Asia Pacific Farmers’ Programme (APFP)
March 3, 2021
As you know that my tenure as president of OPEN Islamabad is ending today. The role was challenging but I enjoyed it thoroughly and tried my best to do justice with my role.
I always keep the vision and mission of the organization written in front of me so that I can keep myself aligned to them. I am sharing OPEN Islamabad's vision and mission with you here. Our vision is "To foster the entrepreneurial culture in Pakistan" and mission "By providing a platform for Pakistani ENTREPRENEURS and PROFESSIONALS to connect, network, collaborate, mentor and support each other."
My high level goals were to set up effective collaborations & partnerships, hold high-quality events, improve online presence, to do effective marketing, and strengthen the organization. The sole purpose of doing this all was to create value for our esteemed members and community. You can check individual details in each area below.
Overall Progress
Collaborations & Partnerships
High-quality Events
Improved Online Presence
Effective Marketing
Strengthening Organization
- Creating synergies between OPEN Islamabad and other chapters globally.
- Creating synergies with other local organizations working on the same mission. P@SHA, AgilePK, JumpStart, TiE, Chambers & Non Tech Organization
- Partnering with incubation & acceleration centers to offer them mentorship/coaching/talks.
- Focus on Policy Making/Govt. Proposals & formulate Think Tanks
- Introducing OPEN Youth Chapters and/or Partner with existing entrepreneurial chapters in selected universities.
- Schedule the Quarterly Networking Events in Advance.
- Expand the SIGs by partnering with different organizations.
- Pre-Schedule all the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for at least one year.
- Start Preparation of Annual Event well ahead of time.
- Arrange focused unstructured meetups for different interest groups.
- Emerging Technologies (AI, IoT, BlockChain, Machine Learning etc)
- Agile, Quality Assurance, Design & Other Tech.
- Agri, Finance, Food, Real Estate & Other Non Tech.
- Make organization's online presence better, create value for members.
- A seamless & smooth membership sign up mechanism.
- Provide Multiple Payment options (Banks, Credit Cards, EasyPaisa).
- Provide guides to the startups (Company registration, taxation etc)
- People should be able to comment/ask questions on these forums.
- Creating a member directory to make easier access to other members profiles.
- A mini Crunch Base with Tags/Expertise/Location etc.
- Show all statistics of memberships & events both local and global.
- Effective use of social media platforms.
- Use of Optin tools for more sign ups.
- Engage global audience.
- Sending regular newsletters.
- A planned and targeted membership drive.
- Next year membership if signed up/renewed this year.
- All memberships to be renewed/deactivated automatically.
- Membership fee on pro-rata basis for subsequent years.
- Membership drive to induct new members.
- Take charter members to 40 (Preferably Non Tech)
- Increase Paid memberships to 1000.
- Increase Subscribers to 10,000+.
- Take sponsors onboard.
- Devise a mechanism to make membership dues collection on time.
- Annual/Bi Annual retreat for Charter Members & Executive Team.
- A Senior Vice President to support the president (Thanks to Asim Ghaffar).
- Teams Lead by VPs in following areas
- Marketing (Thanks to Isfahan Ul Haq)
- Technology (Thanks to Sadaf Rasheed)
- Events & Programs (Thanks to Qarib Kazmi)
- An Advisory Board formed (Thanks to Ather Imran, Owais Anjum & Mansoor Khan)
- General Secretary and/or Coordinator (Thanks to Asad Tariq)
- Form focused volunteer groups for better execution of plans
General Updates
- Regular Members are now called Associate Members
- New membership type “Enterprise Membership” is being introduced. Rs 5K per seat. Got 3 new EMs on board
- OPEN has become a filer and audit of past all years is done
- We got two new Board Members onboard
- We got approval of 7 new CM’s from the board
- 3 New SIGs will be launched
Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
Two SIGs were introduced last year which includes Emerging Technologies (by eMumba) and Agile Methodologies (by Agile Development Society) Three SIGs finalized this year (wasn’t able to launch due to Covid situation) Digital Media (by lolz Studio), Ecommerce (by PriceOye), Food Business (by Chaaye Khana)
International Collaborations
- Attended OPEN Washington DC Annual Event in Nov-18
- Attended Inauguration Ceremony the OPEN Seattle kickoff event in Apr-19
- Attended OPEN Silicon Valley Annual Event in Apr-19
- Attended OPEN Chicago CM’s meeting in Apr-19
- Attended OPEN Houston CM’s meeting in Apr-19
- Attended OPEN Global CM Retreat in Florida Jul-19
- Brought OPEN Global board on Whatsapp Group for effective & better communication
- Developing a online platform for all OPEN Chapters (pro bono)
Technology Upgrades
Online Platform - Members
- Complete revamped website is live
- Membership handling is completely online now [Member Joining, Membership Expiry, Profile (Replaced the membership cards)]
- Membership profiles for all members
- Charter Members
- Corporate Members
- Student Members
- All professional details can viewed on profile page
- Members can have tags for easy searching
- Online payment integration is in progress
Online Platform - Events
- All past & future events history is available including
- Event Details
- Partners
- Speakers
- Sponsors
- QR based RSVP and checkin system is live.
- You can view who else is attending the event.
- You can save event to your calendar.
- You can get directions to the venue.
System Improvements
- Reference Register in place (Never lose a document)
- Google Photos in place (Never lost photos of events)
- Trello is being used for the project management
- Emails aliases have been setup to manage communication
Events Overview
From May 2018 to April 2020, OPEN Islamabad has organized 39 events in total - summary of these events is as follows:
- 2 Annual Forums, 800+ Attendees
- 5 Networking Events, 430 Attendees
- 2 Jazz CFP SDG Hackathon, 650 Attendees
- 2 CM's Dinners, 42 Attendees
- 1 Tech Summit, FAST Peshawar 90 Attendees
- 1 Talk Session "Project Netflix" by Amer Ather, 80 Attendees
- Leadership : 7 Events, 160 Attendees
- Agile : 4 Events, 135 Attendees
- Emerging Technologies : 6 Events, 145 Attendees
- Design Thinking: 4 Events, 75 Attendees
- PostgreSQL : 6 Events, 40 Attendees
Years
Events
Attendees
Special Interest Group Events
Leadership SIG
- Partner: Mr. Mohsin Lodhi
- No. of Events: 7
- No. of Attendees: 160
- Breakdown:
- 26 Feb 2020 - Building Trust And Integrity
- 28 Nov 2019 - Action Centered Leadership
- 24 Oct 2019 - Team Building Strategies
- 18 Sep 2019 - Managing The Boss
- 30 Aug 2019 - Communicating At Three Levels
- 28 Jun 2019 - Managing Oneself
- 25 Apr 2019 - Setting Goals
Agile Methodologies
- Partner: Pakistan Agile Development Society - Islamabad Chapter
- No. of Events: 4
- No. of Attendees: 135
- Breakdown:
- 12 Feb 2020 - Running The Sprint
- 12 Sep 2019 - Scope Slicing For Optimal Project Delivery
- 24 Jul 2019 - Effective Requirement Collection In Agile
- 18 Apr 2019 - Accelerate Project Delivery With 100% Productivity
Design Thinking
- Partner: IDEATE Innovation
- No. of Events: 3
- No. of Attendees: 75
- Breakdown:
- Panel Discussion - 19 Feb 2020 - Designing Gender-inclusive Financial Services
- Talk - 10 Oct 2019 - Effective Visual Design
- Panel Discussion - 17 Jul 2019 - Designing For The Next Billion Users
Emerging Technologies
- Partner: Emumba
- No. of Events: 6
- No. of Attendees: 145
- Breakdown:
- 04 Mar 2020 - Accelerating Cloud Networking In OpenStack With Intel
- 14 Nov 2019 - Open Infrastructure And Cloud-native Technologies
- 21 Jun 2019 - Cracking The Big Data Pipeline
- 03 May 2019 - The State Of The Art In JavaScript
- 08 Jan 2019 - Internet Of Things (IoT): The State Of The Industry
- 07 Jan 2019 - DevOps: How It Is Disrupting The Software Industry
PostgreSQL
- Partner: 2ndQuadrant
- No. of Events: 6
- No. of Attendees: 40
- 04 Oct 2019 - IoT With PostgreSQL
- 13 Jun 2019 - Avoiding Hefty Loss By Quickly Recovering From Disaster
- 14 Mar 2019 - Disaster Recovery In PostgreSQL
- 17 Jan 2019 - Join Heterogeneous Database Using PostgreSQL Foreign Data Wrappers
- Talk - 26 Sep 2018 - PostgreSQL Performance Tuning
- Talk - 11 May 2018 - Multi-master Replication
Project Netflix
- Having an honorable member of OPEN Silicon Valley, Amer Ather, Senior Cloud Performance Architect at Netflix Performance Engineering Team, in Islamabad, we decided to benefit our audience with a bonus event.
- No. of Attendees: 70
- 18 Nov 2019 - Project Netflix
Hackathons
Partnering with Jazz and Code for Pakistan, valuing the significance of what diverse teams of mindful individuals, who are concerned about the problems that they encounter, witness or at least acknowledge the existence of at national level, we co-organized 2 hackathon events, in the years 2018 and 2019. These hackathons revolve around SDG (Sustainable Development Goals), and are almost a 2-day activity, starting from a Friday, where participant teams are given around 48 hours to come up with problem statements and design a possible, feasible and doable solution. In the end, these solutions are pitched to a panel of expert judges, who evaluate and choose the best three solutions which are rewarded with respective cash prizes. Meanwhile, the participants are guided by various mentors and industry guests who help them shape their ideas into workable products and services.
Venue: National Incubation Centre, Islamabad
Dates: 07-09 Dec 2018
No. of Attendees: 320
Venue: National Incubation Centre, Islamabad
Dates: 06-08 Dec 2019
No. of Attendees: 330
Charter Members' Retreat
Twice in the period of 2 years (2018-2019), more accurately just 2019, all the Charter Members of OPEN Islamabad were invited over a dinner table, like a family, to just sit and chat. These dinners, somewhat like the networking events, did not have any agenda specifically, but unlike the networking events, had a very focused attendance, with a very precise common meaning, the aim and motive of OPEN Islamabad’s growth and success. Consequently, the discussions at these dinners roamed around the questions “where are we?” and “where do we want to be?”. Having discourse around these questions at an informal setting like a dinner table provides the right amount of structurelessness for creativity and ideas to seep in.
Date: 26 Jun 2019
Venue: Cafe 1969, Islamabad
Date: 05 Nov 2019
Venue: Asian Wok, Beverly Center, F-6/1, Islamabad
Tech Summit Peshawar
Peshawar has rather been unfortunate in terms of opportunities in the IT sector, which is why we never wanted to let the students of Peshawar deprived of the exposure that they not only deserve but can actually play a role in terms of their growth and success. With Fahad Aziz, Technology leader from Silicon Valley US and others from Pakistan on board with us, OPEN Islamabad, hand in hand with the FAST-NU Peshawar Campus, conducted the 1st Technology Summit Peshawar. The summit emphasized on the importance of a need to build solutions that can not only solve local but global problems. Experts talked about their journey of technological innovation and guided attendees on how they can become a catalyst for change.
Date: 06 Oct 2019
Venue: FAST-NU, Peshawar
No. of Attendees: 70+
.
Networking Events
With the idea that your network is in fact your net worth, Networking Events is a flagship series of events to gather the professionals from the twin cities at one place, over a hi-tea, with one and only one agenda, to network! People just walk in and interact with each other, discussing ideas and talking about their individual careers, businesses and work-related progresses and forming new bonds and reviving the old ones. The concept of a community, as OPEN Islamabad sees it, is being there for each other, and enabling people to benefit from the knowledge and expertise of others just because of the mutual association with OPEN Islamabad is an effort to empower this community. The summary of the networking events held in the last 2 years is as follows.
No. of Events: 5
Venue: Cafe 1969, Islamabad
No. of Attendees: 430
Breakdown:
16th Networking Event - Oct 18th, 2019
15th Networking Event - July 19th, 2019
14th Networking Event - March 29th, 2019
13th Networking Event - Oct 26th, 2018
12th Networking Event - July 18th, 2018
.
Annual Forums
Annal Forums are the big deal. Every year, the team of OPEN Islamabad brainstorms ideas to come up with a theme that resonates the most current issue that concerns the entrepreneurs, businesses and professionals at that time, and then executes a conference - consisting of keynote addresses, panel discussions and speeches to provoke thoughts and actions that are needed for the emergence of entrepreneurship within the society.
This event brought together professionals from both the Public and Private sectors who helped establish a networking platform and look into collaborative efforts to be the existing governance systems. Business leaders and government officials shared their insight about Bridging the gap between Public & Private sector initiatives, Enhancing Private sector involvement in Public services, and Creating opportunities for sustainable growth. The event comprised a series of motivational talks, panel discussions as well as an excellent opportunity to network.
Theme: Entrepreneurs & GovernmentDate: 01 Dec 2018
Venue: Cafe 1969, Islamabad
No. of Attendees: 300+
Pakistan 2020 & Beyond specifically highlighted the significance of the upcoming global trends and their effect on entrepreneurial ventures in Pakistan. The aim was to gather the brightest minds in Islamabad and start a journey towards global successes and achievements. Professionals from various sectors attended the event i.e. Technology, Tourism, e-Commerce, Digital Media, Real Estate & Food Business and initiated a discussion of where Pakistan stands at the beginning of this new decade and what opportunities and challenges the future holds for us.
Theme: Pakistan 2020 & BeyondDate: 28 Dec 2019
Venue: Pakistan National Council of Arts, F-5, Islamabad
No. of Attendees: 550+
Thank You All!
I would like to thank all the Board Members, Charter Members, VPs, Volunteers, Speakers, Sponsors, Partners and Community members for their continued support throughout the tenure. There is obviously more to come, as the time goes on and we keep growing as a community and as an enabler for entrepreneurs and professionals to develop themselves and scale their successes to greater horizons. We hope that we all survive these hard times, given the COVID-19 situation, and rise back with greater opportunities at hand and greater potential to benefit from them.
If you have any feedback, comments or suggestions, feel free to reach me out at farrukh[@]discretelogix[dot]com Cheers!
Farrukh Malik
President, OPEN Islamabad
2018-2020
