Palo Alto is a rustic California county, once commonly known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight for its apricots and apples, was transformed by a pipe dream of single visionary Leland Stanford into the birth-place of cutting edge technologies. Silicon valley now makes up the world’s 8th largest economy in the world, home to some of the most valuable companies like Apple, Microsoft, HP, Intel and more. It has been the benchmark for countries when it comes to cluster development for IT, manufacturing and idea creation. Its success has led to the creating of nearly two dozen valleys across the globe from Cambridge to Bangalore. Physics of cluster-development has become the new and pivotal science in economic policy-making. Though a fascinating venture and high-return investment the mere seeding of clusters and their germination requires a delicate balance of ingredients, blended in natural local recipes, the right environment and an enterprising cook.
Then the million-dollar question arises: could a country like Pakistan having a strategic location, abundant human and natural resources and a sizable diaspora conceive a ‘home-grown’ Silicon Valley? The answer might be ‘yes’ and ‘no’, depending on many factors. We might not have the right set of skilled workforce for high-tech clusters to emulate Bangalore, but that’s the point, others recipes don’t work when it comes to cluster development.
A change of strategy is in order. Instead of jumping onto an overambitious mode we need to capitalise on our existing strengths. Pakistan has already built pseudo-clusters all across its spine from IT and services in Karachi, automotive manufacturing at Port Qasim, agri-textile in Faisalabad, education in Lahore, sports and surgical equipment in Sialkot, small engineering in Gujranwala, heavy industries at Wah and even light weapons manufacturing at Landikotal. These are scattered strengths, each brewing with enormous potential this is where the focus should lie. These places already have the desired skill sets, resources and environment to foster respective strengths. So the next step is the relationship between industry and university research. A single resourceful and vibrant university is enough to trigger the whole transmutation process in its larger locality; the existence of Silicon Valley is because of the knowledge spill-over by the students and researchers of Stanford University. Pakistan possesses such institutions in business, engineering and applied sciences that if properly networked could produce a potent mix. What’s needed in each of them is a visionary like Frederick Terman, who transformed Stanford from an unknown county college into a world-class centre of thinking and excellence. This process takes decades but it can be fast-forwarded if the right person or persons take the first step to inspire and lead.
An American sophomore dreams of becoming the next Steve Jobs. And we need similar local personalities that our youth can aspire to.
Then comes the question of environment; yes there are problems and it’s not perfect for new businesses but again’ the world isn’t perfect either. Japan has all the technology but no natural resources, Australia has immense natural resources but no manpower, Iran has all the natural resources and manpower but no finance! And here it goes like; we are in the state of war and it’s not sane to open new ventures? We have enormous resources in water, minerals and human, they have none. We have strategic location and trade linkages with neighbours, they exist in total isolation. Thus Pakistan is still a blessed and resourceful land; it’s just that we’ve developed a national habit of complaining and feeling sorry for ourselves.
Even if the Planning Commission comes up with the best home-grown recipe, it boils down to master chef and we haven’t done well in that department. And the reason for that is undue bureaucratic intrusions. This does not encourage competition or growth and has to stop, for us to take our first step forward.
The writer is a policy consultant at the Planning Commission of Pakistan, devising the Innovation Strategy for New Growth Framework
Published in The Express Tribune, May 9th, 2011.
Keep dreaming….
Amazing and inspiring
Certainly…
but not in next 1000000000000000000000000000000years.
well written and good to see a positive and forward looking write up for a change. We need more of this to escape the negative spiral we find ourselves in!
still if we look it from another perspective:pseudo valleys can be orientedly boosted.Pakistan is teeming with talent but all the need is of exploitation and then be it anywhere,we have the potential to atleast payback the cost-price.so the point is instead of dismantling the idea altogether it should be enforced even on a small scale and not through such a big leap lest it be dries out in the files and 20 years on we repent to have sowed atleast a slow IT development.Yet the idea of boosting the already growing industries is charming in itself.So why cant both be initiated: digging the valley less than increasing the hills’ sizes..?
@Fighter:
u r rite but we mustnt forget that ind is dam ahead in it devlopment than us and probably this technical knowhow is what the writer means by a poor choice of words!
@ The Author: First let us finish the project we started in the Kashmir Valley.
Because the project that was started in the Indus Valley, has been completely wasted.
As far as I am aware, there are no valleys near Karachi.
Of course, there is the Swat Valley. But there too, it is better called the Swat Volley.
Silly-Kaun Valley is a possibility, but it is distant.
@Fighter: ” …. we speak better English and many others. … ” yes with a strong paindu accent.
@Raza:
EXACTLY!! for a SILICON VALLEY or anything like that.. there is One Major ingredient needed EDUCATION!!
there is NO EDUATION in this country… I have been involved in the Education sector for the past few years and all I see is CRIMINAL EDUCATORS selling DEGREES to ILLITERATE MORONS!!
WHAT industries is this guy boosting about? not one single one is world standard.. it might have been 50 years ago.. but get your head out of the sand!!
The example comes to mind is of this TOAD in a WELL.. thinking that thats the whole world..
With increasing number of madersas, soon in 2099 we would be able to reach this goal. Of course silicone valley would be obsolete way before than. Nice dream but without much educational foundation.
All socio paths are cynical and pessimistic – the reason for that is that they can only think about the here and now – the past is dead, the future does not exist – the present is all that counts. It is because Pakistan has the potential every attempt is being made to discourage it. Once Pakistan’s Silicon Valley blasts into reality – the socio paths will have to change their story.
@Arijit Sharma: we do speak better english and that is a fact!!!indian accent is so frustrating to bear, you cant imagine since you would yourself have that emphasizing accent!!!we in pakistan speak a much much better accent and i am talkin about the new generation!!even ur western inspired youth has a pathetic accent!!!they rape the language
@Ahmer:
I love your tongue in cheek. Well done. I had a good laugh. Thanks.
Just NOT possible. Forget Pakistan, I say no Muslim nation is capable of raising a Silicon Valley on its own..Just take a look…How many Forbes 500 top companies are from Muslim nations, or how many patents are filed every year, that belong to these nations? They have a different culture altogether.. When it comes to education & technology…they lag far behind ( i mean no disrespect, its just the way things are ). Tell me any Muslim country with billionaires on their lands who do not own huge OIL Tanks!
who will implement this project and when? big question……..
Invest more into education and the rest will follow. Our government thinks nothing of spending 3 billion ruppees in lodges for the NA members and is thinking of spending 1 billion ruppees on bullet proof cars.
However when it comes to education our government looks for international hand outs. The children of the rich travel abroad but the real talent is in the lower and middle classes. They are the ones that will build silicon vallwy here if there is ever to be one.
Tax the rich and plough the proceeds into education.
Regretfully our children mature too late to be useful citizens. Early senility cuts their useful working lives with the result that continuity in our functioning of projects is non-existent. Remember the GOLDEN rule : “Dream small” never make BIG projects. You don’t have the money like the Arabs to cover your incompetence. To illustrated my point I point to a mammoth building in upper mall called “QURAN CENTER”. Its so big they will need at least 100 Christan to clean it every day. I wonder which sect will allow that.
We have our own “Silly – con” Valley in A’bad. We try to “con” nations and then they make us look “Silly”
I totally agree with the author, very well written and timely article. Pakistan has all the potential and resources, our business and engineering schools are also producing quality graduates and now has felt the need of bridging gap between industry and academia. Business clubs and societies, the student bodies at various institutes are working on projects in collaboration with industry. YES we need to speed up the process. Still we need a direction, as there is alot to do, youth is getting frustrated, we have to bring them out of disappointment. WE CAN DO IT & WE WILL DO IT InshAllah very soon.
Shame on all pessimists above!
@Blunt!: Agreed. Am Muslim from Pakistan, but live abroad because of the stifling intellectual environment at ‘home’. Muslims elsewhere, in more liberal and democratic environment prosper and thrive. Not so in many of the more radical, Islamic ‘states’.
In India, where Muslims are a majority, and where the Sachar Commission Report, (Mr. Sachar, is a Hindu, by the way) called out the glaring disparities in the Muslim populace vis a vis the Indian national average in many metrics; there is still an Azim Premji, who does not bribe, who does not cheat, who runs a world class company in the digital economy, Wipro and is a self-made billionaire. Now that is very cool. How cool? He gave a $2 Billion US Dollar Zakaat for promoting education. THAT COOL. How many sheikhs, emirs, sultans, sadrs and wazir-e-azams do that? This shows, that Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, irrespective of our religious affiliations, given the right environment, can really be world beaters. When I met Muhammad Younus of Grameen Bank, I was amazed that he took the concept initially put forward by a Pakistani economist to practical use, thereby providing a model for the poor everywhere. Agreed there were flaws, as it was recently revealed to an improperly structured risk management appartus, but at least there was a new idea that worked. So, here we are, an idea is generated in Pakistan, but cannot even take the next step to become a seed to a larger concept, and finally a full fledged movement, because the army and administrators were busy obsessing about an attack that would not be worth to begin with. Where does one begin? When does Pakistan begin to turn for the better?
In India, when they started IT industry, they never made it a project to be promoted by the state. They just started it on their own, made it successful, and only then the governments got involved. People already had excellent education, entrepreneurial spirit, professionalism to create a valley on their own, and actually took the government by surprise.
There is no professionalism in Pakistan in any industry, leave alone IT. All the industries are run like a family business, where the head of the family decides what is good or bad. I just read an MBA graduate’s frustrating experience with Sialkot sportswear industry, and how he was mistreated etc.
All those muslims basking in the glory of oil, just go to wikipedia and have a look at recoverable reserves. Post 2017, there will be only 12 countries in the world producing oil and by 2040, the wealth of oil, the only possession in muslim world will be gone. Thats 30 years and well within our lifetime. The dark days of muslim world is slowly coming up, as there is nothing other than oil that you guys can export. Starting 2017, get ready for doomsday as every year, one after other smaller islamic nations run out of oil and economies collapse. Countries without oil are anyway doomed.
Things can be improved in Pakistan. We have seen a tremendous improvement and professionalism in
Banking industry in just 6 years
and
same can be replicated in many other sectors.
From the above comments, it seems that the Indians are so worried even about our dreams,
what will
they do when they
start becoming reality?
We have always come out stronger after all the troubles.
@Fighter, tungalahore : I am sure a significant percentage of Pakistanis have good knowledge of English and can speak the language fluently with a good accent. But if you believe that accent is the determining factor in measuring one’s control of the language, then you are hugely mistaken. A lot of people around the globe have generally different accent compared to the traditional British one(which people in subcontinent follow), but many of them have excellent depth on the language.
And if you think that Pakistanis have mastered English better than Indians, then feel free to do so. Given the fact that English was introduced by British in the Indian subcontinent, I did not know that they taught English relatively better in certain regions which we call Pakistan today. I will let you merry on this ‘fact’.
@Ahmer:
You forgot A R Rahman, the Oscar winner. He is a convert to Islam from Hindu, and he is the one who made the song ‘Vande Mataram’ ultra-cool (a song Muslims refuse to sing citing religious feelings). He is a South Indian: and his oscar winning song Jai Ho, sung by Sukhwinder (Punjabi) and Tanvi (Gujarati), written by Gulzar, (another Punjabi), the movie directed by Danny Boyle, a Britisher.
It is the environment that produces world-beaters !!!
PS: Pharma companies Cipla and Wockhardt are also owned Muslim gentlemen from India !!
@tungalahore: Why is it exactly that Pakistanis can speak better English than Indians ? Better education ? More Hollywood movies ?
I can’t believe Indians are wasting pakistanis time by posting useless comments look at your own third world country barely 50% literacy rate and u call yourself next superpower the only thing you have is a large cheap workforce whom will work for $1 a day in call centers
@ Raj
Why don’t you answer your own friend ‘Arjit Sharma’ who
started this ‘Paindo accent’ debate?
Why be so selective and biased???? Others went a bit too far answering his taunts.
@tungalahore:
Its only u decide what is fact. If that is the case thenn pakistan is best country among all in the world. English is not the mail critera. Pakistan needs to get ten salim ghauris. Indians like vinod khosla,vinod dham,pramod haq, kanwal rekhi contributed to silicon vally. What is pakistani contribution. search for bangalore express on Google. If something called lahore express starts then we can talk about it. Its not english , its about people
@Fighter & @tungalahore
Wow! You know the problem with your country is over confidence with nothing based in reality to substantiate the tall claims. And throw an “Inshallah” at the end.
The first thing you need in order to grow is humility and people like you lack it. I am not talking about all Pakistanis but just people like you.
Just first try to stabilize the cities. surely after the peace returns, Industry will love to invest..
@tungalahore:
I am not against Pakistan silicon valley.
I strongly disagree with your comments on Indian accent. As far as i am concerned, after a spending a decade in North America, I feel that accent plays zero role. I have a PhD from a well-known school and i am a professor in the same school now. What is the definition of accent, i believe your definition is ” Copying American” which is not true. My accent has been not so americanized but still people find easy to follow. Most of Americans find it hard to cope-up with Italian, French and Arab accents.
Please don’t forget the Chinese accent, God can only understand their language but they made tremendous strides in US scientific community.
Now Pakistan accent, i don’t really know how they speak because i hardly see them in graduate schools.
If you have time please listen to recent Nobel winner Dr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Dr Ramachandran (Brain surgeon and Times top 50 influential)
For all the commenters who think that Pakistan has all the elements and is better than India – just ask yourself why it has not happened.
India and Pakistan are people of the same genetic stock as much as chauvinistic Pakistanis would like to think they are decendants of some martial race that makes them superior (witness 5 World Cup losses, 4 war losses, etc. – hopefully those ideas of “superiority in physical pursuits” is gone). That being said, India and Pakistan are so different.
Indians are so proud to have people like Aziz Premji. No matter what ones religion, we support and cherish Premji. In Pakistan, he would not even be considered a Muslim. He is a Bohra. In Pakistan, people would not even respect him.
Pakistan has to make huge changes to its culture to create the next Silicon Valley. What is amazing about Silicon Valley is that people from all over the world come together and work together regardless of religion or race. That DOES NOT happen in Pakistan. Fix it and you can have Silicon Valley.
@Blunt!:
tell me about a Indian Billionaire who has not inherited wealth from the his forefathers who licked the boots of the British ?
lol please Indian wake up you are living in bollywood land.Pakistan will liberate Kashmir and Build a 1st world Economy. India needs to grow at 10% for next 50 years, whilst pakistan achieve the same standard of living as developed countries with in 10 years just buy good governance.
@Talha:
I can give you 50 such names Narayana murthy (infosys), GVK Reddy (GVK), Dr Anji Reddy (Dr Reddys), GM Rao (GMR), Dr Mojumdar (Biocan) all these are first generation businessmen
@Talha:
OK here is the list of first time enterpreneurs who made it in India
1. Narayanan Murty and his cofounders – Founder Infosys
2. Dhirubhai Ambani – Was petrol pump attendant
3. Shiv Nader and cofounders – HCL
4. Sunil Bharti Mittal – Airtel
There are many more but will take my entire day
In the meantime enjoy the list.
Any person in any country can make it provided the environment is conducive to growth. The day Pakistan will have that environment, even it will have list of successful business people to be proud of.
@Talha –
You can ignore my comments!
@Talha : Ness Wadia is an Indian billionaire whose forefather did not lick boots of British. Let me know if you feel my comment is wrong regarding his forefather.
Talha
Do you know Infosys Narayanamurthy he is the answer for the Indian Billionaire who not inherited wealth from his forfathers.
Progressive Pakistan + Strong democratic government+ military subordinate to the government is in India’s interest.
Every country should have dream.We should respect that.It is not like they are dreaming of becoming next HQ of Al-quida!!
@Raj:
good reply. but how many people do you think will understand it?
@let there be peace : I believe Talha has understood the folly of her comment. She did not utter a single word in this space after that.
Appreciate the optimism and thinking line. Diagnosis is critical for the proper treatent, cure and solution to any problem. At least this gives me a confidence that out planning is suported with a thorough thought process, brain storming and out of box thinking.
Let take the first action in the right direction
We Arab Circle, Jeddah , Saudi Arabia & University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan want to make a presentation on ” Global entrepreneurship & Business Partnership Development in Knowledge Economy through InfoDev World Bank support. Our Academia-Industry Linkage Forum ( AILF Group at http://www.linkedin.com) will give you a confidence that our planning is suported with a thorough thought process, brain storming and out of box thinking.Now we need the entrepreneurial spirit and inputs of young graduates & Sialkot Chamber of Commerce & Industry to jointly engage in mobile technology, clean energy global entrepreneurship & Business Development for the Knowledge Economy of Pakistan with other countries through World Bank funding & technical support
Our AILF program will also employ the use of the mobile communications platform to grow content, services and applications for developing countries.Finland has pioneered the innovation ecosystem; the need to network,collaborate and share the
best ideas so that they become reality. For Finland, the creation of a system for science, technology and innovation are fundamental to sustainable development and economic growth
Please call me for a presentation asap
Warm regards
V. Prof Durrani Iftikhar A
Cell: 0092-332 -8323420