the biggest stumbling blocks in starting a company is funding. Many young Pakistanis may have tremendous ideas which may be implemented. But the ideas simply don't materialise because in Pakistan we don't have the means to fund such projects."

According to him, potential Pakistani entrepreneurs face two major problems -- access to funds and access to markets. "If we deal with these two problems effectively, we will start making progress in all technological areas."

The Silicon Valley-based electrical engineer told Dawn that his company had developed three products for which it had applied for patents in the US. "We have not been awarded patents yet, but we do hope to get them in about 18 months."The products developed by PixSense involved image sharing and image compression.

Mr Agboatwalla said generally Pakistani companies didn't make products which could be sold off the shelf. They work much like daily-wagers.

"They move from one project to another. If they do get a job on the international market they work on it for one or two years. But then they often have to wait for a considerable length of time before they land another one."

To be able to develop products and software fit to be sold off the shelf, a strong marketing campaign is often required. "This is so because such products are sold on the strength of brand names. You need a sizable R&D budget as well. Everything comes down to funding."

Mr Agboatwalla strongly advocated the launch of venture capital companies in the country so that this problem could be dealt with effectively.