Past Events

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

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

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, Oct 25, 2018, to ensure your participation.

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

The event provides you the opportunity to meet:

– Charter members of OPEN
– Top executives from large enterprises
– C-level executives of technology 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.

The event provides you the opportunity to meet:

– Charter members of OPEN
– Top executives from large enterprises
– C-level executives of technology 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.

OPEN Islamabad and The Hive, in collaboration with United States Embassy are pleased to invite you to an exclusive session on “The Importance of Cyber Security in Today’s Internet

An exclusive fireside chat with Careem’s leadership in Pakistan. We’ll have privilege of having Junaid Iqbal and Fatima Mazhar with us. From Call Centre to Market Launch Director of Careem, Fatima will share a very personal story of growth hacking across markets the Careem Way. Junaid, the CEO of Careem Pakistan, will also be engaging the audience.

STARTUP FUNDING
Investor’s Perspective

Hussein is a founding partner at Hoxton Ventures LLP with focus on consumer internet, financial technology, and software investments.

Financial Analyst turned Chef on “Pursuing your dreams”. Saima has left her lucrative career to start The Hampstead Kitchen and has cooked for the likes of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson.

Failing but not staying down.
Pivoting.
Creating success by sheer resilience.

This is going to be a fun conversation around the entrepreneurial journey of Idris Kothari, a serial entrepreneur from the Silicon Valley.

Amazon is a global leader in the cloud computing with its AWS platform. Find out more about exciting products and they could benefit your venture… directly from the head of Worldwide Business Development for AWS.

Who should Attend?
An invite-only talk best suited for CEOs, CTOs, Mobile & Web App Devleopers, IT Admin & security Champs and SW Architects.

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

OPEN Islamabad is organizing an exclusive full day workshop on Data Science in collaboration with the world renowned startup Data Science Dojo. The workshop will be conducted by the founder/CEO of the company himself, Dr Raja Iqbal. Dr Raja holds a PhD in Computer Science from Tulane University and has previously worked as a Data Scientist at Microsoft.
Data Science Dojo is a world renowned training company based out of Redmond, Washington, dedicated to enabling professionals to extract actionable insights from data. The company has trained more than 2000 data scientists so far and has received stunning reviews by participants.

This one day workshop is specially tailored to familiarize people with Data Exploration, Visualization and Feature Engineering. Participants will be required to spend 4-5 hours in pre-requisite learning to make the best out of the workshop.

An introductory workshop for developers to get started with IoT development. You will learn how to play with a variety of sensors and a monitoring application built on an IoT Platform.

OPEN Islamabad organized its first event – a day long UI/UX workshop by usability expert Sheba Najmi. A Code for America Fellow (2012), Sheba Najmi is a user experience and product strategist. At Yahoo! she was a lead designer for Yahoo! Mail. A number of people from different leading organization participated in this workshop and feedback score was 9/10 by the participants.

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!

Our Sponsors

Our Partners

For the 3rd year in a row, OPEN Islamabad brings you its flagship event, Annual Forum 2016! Themed around “Entrepreneurship: Finding Order in Chaos”, this year we will focus on the various challenges faced by an entrepreneurial venture at different stages of its lifecycle. Our speakers are people who have “been there, done that” and are in an excellent position to share their experiences and key takeaways for all of you!
As an attendee, you can expect to be walked through the different phases in an entrepreneurial journey, from conception, through building teams, leveraging a mentor network, and scaling, highlighting the challenges an entrepreneur faces at each phase and how to tackle them.

Besides hearing the speakers, you can expect this to be an excellent opportunity to network. Your fellow-attendees will be 500+ invite-only entrepreneurs and professionals from a diverse group including but not limited to corporate, startups, academia, government and development sectors.

Let’s finish together, what we started earlier this year and make it a DECEMBER to REMEMBER!
OPEN Islamabad proudly announces its Annual Forum to celebrate the success stories of individuals and organizations that have excelled in their respective fields.

Inspired by Iqbal’s message to his son and our nation, the theme for this year’s forum is:

“Apna Maqaam Paida kar”
Build in love’s empire your hearth and your home;

OPEN Islamabad invites you to be part of this ‘Celebration of Excellence’ where Entrepreneurs, CEOs, Innovators, Policy Makers and officials from Government, Development and Academic sectors will join us. The full day event will include motivational talks, panel discussions, innovation showcases, announcements and networking opportunities. Join us and support the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Pakistan!

Celebrating Entrepreneurs of Islamabad
– Keynote addresses by seasoned entrepreneurs and executives on topics relevant to entrepreneurs.

– Panel discussions including one on “Women in Entrepreneurship”.

– Budding Islamabad entrepreneurs will share their stories and experiences

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

When we talk of UX the first thing that comes to our minds is a website, a software or a mobile application. But we often forget that user experience is one of the main components of any industry. “People don’t buy products anymore, they buy experiences that are meaningful to them”. Pepsico’s Chief Design Officer.

The behaviors of customers are changing: the way they look at things now is different than 20 years ago. They have so many channels of communication and information that their decisions are being influenced by the current and future trends. In order to stay competitive we have to work along with the user in the design process to address each and every need which increases the chances of our products and services to have a good customer base.