Intellectual discussion: Seven conversations at IoBM

Speakers discuss variety of topics in 10-minute talks

KARACHI: With the purpose of exchanging knowledge and celebrating ideas, Colloquium Global brought a series of conversations to the Institute of Business Management (IoBM) titled 'Seven Conversations'.

The idea behind the conversations is to host seven speakers talking about seven different topics for 10 minutes each, followed by a five-minute question and answer session. Similar series have been hosted in other countries but this is the first time the event has been organised in Pakistan, said Colloquium Global chief executive officer Mansoor Soomro, who is also an IoBM alumnus.

The topics for the talks included science, ways of living, media roles, workplace harassment and careers.

Talking about 'Media at Crossroads', columnist Wusatullah Khan started by sketching a picture of history, back to when the media was not independent and there were few private channels. "For 54 years since the inception of this country, we [journalists] did what we were supposed to do and worked for the truth instead of money," he said, adding that then the Pakistani media was made independent by former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf and everyone got a licence to operate TV channels from the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority.



Commenting on how the role of media has been controlled, he said that a clause in the National Action Plan was added after the December 16 Army Public School attack to present a counter narrative against terrorism but nothing has been done. The media can be utilised to work on this, he said.

Uzma alKarim, who heads a department at Geo TV that deals with complaints against harassment at the workplace, began her presentation with the story of two women who were harassed in two different situations.

Sharing some alarming statistics, she pointed out that in Pakistan around 93% of women face sexual harassment at their workplace. "They can be your maids or can be in the corporate world too," she said, adding that a law was passed in 2010 but there is still no office to deal with the complaints in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan.

Former CEO of Engro Foods, Sarfaraz Rehman, spoke about teaching children to choose their paths carefully, because our systems have been designed in a way that causes young, energetic graduates to get bored of their jobs by the time they reach their 40s.

"Parents should focus on simplistic lives so that the tensions and worries of the children are lessened," he said.

Scientist Dr Attaur Rahman, Aga Khan University director Mahmood Virani and chief operating officer at U Microfinance Bank Ltd Kabeer Naqvi also spoke at the event, while a video presentation made by managing director of Naya Jeevan, Asher Hasan who could not attend the event, was also shared with the audience.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2017.