Events

The SDG Hackathon, a premier tech initiative by Jazz, in collaboration with Code for Pakistan and OPEN Islamabad, will bring together a mix of technologists, designers, urban planners, social scientists, NGOs and CSOs, and government, to approach and solve social and civic problems in a new way, using technology, data and digital tools.

If you,
– have a great idea that can create positive impact in your community and address pressing social challenges,
– have skills in web or mobile development, design, mapping, data analysis, research, subject matter expertise in SDGs or the civic space,
then REGISTER NOW TO ATTEND, for free, by filling in this form http://bit.ly/isbhacks2019 (Due to logistical constraints, we have limited slots available. We will contact shortlisted applicants via email, so make sure you register by filling in the form.) Registration deadline extended to Monday, 2 December.

During the hackathon, you will work in teams to create solutions, learn design thinking, open-source hacking for social good, receive mentoring and input from domain experts in government and local organizations, and have opportunities to network.

Over the course of two-and-a-half days, you will develop prototypes that tackle and address social and civic challenges in your communities related to the following five SDGs:
#3 Good Health and Well-Being
#4 Quality Education
#5 Gender Equality
#9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
#11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

Attendance is free. All you need to do is bring your creativity, skills, and enthusiasm! We at, Code for Pakistan, will do the rest.

Leadership SIG series is back with its twelveth episode, “Action Centered Leadership”. In the last session, we focused on building teams to effectively achieve objectives irrespective of the job or role assigned to them.  This time, we are going to discuss how planning without action is merely a wish. Leadership is not through position but through action. What, when and where to take an action requires knowledge and skills. We will discuss action-centered leadership in building a team.

The OpenStack Foundation (OSF) was founded in 2012 to help people build and operate open cloud infrastructure. With 105,000 members in 187 countries from 675 organizations, OSF is one of the largest global open source foundations in the world.

Openstack Pakistan represents the local chapter of this global foundation, energized by volunteers who are dedicated to promoting cutting edge technologies like Cloud & Edge computing, CI/CD, Containers, NFV and IoT in Pakistan.

This event is a bootstrap event meant to demonstrate the vision of the group, the introduction to the foundation and its working objectives, as well as use-case driven discussion of how 5G/NFV serves as a very real, if latent, way in which this expertise is being consumed at the enterprise level in Pakistan.

The event will bring together industry and Technology experts to highlight the potential of using Open Source and some of these latest technologies while providing networking opportunities to be part of this new exciting ecosystem being developed in Pakistan.

• Leadership SIG series is back with its eleventh episode, “Team Building Strategies”. In the last session, we focused on the significance of managing one’s relationship with their boss. This time, we are going to discuss effective team-building strategies and the significance of effective teams.

Building team requires strategies to effectively achieve objectives irrespective of the job or role assigned to them. What three constituents are required to build an effective team, we will discuss in this session.

Open Islamabad is giving you this great opportunity to connect with leaders of various industries while enjoying some fine food and ambiance. More specifically, you can expect to meet:

– Charter members of OPEN

– Top Executives from large enterprises

– C-level Executives of IT companies

– Deans, Professors and Researchers from universities

– Representatives of other cultural and civic organizations of Islamabad

– Business owners from a variety of industry verticals like manufacturing, healthcare, etc.

Participation charges:
Members: PKR 600
Non-members: PKR 1200

The talk will range from discussing the anatomy of the eye and its association with perception and how we associate colors, their meaning, how to pick colors, creating harmonized and relevant palettes, basics of typography and choosing typefaces, using spacing systems and the basic process of graphic/brand and logo design.

Register yourself here ——->  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tech-summit-peshawar-2019-tickets-70705988515

Technology leaders from Silicon Valley US and Pakistan will conduct this first-ever Technology Summit in Peshawar. The newer technologies have changed the way we live, work and communicate. However, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is still a huge need to build solutions that can not only solve local but global problems. In this summit, experts will take you on a journey of technology innovation and guide you on how you can become a catalyst of change.

Confirmed Speakers:
Fahad Aziz, Contributor Forbes
Kamran Bangash, IT Minister KPK
Waleed Khawaja, CEO ProductBox
Farrukh Malik, President OPEN Islamabad
Maryam Arshad Mahmood, Founder at Impact Dynamics, Lead-Google Business Group Peshawar
Adnan Faisal, Founder of Pakistan’s first tech accelerator in the US
Muneeb Waseem, VP Engineering Caremerge

Agenda:

— Welcome
– Introduction to OPEN and Volunteerism
– Future Technologies
– Startups 101
— Tea/Snacks Break
– Growth Hacking
– Building the first App
– Entrepreneurship Opportunities in KPK
— Closing Remarks

Who should attend?
Students, Startups, Freelancers and Working Professionals

Fees:
The event is free. Register on this website and we will send you a confirmation. We have limited seating, first-come, first-serve.

Partner:
The event is organized in association with OPEN Islamabad.

Sponsor:
We thank our sponsor ProductBox. http://www.productbox.dev

Host:
The event is hosted by FAST Incubation Center (FASTIC) – Peshawar Campus.

About OPEN Islamabad:
OPEN (Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs) is a voluntary, not-for-profit organization, dedicated to the promotion of entrepreneurship and business leadership amongst Pakistanis. It is an inclusive, encompassing and collaborative initiative with a vision to become the premier organization driving entrepreneurship in Pakistan.

Register yourself here ——->  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tech-summit-peshawar-2019-tickets-70705988515

Gartner predicts that there will be over 21 billion connected devices in the world by 2020 [https://www.gartner.com/doc/3299317]. More than anything else, this number drives all 3 Vs of Big Data: Velocity, Volume, Variety. The Internet of Things (IoT) causes some challenges for any database system: security, resource consumption, ingestion rate, replication as well as coping with various access patterns from transactional systems to complex analytics. This talk will discuss how PostgreSQL‘s current feature set, the new features in upcoming versions of PostgreSQL and Postgres-BDR will provide the required feature set for IoT.

Leadership SIG series is back with its tenth episode, “Managing the Boss”. In the last session, we focused on how managers need to communicate on three different levels and how to make these communications effective. This time, we are going to discuss the significance of managing one’s relationship with their boss.

It sounds skeptical “to manage your boss” due to our traditional management practices in the organisations. It also sounds unhealthy to think why to manage your boss. But numerous research studies suggest that effective managers take time and effort notably to manage their relationships with their subordinates and also with their bosses as well. In this session, we will explore the difference between a leader, manager and a boss and what are the areas we could
look into developing our relationships with the boss.

In the third SIG, we will focus on grooming and refining backlogs. This will include understanding the importance of slicing in agile and learning how to decompose epic into user stories, prioritizing backlog items and acquiring knowledge on potential backlog refinement benefits.

Pakistan Agile Development Society, founded in 2014, is defining the future of Agile in Pakistan. Today, the society consists of volunteer members from all over Pakistan having its chapters in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. It has been successfully spreading its message through conferences, awareness sessions, and meetups. AgilePK provides a platform to agile experts to share their experiences and knowledge and add value in industry. Find more about Pakistan Agile Development Society, visit their website: (http://www.agile.org.pk/). This event is being conducted in collaboration with Pakistan Agile Development Society Islamabad Chapter (AgileISB).

Who should Attend:

• Scrum Masters
• Product Owners
• Scrum Team Members
• Clients Management

Leadership SIG series is back with its ninth episode, “Communicating at Three Levels”. In the last session, we focused on how should one manage oneself, now we are going to discuss the significance of communication skills for a manager.

Becoming a new manager changes their role from contributor to a director and an encourager. Managers generally misconstrue position with authority and start delving in either being aggressive, passive or manipulative. All these traits are generally negatively perceived. The question arises where and when to use and not to use them and what could be the best alternative, we will discuss in this session.

In the second SIG, we will focus on how to gather information from the client in an effective way. This will include transforming vague requirements into good requirements, driving clients to obtain maximum benefits and the link between project success and effective requirement collection.

Pakistan Agile Development Society, founded in 2014, is defining the future of Agile in Pakistan. Today, the society consists of volunteer members from all over Pakistan having its chapters in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. It has been successfully spreading its message through conferences, awareness sessions, and meetups. AgilePK provides a platform to agile experts to share their experiences and knowledge and add value in industry. Find more about Pakistan Agile Development Society, visit their website: (http://www.agile.org.pk/). This event is being conducted in collaboration with Pakistan Agile Development Society Islamabad Chapter (AgileISB).

Who should Attend:

• Business Analysts
• Scrum Masters
• Developers
• Testers

OPEN Islamabad’s signature event is back. After every three to four months, we present a Networking Event for professionals in Islamabad to interact, dine and grow their network in Islamabad, linking them to exciting professional and personal development opportunities. After all, Your Network is Your Net Worth!

OPEN Islamabad is giving you this great opportunity to connect with leaders of various industries while enjoying some fine food and ambiance. More specifically, you can expect to meet:

• Charter members of OPEN
• Top Executives from large enterprises
• C-level Executives of IT companies
• Deans, Professors, and Researchers from universities
• Representatives of other cultural and civic organizations of Islamabad
• Business owners from a variety of industry verticals like manufacturing, healthcare, etc.

Who Should Join:

Everyone working or studying in Islamabad, looking to benefit from the presence of esteemed professionals and experts at one place and

Participation charges:

• Members: 500 PKR
• Non-members: 1000 PKR

Do illiterate women recognize icons and illustrations? Do we need to train farmers to use mobile applications? Do users in lower income segments understand the search icon on Amazon (or Google)?

Who are the next billion users? We have 7 billion people on this planet and they all have different needs, wants, aspirations, capabilities and skill levels. Platforms like facebook and google have impacted the lives of nearly 1.5 billion users, however, the next billion users who will adopt digital technologies are very different from the existing users. Technology products will need to be customized for these users to serve their needs. Learn about these insights and experiences from field research in Pakistan to design your products and services for the next billion users.

Who Should Attend

• Program Managers from NGOs
• Product Designers
• UX designers
• Service Designers
• People wanting to understand how Human-centred design works in practice

We invite you to attend the upcoming SIG on Emerging Technologies titled, “Cracking the Big Data Pipeline”. It is the fourth in series of this SIG and is presented as a collaborative effort between OPEN Islamabad and Emumba.

Emumba is a boutique Software Services company based out of Islamabad and San Jose. Founded by Silicon Valley veterans, the company is 125 people strong serving customers from the Bay Area, London and Cambridge. The company specializes in building applications for Enterprise Networks, Data Engineering, Hardware Accelerated Software for FinTech, DevOps and Design/UX.

About the Session
When you gear up to build any big data system, the data pipelines can surprise you with various complications related to data duplication, out of order data, performance tuning, automated deployments, scalability, updates and patches, and much more. For the past 1.5 years, our speakers Wasaaq and Junaid have been involved in building and managing complex data pipelines at Emumba. During their journey, they learned many things, made mistakes, and most importantly they shipped high-quality software. During this talk, they will be sharing the key lessons they think are valuable for anyone who is interested in building and shipping data pipelines.

Who Should Attend

Big Data Developers
System/Technology Architects
Data Engineers
Interested CTOs

Participation Charges
Free for OPEN Members, PKR 500/- For Non-Members

Software businesses nowadays rely immensely on databases. Database disasters, resulting in downtime, have dire consequences in terms of direct loss in revenue. Thus it is very critically essential for businesses to recover from database disasters quickly. Participating in this session will help you understand how to perform a recovery operation for business-critical applications on PostgreSQL backends using Barman, Backup and Recovery Manager.

Barman standardizes your backup and recovery operations. It enables PostgreSQL DBAs and system administrators to easily integrate their PostgreSQL solutions in their disaster recovery plan. Barman features zero data loss backups, cooperation with standby servers, reliable monitoring integration, parallel copy for backup and recovery, backup catalogues, support for multiple servers, store backup data, full hot backup, incremental backup and recovery, retention policies, remote recovery, WAL files compression, and backup Information.

This talk will focus on effective planning for disaster recovery using Barman.

Who Should Attend?

Database enthusiasts, CTOs, IT Business owners, PostgreSQL Professionals

Participation Charges

Free for OPEN Members, PKR 500/- For Non-Members

We cannot reach the destination unless we know where are we going. We set goals and after a while start beating the old track again. Setting goals seems to be trivial but it is the most challenging task for the new managers. In this session we will talk about outcome goals and performance goals and how can we set them to achieve our objectives.

Who Should Attend?

Professionals, Entrepreneurs and Students looking to work in a leadership role.

Participation Charges

Free for OPEN Members. PKR 500/- for Non-Members

In the first SIG, let’s learn how to accelerate project delivery by changing your mindset, adjusting leadership style, embracing agility, creating a culture of teamwork and responding quickly to change. The session will help you understand how you can bring change by taking small steps. We have planned an interesting session for you, with an interactive presentation along with activities to engage all the participants in the learning process.

Pakistan Agile Development Society, founded in 2014, is defining the future of Agile in Pakistan. Today, the society consists of volunteer members from all over Pakistan having its chapters in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. It has been successfully spreading its message through conferences, awareness sessions, and meetups. AgilePK provides a platform to agile experts to share their experiences and knowledge and add value in industry. Find more about Pakistan Agile Development Society, visit their website: (http://www.agile.org.pk/). This event is being conducted in collaboration with Pakistan Agile Development Society Islamabad Chapter (AgileISB).

Who Should Attend?

Professionals, Entrepreneurs and Students.

Participation Charges

Free for OPEN Members. PKR 500/- for Non-Members

Open Islamabad is giving you this great opportunity to connect with leaders of various industries while enjoying some fine food and ambience. More specifically, you can expect to meet:

– Charter members of OPEN

– Top Executives from large enterprises

– C-level Executives of IT companies

– Deans, Professors and Researchers from universities

– Representatives of other cultural and civic organizations of Islamabad

– Business owners from a variety of industry verticals like manufacturing, healthcare etc.

Please register by 3:00 pm, Thursday, Mar 28, 2019, to ensure your participation.

Participation charges:
Members: 500 PKR
Non-members: 1000 PKR

In today’s world, databases are at the very core of the software business and recovering quickly from a database disaster is absolutely critical for business continuity. Downtime translates into direct revenue loss. If you run your business critical application on PostgreSQL backends, this talk covers important topics on what you need to know to perform a recovery operation of your company’s business critical PostgreSQL server using Barman, Backup and Recovery Manager.

Barman, standardizes your backup and recovery operations. It enables PostgreSQL DBAs and system administrators to easily integrate their PostgreSQL solutions in their disaster recovery plan. Barman features zero data loss backups, cooperation with standby servers, reliable monitoring integration, parallel copy for backup and recovery, backup catalogues, support for multiple servers, store backup data, full hot backup, incremental backup and recovery, retention policies, remote recovery, WAL files compression and backup Information.

This talk will cover how you can effectively use Barman for your disaster recovery plan.

Who Should Attend?

Database enthusiasts.

Participation Charges

Free

PostgreSQL provides a way to communicate with external data sources. This could be another PostgreSQL instance or any other database. The other database might be a relational database such as MySQL or Oracle; or any NoSQL database such as MongoDB or Hadoop. To achieve this, PostgreSQL implements ISO Standard call SQL-MED in the form of Foreign Data Wrappers (FDW). This presentation will explain in detail how PostgreSQL FDWs work. It will include a detailed explanation of simple features, and will introduce more advanced features that were added in recent versions of PostgreSQL. Examples of these would be to show how aggregate pushdown and join pushdown work in PostgreSQL.

The talk will include working examples of these advanced features and demonstrating their use with different databases. These examples show how data from different database flavors can be used by PostgreSQL, including those from heterogeneous relational databases, and showing NoSQL column store joins.

Who Should Attend?

Database enthusiasts.

Participation Charges

Free

Internet of Things (IoT) is taking digital transformation to a whole new level by integrating devices into the ecosystem of data, insights and actions that business have access to. Big companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google are pouring billions into building out rich IoT platforms to enable and simplify these transformations.

In this session, Affan Dar will talk about why IoT is important, the state of the industry, current trends and future opportunities both in terms of business as well as engineering innovations.

Who Should Attend?

SW Industry: CEOs, CTOs, Engineering Leads, IOT Startups, IOT Companies
Academia: Deans, HODs, Research Leads doing IoT-centric work
Government: HEC (Curriculum Leads), Ministry of IT, Ignite
Telcos: IOT Groups, Heads of Maker Spaces

Participation Charges

Members: Free
Non-Members: Rs 500/-

Partner Organization: EMUMBA Private Limited
Special Thanks: www.rabtay.org

In this talk, Zohaib reviews the foundations of today’s software innovation, where it has been and what the future looks like. He will take a closer look at DevSecOps, what it takes to implement it to drive innovation and value that can be derived deploying it effectively. He will also share his experiences of selling and implementing DevSecOps solutions across various industries across USA. He will field questions on how we can benefit from it in Pakistan.

Kamran Kundi will share success story in implementation of DevOps in his organization.

Who Should Attend?

SW Industry: CEOs, CTOs, Engineering Leads, DevOps practitioners
Academia: Deans, HODs, Professors of Software Engineering, Research Leads doing development work
Government: HEC (Curriculum Leads), Ministry of IT, Ignite
Telcos: CIOs, Engineering Leads

Participation Charges

Members: Free
Non-Members: Rs 500/-

CALLING ALL CIVIC-MINDED GEEKS!

Jazz, Code for Pakistan and OPEN Islamabad brings the biggest and most exciting Hackathon of the year ‘Jazz SDG Hackathon’ happening in Islamabad on the second weekend of December 2018. This is going to be a 2.5 days long Hackathon starting on 7th December and concluding on 9th December, 2018.

If you believe you:

• Have a great idea that you want to bring to reality.
• Like working with intelligent people.
• Have skills in web or mobile development, design, mapping, data analysis, research, subject matter expertise in SDGs or the civic space.
• Have what it takes to innovate on top of government information and services.

Come, utilize your talent and creative skills in transforming Pakistan in line with 5 of the selected SDGs for the better.

During this weekend, you will learn design thinking, open-source hacking for social good, receive mentoring and input from domain experts in government and local organizations, have opportunities to network, and work in teams to create solutions — all for free.

You will form teams to create prototypes that address civic and social problems in line with the Sustainable Development Goals initiative of the UN. All you need to do is bring your creativity, skills, and enthusiasm! We at Code for Pakistan will do the rest. We will bring together great mentors to assist you. There will be lots of energy and excitement through creative activities. Not to mention a lot of food and swags.

SELECTED SDGS

SDGs selected for the hackathon are for participants to focus their projects and solutions on are:

• SDG Goal 3: Good Health and Well Being
• SDG Goal 4: Quality Education
• SDG Goal 5: Gender Equality
• SDG Goal 10: Sustainable Cities and Communities
• SDG Goal 11: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

We are excited to announce that OPEN Islamabad is back with its flagship event – Annual Forum 2018! This year’s theme is “Entrepreneurs & Government” and is aimed at creating sustainable public-private partnerships.

This year’s event will bring together professionals from both Public and Private sector who will not only help establish a networking platform but will also look into collaborative efforts to b the existing governance systems. Our event will provide a chance to learn from renowned business leaders and government officials about:

• Bridging the gap between Public & Private sector initiatives
• Enhancing Private sector involvement in Public services
• Creating opportunities for sustainable growth

The audience will be 400+ invite-only professionals from a diverse group including but not limited to corporate, startup, academia, government and development sectors. The event is comprised of a series of motivational talks, panel discussions as well as an excellent opportunity to network.

The event details are as follows:

Date: Saturday, 1 December 2018
Time: 09:00 am – 4:00 pm
Venue: 1969 and Time Goes On, Islamabad

Your participation is subject to availability of seats. Since we have limited capacity, please reserve your seat at the earliest.

We, at OPEN Islamabad, look forward to your collaborative efforts in creating a new tomorrow.

نیا زمانہ، نۓ صبح شام پیدا کر!

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