The desk were especially designed after a full tour of Karachi furniture market failed to turn up    clean stable work surfaces that met our exacting standards.  Available on first come first served basis.

Till November 30th, take $60 off the cover price when you order your electronic copy. The package include a 71 page study guide and 3 supplementary Excel Spreadsheets that focus on Monte Carlo Simulation of Dynamic Delta Hedging, Calculation of Cash PnL & Dissection of Option Price Sensitivities (Greeks).

 Learn more about the title through the Delta Hedging & Greeks Book launch post.

In terms of traffic and sales generation, given the nature of our site (Computational Finance, Treasury Models Training Courses):

a) Linkedin has done wonders for us and remains our primary focus. It beat all other channels hands down when it comes to referred converions, conversion rates, pages per view and time spent on site. That is primary because of the professional nature of the network and our content.

b) Google+ the fan base has grown at the fastest clip but traffic referral is still very week from plus. While we have built a community, there is need for a real spark.

c) We have run two experiments on Facebook with the recent one just being launched to see if we can drive sustainable traffic from the page to our site. Will know more after the Eid Holidays. But after Linkedin, Facebook is our secondary focus primary because of our ability to select and target our audience. We are still working through the conversion challenge everyone faces with Facebook audiences.

d) StumbleUpon and Pinterest are both works in progress and will take time We have just gotten the hang to make them work for us.

But one thing is for sure, the feedback we receive from our social media channels is really shaping the direction of our content. Without that feedback loop we would be totally lost. Go ahead and give our pages a spin. Would love to hear your feedback on what we are doing right as well as wrong.

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Pinterest

Google+

Twitter

StumbleUpon

Haseeb Mehta learned a valuable lesson as a polo player in Lahore in a different life. Learning to ride a horse goes beyond just riding an animal. It’s about building a relationship, a partnership with another living being using language that is not taught in any school. The end result when the conversation works, as Haseeb puts it, is poetry in motion. Two living beings with a common bond cutting across forms of expression as we know them.

When he moved back to Karachi and started looking for a riding school for his children that followed the same philosophy he was disappointed. He then did what all Karachites are really good at doing, creative problem solving. He started Karachi Riding School for his own kids; problem solved.

Little did Haseeb know that a few years later, the school would be offering horse therapy (Hippo Therapy) sessions for special needs children or he would turn out to be a natural tutor for autistic and ADHD children.

For a child with special needs and/or sensory processing disorder, a horse is just such a magnificent creature to be with. You need balance, confidence, care, respect & touch – the magic combination that isolates you from the rest of the world and allows you to be who you really are as soon as you get on the saddle.

Of all Taha’s therapists, Haseeb ability to instantly build a rapport with him broke all prior records. Within a few minutes of ariving at the Karachi Riding School, Taha was listening, responding and conversing with Haseeb. There were day’s when rather than riding, Taha simply wanted to explore the grounds, brush the horses or simply saunter around by himself. No problems for Haseeb, who simply moulded the days’s program and the boundaries around Taha’ desire to go explore the beach on foot.

The riding school as Haseeb explained earlier is not just about riding. Its about discovering, exploring and bonding. There is an agenda and a learning format but its all beneath the surface. Once you are with Haseeb on a horse, you are in your own world and in command.

In a different life Haseeb is an easy going Atchisonian from Lahore who rarely frowns (don’t confuse the squint due to the early morning sun) and played polo for Pakistan. He still follows the Pakistan team on his blog (I didn’t know that there was a Polo World cup and we actually made it to the finals after beating both Australia and South Africa).

You can find him most mornings at the Karachi Riding School, at the beach opposite Bilawal House. If you have an interest in horses or riding, go see Haseeb at the Karachi Riding School.

No words are needed. Enjoy the pics.

Figure 1 Karachi Kites. Three is a crowd.

Figure 2 Oh Man, now I have crows to keep me company

Figure 3 I am a magnificent bird of prey and I know it. Look deep into my eyes..

Greetings from the land of the pure.

I am sure you have heard of our lovely country (official motto: we are in the news again) and the more than 8 million loyal Google customers who are slightly miffed at you. We are the ones who advertise online using Adwords and Admob, showoff our latest Android devices, create and promote channels with fresh desi (ethnic) videos on YouTube, uploads apps on Google play , attend your events in large numbers and search for educational, professional, (and quite often not so innocent) content online. We have dissed Vimeo and the Apple iPhone and had a torrid affair with Chrome on the side; we can’t stand Bing and Microsoft Office and when it comes to mail and docs, you haven’t seen usage and utilization till you see the insides of a Pakistani Gmail account or a Google doc folder. For a penny per capita we give your servers the best run for your money.

Over your last decade of association with this nation we have done a lot of interesting things together. You gave us Badar, who in turn showed us why you were such a sweeter and gentler partner than the living dead on the shores of Redmond. You also gave us the Android platform which freed us from the tyranny of Mr. Jobs and the ’84ish Orwellian iPad. Together we have built many companies and brands that would not exist if it wasn’t for your tools and the speed of your response. From Coke studios to the P@SHA Social Innovation Fund; from our presence at Google IO to yours at the P@SHA ICT Awards. For a change it was so refreshing to deal with a business with more money than God that wasn’t truly evil; represented by geeks and technologists like us who respected our country as a market and took us, our potential and our priorities, seriously.

In ten years you have  built so much goodwill in this country by simply being you. Whether it was sponsoring our events, funding our local competitions, using your influence to help us out with our own folks in Islamabad or opening your heart when it came to flood relief or technology innovation in Pakistan.

Unfortunately it appears that you  have no idea how quickly that goodwill is evaporating these days. Not because you don’t care! Possibly, because you have received bad advice from your senior team members. From everything we have heard and read they are all incredibly smart people but they all suffer from the same flaw. They don’t understand how our land of the pure is actually laid out. Other than our mutual friend Eric, who had a bite with us earlier this year, I am not sure if Pakistan has really been on anyone’s travel itinerary on the other side of the Pacific ocean.

Or maybe it is the numbers. I admit 8 million customers only generate US$ 2 million a year in tangible revenue, but they are still customers; customers of your products that rely on Google to give them a consistent quality experience, come what may.

I started working with your tools at Columbia Business School in the fall of 1999 when a fellow MBA student who had interned with you showed how relevant Google Search results were compared to AltaVista. Today I run a Youtube channel on an exotic financial topic (derivative pricing) with more than 50,000 views that I can’t access or upload new content to. I teach at a business school where students used YouTube to upload their power point pitches, that I can no longer grade. I judge a regional technology competition where we force participants to upload their pitches to YouTube so that we can judge them remotely and online that we can no longer access.

I also run a portfolio of sites that generate 50,000 pageviews a month that have became a pain to analyze through analytics. I used to look forward to my interaction with Google – webmaster every afternoon. But the same daily webmaster appointment has become a source of dread. And we haven’t even spoken about my adwords, adsense, Google books, Google publisher and Google wallet accounts. I agree not all of my fellow 8 million Pakistani Google customers share the same profile. Not everyone is a teacher, a technology event organizer or a judge or a mentor or a MBA from Columbia or even an active technology entrepreneur. Not 8 million; certainly. But there are 250,000 Pakistanis like me who do use and work with technology and Google products every day to earn a living.

Or shall I say used to work with Google products. Not because we hate you or are angry at you. No, because 250,000 active loyal customers can no longer access your products in Pakistan. Analytics, webmaster and Adwords accounts have slowed to a crawl. Gmail can no longer be accessed on our android devices. Docs, Apps and Play are dead in the water.

250,000 active loyal Google customers who feel that they have been ditched and dumped by Google.

This letter is not about religion or belief systems. It is not about hate filled YouTube videos. And it’s not about whether your team really understands or even cares to understand how things work here in the land of the pure. It’s about customers who now need to find alternatives to a set of great products because it is no longer viable for them to trust Google to take care of them and their needs.

I understand your point of view. Why should you care about this place that you have never visited or interacted with? This group of rowdy & abusive protestors who refuse to understand your value system and your right to free speech. I also understand the concept of free enterprise and your right to your will to do what you really want to do come what may; or what we want. I also understand your frustration with big government everywhere including ours. And I also understand your decision to not bend in to any instance of perceived or real arm twisting or coercion. I have lived and worked in the US and I have had night long debates with many friends across geographies on just the same issue. I get it.

There is one thing that I don’t get. Why am I suffering as a Google product user? I have no influence or access in Islamabad. I didn’t vote for this government. The party that I voted for are not in power and have even less of a say than I have in this town. I haven’t seen the video and I don’t plan to see it. I detest what is being done in the name of religion on both sides. I don’t condone violence or hate or politics for personal gains. I am just a single customer whose total revenue contribution to your business or your paycheck is an infinitely small speck. But despite the size of that infinitely small speck, I am still your customer.

You are big, certainly bigger than Government of Pakistan, and more influential. The Government of Pakistan is orders of magnitude larger, bigger, and heavier than  my measly little soul or my sorry excuse of a business. Can’t the two of you just kiss and make up and leave me alone to feeding my children and the families of my employees. And if for some odd reason you find our interior minister just as repugnant and incompetent as I do, don’t kiss him. Just find a different play ground to play the game the two of you have been playing with each other.

Just leave this little sandpit of a market for us kiddies to play in. There is no room for rowdy, misbehaving, elephants here.

I am not sure when or if, ever, you will get to see this. There are all sorts of lame “Open letters to Sergey and Larry…” floating around  the web (I know I did a Google search this morning). I am not sure even when you see it, if you will go ahead and read it. Not even sure if after a long series of improbable ifs, if you can or will do anything about it.

But given my little voice that is all I can do. Speak. Speak as a Google customer. Speak not just for myself but other technology professionals in Pakistan who are being made to pay for deciding to use your products. Speak for 8 million Google product customers across Pakistan who have been ditched by Google to make a point.

An important point, I admit; a worthy and completely defensible position from your perspective. But a disappointing stance from the point of view of a small customer who is still trying to work through TOR to meet his deadlines and his commitments to his customers – small and large. Disappointed because he can’t understand why while he stands by his commitment to his customers across the world, this infinitely large enterprise run by infinitely smart people with infinitely more resources will not stand by theirs.

Maybe because they have never run TOR on a PTCL connection in Pakistan.

Yours

Disappointed.

Winners get a shot at 3 months of incubation space and expenses in Lahore, a monthly stipend of PKR 20,000 per team member and a shot at spending 3 months in Silicon Valley.

Image 1 Plan 9 P@SHA PITB Judges at the Judges briefing at IBA

Here is a list of the some of the more interesting pitches and teams that presented at the tech startup incubation event. In general compared to when we first started doing P@SHA Launch Pad events the quality of cold pitches has certainly improved. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done with delivery, focus and customer value but it was refreshing to see young teams come together and engage Judges in the Q&A session.

Image 2 Samir from Hybrid Signal presents the first cold pitch

Samir Saleem & Hybrid Signals – Social media marketing and consulting focused on leveraging social media presence by analyzing engagement value across multiple social networks.

The IIEE – Hackistan virtual space – a community for DIY and EE students to exchange electronic tools, components, modules. The IIEE team also presented a simple locally manufactured USB docking station for EE devices that CS and EE students could use to cheaply test control software.

Furrukh Zafar the 911 game – Furrukh Zafar and his team have been working on a massively parallel multiplayer game focused on 911 emergency services.

Electricity Power Utilization Management tool from NED university tracks power consumption directly from the appliance being used.

The Pay2Out payment gateway solution for free lancers that allows them to process payments on PayPal, Google Checkout and credit cards that immediately ran into regulatory trouble with the judges.

Automatic Papers the entry that excited me the most because 16 year old Hunaid Hameed reminded me of our very own Zayd Enam. Automatic Papers allows students to take GCE O and GCE A level practice exams online, grades their performance and shares their score online.

The palliative and geriatric care cross function team that included a medical student, computer scientists and EE engineers was the first cross functional team at the competition.

Image 3 P@SHA PITB Judges in Action

It was great fun to co-judge the event with Ashraf, Jehan, Shahjahan, Yusuf Jan, Imtiaz and Naveed Qazi. Imtiaz even gave me a free billiard lesson while we were waiting for the judges briefing to start.

But there was one big downer at the event that PITB needs to fix for future formats. Judges, students and participants need to be given more opportunities to interact openly at tea and lunch breaks. Keeping them separate kills the purpose of such events. We live for the chance to talk to teams who would like to change the world. For participating teams, one word of advice. Feel free to come upto us and ask us questions and feedback, as some of you did. We don’t bite and we certainly have the time to help despite how busy or terrifying we appear to be. The only way to find out is to ask. Next time – ask.

Image 4 The Incubation competition participants

Today is the last working day before Eid in Pakistan. It’s a Saturday so you would generally expect things to be slow. They are not.

The week after Eid also marks the beginning of my season as a trainer. Which unfortunately means that come Tuesday, I will start living in airports and transit lounges till next Ramadan. And if that isn’t bad enough there are payments to be made, invoices to be raised, collection calls and an endless stream of paperwork that I need to sign before I head to the airport in 48 hours.

All of which will now have to wait. Because I am angry. Not at anyone else. Only at the person who is writing these lines.

To understand my schizophrenia, you have to take a ride back in time with me.

USAID Case Against Rafi Peer Theater and Sesame Street

About two month ago, sitting in an aisle seat, on the inside pages of a local news rag, I read an item documenting USAID’s case against Rafi Peer Theater.

The piece summarized that Rafi Peer Theater, the partner responsible for implementing a local Urdu version of Sesame Street in Pakistan had embezzled 20 million US$ of USAID grant money. In addition there were numerous “discovered and reported” instances of family involvement and nepotism reported against the group which was the reason for suspension of funding.

My first reaction was obviously what USAID intended. How could the Peerzada family swoop so low? I have grown up with Sesame Street and my kids have done the same. Why did they kill the only decent thing USAID had done in this country (other than their IBA involvement) in the last 65 years.

I parked Rafi Peer Theater and the entire Peerzada family in the compartment reserved for witches and death eaters who steal happiness from little children and moved on. USAID remained the innocent well wisher that had tried to change Pakistan for better but had failed because of the evil Sith Lords at Rafi Peer Theater.

It was yet another sad day for Pakistan, another mark against the Peerzada men.

Till I saw a rerun of Talat Hussain’s piece on Dawn TV this morning.

You have no idea how angry that made me. Not against USAID. I had always known that there was something amiss in the branch of the US government, but at myself.

How could I judge the Peerzadas without hearing their side of the story? How could I think that USAID would be on the right when the other party in the wrong was a small arts and theater workshop group that works with children? If there is one entity in the world with a established track record for stealing happiness from little children, it would have to be USAID. Not Rafi Peer Theater.

I had once again confused “the Man” with the victim.

The Talat Hussain video is unfortunately in Urdu. A large part of the audience in the world has heard the USAID version against Sesame Street as quoted by the New York Times, Newsweek and CNN. No one has bothered to write a retraction or cover the other side.

Or the true story, which is not a surprise when it comes to the power that USAID and the US State Department yields over the standard bearers of objective journalism mentioned above.

Since I misjudged the Peerzadas I owe them a summary of their case against USAID. What follows is a rough summary of the discussion in Talat Hussain segment run on Dawn News on 17th August 2012.

If you think stealing happiness from little children is a crime worth punishing, please pass this piece and the evidence along.

Someone in USAID needs to pay for what they have done. It will not happen till these facts make it to the right channels in North America. The AID comes from the American people, the American people should know the stunts USAID has been pulling in their name.

USAID against Rafi Peer Theater – Just the Facts please.

USAID claim number One (roughly speaking). The Rafi Peer Theater Network was just an incestuous group of incompetent family members who were favored over truly deserving. They stole money to buy cars, jeeps and equipment which was not needed nor justified.

Before granting the contract, USAID was aware of the close family network in place at Rafi Peer Theater. The family has run and controlled the Rafi Peer Theater workshop for the last 37 years. The original pre-award auditors employed by USAID had identified Rafi Peer Theater as a high risk organization. As a result USAID had implemented aggressive compliance, controls and measures with their own consultants in place. The external US consultants employed by USAID as part of the project were paid US$240,000 a year by USAID to ensure that a crisis or lapse of this nature should never occur.

Every disbursement and application of funds was preapproved and audited by USAID’s in house team that was on site at Rafi Peer Theater. Without the tacit, clear and prior approval of USAID on expenses and the objective of said expenses no disbursement or reimbursement would have ever occurred. All expenses and checks on the project were pre-approved 15 days before actual signing and disbursement by USAID.

A post disbursement audit conducted by USAID, before the contract was terminated, upgraded the Rafi Peer Theater to a middle risk partner from a high risk partner by the same auditor after taking into consideration the actual history of disbursement over the life of the project.

USAID claim number Two (roughly speaking). The Rafi Peer Theater Network embezzled twenty million US dollars from the fund.

Total disbursement before the contract was prematurely terminated by USAID was US$ 5.2 million. Another US$ 1 million and change is outstanding and is owed to the Rafi Peer Theater. The signed contract was for US$ 10 million. With an option to extend for another US$10 million.

USAID claim number Three. The contract was terminated because of rampant corruption, nepotism and compliance issues at the partner organization.

The USAID team actually brought Rafi Peer Theater team onsite to the US consulate and informed them that the program was being terminated because USAID had run out of available funding and would no longer be in a position to support the project. A month after informing Rafi Peer Theater of this decision USAID started the vilification campaign in local and US media.

As part of the original preparation exercise for this project, the Rafi Peer Theater workshop team spent a year in consultation with the USAID team in understanding and implementing process, controls and procedures specified by USAID as a pre-requirement for disbursement of funds. The revised processes, manuals, and SOPS were reviewed and approved by USAID. The original funding was release after 12 months of up-gradation o of controls and processes.

The Rafi Peer Theater team has been working with many international donors (and continues to work with them) on projects focused around children Theater for the last 9 years. They have gone through numerous donor and project audits in the past and the process of communicating shortfalls and issues is generally very transparent and open.

However in the case of USAID there has been no direct communication between the two organization on the finding of their audit report.

USAID took a unilateral decision to run a vilification campaign and has actively interfered to stop broadcasts of press conferences organized by Rafi Peer Theater to tell the actual story behind the USAID, Sesame Street scandal. (Hello Geo, Express News and Express Tribune).

Which brings you to the real reason behind this campaign. The real (plausible?) reason is the desire of USAID to walk out of the contractual obligation for the remaining amount and justify the termination of this project to their stakeholders. USAID still owes about a million dollars and change to a small children theater workshop group in Pakistan and simply doesn’t find it feasible to make that payment. It is cheaper to simply try this campaign in the media universe where no one can match the might of the AID agency.

Tarnish the image of one of the most loved symbols in children education as well as a theater group that has brought smiles to children faces around the world from Pakistan.

So much so for stealing happiness from little children. Brought to you by the American people.

The Apple iTunes store features two of our iBooks for iPad titles in the New and Noteworthy featured section in Finance. The Featured in Finance titles include Understanding ALM and Calculating Value at Risk.

A job well done by an outstanding team. Keep an eye out for our third iBook title on risk, scheduled for release this weekend – The ALM, Value at Risk Test Bank with Case Studies.

However the move is likely to be criticized by monetary economists who believe that the adjustments used to justify the rate cuts are all temporary in nature. We will have to wait for the next MP announcement two months down the road in October 2012 to see if the relief given by SBP turns out to be permanent.