The Pakistani Spectator

It was TEDxLahore yesterday, and for me it was like finally the day has arrived. The event ended with great feedback of all types, some of the people were happy to see the effort that the Team TEDxLahore put to make this event reality and some of the people kept complaining about it, as this has become our national behavior to complain and criticize everything. TED is about sharing ideas and you must come and share your idea rather than complaining about everything because the attitude we practice while complaining is counterproductive.

Well let me come to the event first because my analysis and my signature “Azlan Ki Theory” can run at anytime. The attendance of the event was marvelous; I can say that because I have never seen people to show up even an hour before the main event. All the people who got confirmation of attendance were there event it was raining before the event. Is not it a sign that people had some idea about the event and they were there to experience something great in coming hours? The main event started after two when Asim Fiaz, Curator of TEDxLahore made opening notes to the packed hall of Ali Auditorium, Lahore.

The first speaker was Dr. Arif Hasan who spoke about the impact of Migration, Green revolution, Urbanization, and globalization on our social and professional behavior and how it molded our culture. The Best mappers in the world that is what I feel for these two guys, Jib ran Rafique and Omer Sheikh had an interactive session. Jibran could not make it in person but his voice was there in the presentation to let us all know how the work of Mapping Atta Abad lake been proceeded by him and Omer. This was an interesting session as it elaborated that how the tools such as Google maps etc can be used to in a way that becomes blessing for many. The next one was a journalist who has a dream to make sure that everything written in Urdu is available to everyone in electronic form that was Mr. Ajmal Kamal. He also shared the evaluation of Urdu book publishing and the translation work of some great names done by some great people.

I have never bothered to know about the evolution of Urdu language. However yesterday the Mr. Tariq Rehman portrayed some of the aspects of how Urdu became a language. He also talked about using two or three languages, of similar dialect, in the pottery of some great poets such as Ameer Khusro. Saima Zaidi was next with her concept of visual conversation. I enjoyed that session though I am not a very pro- art person but the portraits, pieces of arts she presented were nice, and some of them were actually very catching.

Beena Raza had her session next, that was a bit dragged session, as long as in my views I cannot comment on it as I did not listened to it. Nevertheless, what we all experience after the session of Beena was simply awesome that did Noor Zehra Raza play the classic string instrument Sagar veena (that means Sound of Ocean if we translate it). The music produced from that instrument was really present and soothing, and that was the end of first session.

The 2^nd session started at 5:30 pm. Dr. Asher Hasan spoke about Burgers and BunKababs, which was a story of social and economic divisions in our society. This story was touching and had many stories with in it; I have to say that it was a good start of the second session.

There was a talk by Majid Nawaz a former Extremist who turned into anti extremism activist and this was a Skype session as he was not there in present, this one was a real test for the organizing team as sound was having some issues but no one looses unless the try is on that’s what team decided to follow. Dr. Nadeem ul Haq of Planning commission of Pakistan spoke about the real economic problems of the country and how to deal with them. He stressed upon the need of intellectual leadership and courage to take initiative to do something innovative.

I have to accept one thing that the best talk of the evening was given by Dr. Zeeshan Usmani who got standing ovation as soon as his talk ended. Dr. Usmani is a Counter terrorism planner, it is a serious job and he was handling a serious topic there but he kept the audience with him by spreading smiles and laughter among them with his talk and explained this idea of a live demonstration of a suicide attack on his software.

Mudassir Zia shared his idea of D3, and how he used this Dream, Dare, and Do in reverse by first doing then daring and dreaming in the end. He talked about the actual solution by providing education and social service that is all done by the funds generated locally. As he said, it is far better to generate your funds on your on rather than accepting foreign aid with the bundle offer of dictation form the organization providing it.

The Corruption Buster, Zubair Bhatti the former DCO of Jhang shared his idea and practice that can result in ending corruption. His idea was to interact directly to the public and inquire if there issues are being resolved and at what cost, it is practice by which it can be made sure that no corruption is being practiced to do the work of common man by the government machinery.

Dr. Aamir Khan shared the great work done by him and his team in the area of public health and the prevention of Pneumonia and Tuberculosis in Pakistan. He shared his great innovation in cell phone technology, that how it can be used to better the health care situation in the country. A TED talk “4am” by John G. Rives was also shown there. Rafay Alam was also among the speaker’s lineup but he could not make it, as he did not get his flight to Lahore from India.

The event ended with the surprise a live jamming session that was enjoyed by every one there, as it was really awesome and showed the color of collective genius, which was the theme of the event. The attendees were given gift packs with the flavor of green, it was having Plant gifted by Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), a Match Box which was used in the short film “Building Pakistan”, which was shown and these match box were used to make the Pakistani Flag. There were more things in the bag such as Last Word discount coupon, a Music CD, and a WWF Magazine, the best thing of this gift bag was the line written on it “WE NOT ME”.

In my views, it has been great event as there were many things that I never know before being there and learned a lot from this TEDxLahore experience. I accept that there were some technical issue and glitches, and it spoiled the taste a bit but it is the mistake that can be either a de-motivator or an experience to work on. Therefore, it is up to you how you take it up. I believe that this has been great effort by a team. Despite the fact, that none of them is a professional event organizer. At time speakers failed to gain the interest of people, it happens as most of the speakers were not aware of the TED format, and they can improve with the motivation and experience rather than the number of rants we make on their work. This event also had some of the great talks so we should also appreciate that as well. In my views, this has been a real mega event and a big hit as it was seen in almost every major country on live stream, along with the viewing parties in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and Pakistan Embassy in Netherland. In addition, it also got some good feedback and valuable suggestion. The team TEDxLahore deserves congratulations so that they come up even bigger and batter TEDxLahore, and who knows one day we experience TED Pakistan here on our own land.