Technological genius: ‘Youth need to innovate and change Pakistan’

Tributes paid to American innovator Steve Jobs.

LAHORE:

When it came to innovation, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, was legendary. The catchphrase of his company, Think Different, is not just a marketing tool, but a way of life, a powerful, positive and game changing approach to innovation. These views were shared by some of the leaders in the telecom industry in a forum, Breakthrough, Creativity and Innovation. The idea behind the interactive dialogue was to discover new ways to unlock creative potential and to promote an environment that is conducive to development.

The forum, a tribute to Jobs, was also attended by the US Counsel General for Lahore, Nina Maria Fite.

Fite said that Jobs ruled the world through his innovations. His work, she said, changed the world of technology, especially in the telecom and music industry. She said the iPhone and the iPad were currently used the world over. Creativity is the key to creating leaders and Jobs held that key, she said.

Jobs had a leader’s traits of creativity, vision in terms of innovations, passion for continued learning, she said. iRaffles Director Ibrahim Quraishi said Jobs was not only ionic and visionary, he was also an entrepreneur who would spend hours with his customers, especially youth, to learn about their ideas for future technology.

Quraishi said Jobs changed the world twice, first through iPhone and the second time with the iPad and the iPod.

Quraishi said that when his company was to start operations in Pakistan, selling Apple products, he was hesitant as he did not know if the products would be successful.  However, the company motivated him to start, he added.

I knew Jobs personally and he loved what he was doing, said Naeem Zamindar, the CEO of Wateen. Stay foolish stay young, Jobs had said and Pakistan nowadays is very much like that, he said. He said that Pakistani youth were more than 60 per cent of the population and could come up with innovations to change Pakistan and make it prosperous. He said Pakistan was far behind in technology and that needs to change.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2011.