Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ
Massive cyberattack that recently targeted US government agencies and private companies, labeled the 'SolarWinds hack', was first discovered by US cybersecurity company FireEye, founded by a well-recognized Pakistani-American cybersecurity expert Ashar Aziz. Karachi-born Ashar served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Fireeye from 2004 to 2012. Ashar became the first Pakistani-American tech billionaire when the company stock soared after its initial public offering (IPO) in 2013. His net worth was last estimated at $268 million in 2015.
Ashar Aziz
Solar Winds Hack:
Solarwinds is a cybersecurity toolset used by multiple US government agencies to detect and stop cyberattacks. It is alleged by American government agencies that some Russian-sponsored hackers managed to compromise Solarwinds software by adding malware to updates distributed by the company to its customers. It only came to light when the perpetrators attempted to break into the cybersecurity firm FireEye, which first disclosed a breach on December 9. Here's how Fireeye describes it:
"FireEye has uncovered a widespread campaign, that we are tracking as UNC2452. The actors behind this campaign gained access to numerous public and private organizations around the world. They gained access to victims via trojanized updates to SolarWind’s Orion IT monitoring and management software. This campaign may have begun as early as Spring 2020 and is currently ongoing. Post compromise activity following this supply chain compromise has included lateral movement and data theft. The campaign is the work of a highly skilled actor and the operation was conducted with significant operational security".
Solarwinds Cyrber Hack. Source: Fireeye
Fireeye Cybersecurity:
Fireeye is a top global cybersecurity firm. New York Times says the company "has been the first call for government agencies and companies around the world who have been hacked by the most sophisticated attackers, or fear they might be". Fireeye makes a living by identifying the culprits in some of the world’s boldest and most high-profile security breaches — its clients have included Sony and Equifax, according to New York Times. FireEye has also been called in to investigate high-profile attacks against Target, JP Morgan Chase, Sony Pictures, Anthem and others, according to USA Today.
Fireeye was founded in 2012 by Ashar Aziz, a Pakistani-American entrepreneur, in Silicon Valley, California. Aziz was born in Karachi, Pakistan. He has degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California at Berkeley. He worked for Sun Microsystems before founding tech startups Terrasprings and Fireeye.
Summary:
Fireeye, a top global cybersecurity firm, was founded by Ashar Aziz, a Pakistani-American technologist. The company has been in the news for being the first to discover and report a massive cyberattack on US government agencies and private companies. New York Times says the company "has been the first call for government agencies and companies around the world who have been hacked by the most sophisticated attackers, or fear they might be".
NASDAQ IPO of Silicon Valley's cyber security firm Fire-eye has made its Pakistani-American founder Ashar Aziz worth $430 million at the market close on Friday, according an estimate by Forbes magazine.
The high-tech company priced its initial public offering of 15.2 million shares at $20 per share late Thursday, raising about $304 million after increasing its expected price range to $15 to $17 per share.
Shares of FEYE were trading up by more than 100% during the day before closing up $16 or 80% to $36.00 on the Nasdaq Friday. FEYE closed up another 4% to $37.45 on Monday.
Aziz owns about 10.91 million shares in the Milipitas, Calif.-based security company; that 9.3% stake after the offering alone is now worth more than $392 million.
Fireeye Founder and CTO Ashar Aziz
FireEye, founded in 2004, has a virtualization engine which protects its customers' infrastructure from attacks that may come through the web and email. Its dynamic virtual cloud analyzes incoming data, providing real-time intelligence to its users.
FireEye is riding high on a wave of growing cyber security concerns amid increasing cyber attacks being reported almost daily from around the globe. FireEye's founder Ashar Aziz is among the top recognized experts in the field of Internet and computer security. With the $50 million round from top investors in January 2013, the company raised $100 million in venture money before going public. The venture funding came from investors including Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs, Juniper Networks, Silicon Valley Bank, and others. Several other security companies including Illumio, CipherCloud, Mocana have recently significant sums of money from venture capital firms.
Here's a video of Ashar talking about the effectiveness of his technology in blocking new and previously unidentified attacks by not relying on signatures:
Security software pioneer John McAfee was found dead in his jail cell in Spain today. He was 75 years old. He started McAfee Associates in 1987 in his small house in Silicon Valley, in response to the news of a Pakistani computer virus called Pakistani Brain, thought to be the first to infect personal computers. Miko Hypponen, a top software expert, believes that "they (Pakistani brothers Amjad and Basit Alvi) never meant to destroy any data or cause any harm for anyone". He was fighting extradition to the United States from Spain to face federal charges of tax evasion. The US Justice Department indictment alleged that McAfee used cryptocurrency transactions to hide his earnings.
John McAfee (1945-2021)
Pakistani Brothers:
The year was 1986. Most personal computers used floppy disks to boot and to move files from one computer to another. Floppy disk was also the medium used by Amjad and Basit Alvi, two Pakistani brothers living in Lahore, to create and spread history's first known PC virus called "The Brain". Here's how Mikko Hypponen, a software security expert, described it in 2014 at DEF CON, world's largest hackers convention held in Las Vegas:
Creators of First PC Virus: Amjad Farooq and Basit Farooq Alvi
"It's surprisingly advanced, and it has surprising features, including a capability of hiding itself. So when your PC is infected by Brain, and you go and look at your floppies, you will not see Brain on the floppies. It's watching you watching it, and if you try to look at the copy of Brain, it fools you and gives you a clean image of a floppy instead. And we would call this a stealth virus, at the time.... These guys weren't evil at all. They weren't evil even then, 25 years ago, when they wrote the first PC virus. Their intention was never to cause harm to anybody, and they didn't, of course, realize that they made history when they wrote the first PC virus. But Brain was the only virus they ever wrote and they never meant to destroy any data or cause any harm for anyone".
The Brain, also known as The Pakistani Brain, is the virus that challenged John McAfee to develop anti-virus software. Later, John McAfee launched his company that was acquired in 2010 by Intel for $7.7 billion, then sold its majority stake to an investment firm six years later. McAfee is just one of several security software companies inspired by the Pakistani Brain virus. Security software market size is estimated at nearly $180 billion in 2021.
Pakistani Software Entrepreneurs:
There are several well-known Pakistani entrepreneurs in the security software industry. Among them is Ashar Aziz who founded Fire-eye. Massive cyberattack that recently targeted US government agencies and private companies, labeled the 'SolarWinds hack', was first discovered by US cybersecurity company FireEye, founded by a well-recognized Pakistani-American cybersecurity expert Ashar Aziz. Karachi-born Ashar served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Fireeye from 2004 to 2012. Ashar became the first Pakistani-American tech billionaire when the company stock soared after its initial public offering (IPO) in 2013. His net worth was last estimated at $268 million in 2015.
Ashar Aziz
Solar Winds Hack:
Solarwinds is a cybersecurity toolset used by multiple US government agencies to detect and stop cyberattacks. It is alleged by American government agencies that some Russian-sponsored hackers managed to compromise Solarwinds software by adding malware to updates distributed by the company to its customers. It only came to light when the perpetrators attempted to break into the cybersecurity firm FireEye, which first disclosed a breach on December 9. Here's how Fireeye describes it:
"FireEye has uncovered a widespread campaign, that we are tracking as UNC2452. The actors behind this campaign gained access to numerous public and private organizations around the world. They gained access to victims via trojanized updates to SolarWind’s Orion IT monitoring and management software. This campaign may have begun as early as Spring 2020 and is currently ongoing. Post compromise activity following this supply chain compromise has included lateral movement and data theft. The campaign is the work of a highly skilled actor and the operation was conducted with significant operational security".
Summary:
Security software pioneer John McAfee was found dead in his jail cell in Spain today. He was facing tax evasion charges in the United States. He started McAfee Associates in 1987 in his small house in Silicon Valley, in response to the news of a Pakistani computer virus called Pakistani Brain, thought to be the first to infect personal computers. "The Brain" was the first computer virus that infected large numbers of computers worldwide. It was developed by Amjad and Basit Alvi, two Pakistani brothers in Lahore, Pakistan. Miko Hypponen, a top software expert, believes that "they (Pakistani brothers) never meant to destroy any data or cause any harm for anyone".
The advanced computer security software company , founded by Ashar Aziz, priced its initial public offering of 15.2 million shares at $20 per share in September, raising about $304 million after increasing its expected price range to $15 to $17 per share.
Aziz owns about 10.91 million shares in the Milipitas, Calif.-based security company; that 9.3% stake on the close of the first day of trading in September was worth more than $392 million.
Here are some of the reasons for the huge spike as described by Business Insider:
1. The company's flagship product solves a really hard computer security problem. It is able to stop hack attacks that were previously almost impossible to stop.
2. FireEye bought another security firm, Mandiant, for $1 billion. Mandiant was famous for uncovering links between Chinese hackers and attacks on U.S. companies.
3. With Mandiant, FireEye launched a cloud computing security service that competes with SourceFire. SourceFire is the company Cisco bought last summer for $2.7 billion.
4. The company beat expectations on its fourth quarter with revenue of $57.3 million, a beat by $1.26 million, and EPS of $-0.35, a beat by $0.03.
5. Some Wall Street analysts have been really gung ho on the company. Wells Fargo started tracking it a month ago, saying it was "a once in a decade opportunity to invest in a truly disruptive technology."
The world has dramatically changed since the 1990s when Wintel ruled the roost. PC is no longer the dominant device. Smartphones and tablets have brought the era of mobile cloud computing where neither Intel nor Microsoft enjoy leadership position. Even developing countries like Pakistan are deploying cloud computing applications. A Google sponsored survey in Pakistan found that mobile computing is expected to overtake desktop computing this year. Several new and more innovative and powerful players have emerged to in this market.
As more and more enterprises embrace cloud-based computing, cloud security is becoming a hot area for many entrepreneurs. This shift means over $2 billion annual market for cloud security vendors like Fireeye and Elastica. Researchers at Gartner forecast the highest growth to occur in cloud-based tokenisation and encryption, security information and event management (SIEM), vulnerability assessment and web application firewalls.
Recently, a Silicon Valley cloud security start-up Ealstica was launched by Rehan Jalil, a Pakistani-American alumnus of NED University of Engineering, Karachi, Pakistan. Elastica received $6.3 million funding from Mayfield Ventures, a premier Silicon Valley Venture Capital firm.
Silicon Valley is home to 12,000 to 15,000 Pakistani Americans. Thousands of them are working at Apple, Cisco, Google, Intel, Oracle and hundreds of other high-tech companies from small start-ups to large Fortune 500 corporations. Pakistani-Americans are contributing to what Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee describe as "The Second Machine Age" in a recent book with the same title.
Pakistani-American Ecosystem:
Pakistani-American entrepreneurs, advisers, mentors, venture capitalists, investment bankers, accountants and lawyers make up a growing ecosystem in Silicon Valley. Dozens of Pakistani-American founded start-ups have been funded by top venture capital firms. Many such companies have either been acquired in M&A deals or gone public by offering shares for sale at major stock exchanges. Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs (OPEN) has become a de facto platform for networking among Pakistani-American entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. It holds an annual event called OPEN Forum which attracts over 500 attendees. OPEN Forum 2014 is scheduled for Saturday, May 10, 2014, at the Santa Calra Marriott.
Pakistani Diaspora World's 7th LargestPutting it in context of the global Pakistani diaspora, there are 5 million to 6 million people of Pakistani descent living outside Pakistan, making up the world's 7th largest diaspora. Of these, the US alone has 410,000 Pakistanis, according US Census 2010. California state has 47,000 Pakistanis, about a quarter of them in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley Pakistanis are enabling the 2nd Machine Revolution which is expected to be similar in scope and transformational impact as the First Machine Revolution, also known as the Industrial Revolution of 18th century.
Second Machine Revolution:
Silicon Valley is driving the second machine revolution which is similar in global scope and transformational impact as the First Machine Revolution, also known as the Industrial Revolution of 18th century. Much of Asia and Africa, including what constitutes Pakistan today, were left behind and colonized after the last industrial revolution that was driven by inventions like the steam engine and printing press. This time, however, Pakistanis are the forefront of the current machine revolution, contributing to the exponential growth in high-tech enabled by semiconductor technology as predicted by Moore's Law, named after Intel founder Gordon Moore. Rapid increase in chip densities has allowed building of more and more functions and progressively greater intelligence in small form factors.
Moore's Law Source: Wikipedia
Here are a few examples of how doubling of computer chip densities every 2 years is changing the world:
1. Smartphones are now as powerful as huge mainframe computers of a decades ago. Pakistani-American chip technologists at Intel (Microprocessors) and other companies (SoC chips) have contributed to it.
Intel (Riaz Haq), AMD and Raza Microelectronics (Atiq Raza), OpenSilicon (Naveed Sherwani), Muhammad Irfan (Whizz Systems).
2. Ability to communicate 24X7X365 is now taken for granted around the globe. Pakistani-Americans at Intel (Ethernet), Cisco (routers, switches) and other companies have driven it.
Intel (Sikanadar Naqvi), Cavium (Raghib Husain), Wichorus (Rehan Jalil), VPNet (Idris Kothari, Saeed Kazmi), Cisco and PLUMgrid (Owais Nemat)
3. 3D vision is enabling computer games (XBox Kinect) and self-driving cars.
Pakistani-American Nazim Kareemi's Canesta's 3D chips have made these possible.
4. Cloud Computing is supplanting WinTel era PC computing, enabling much more mobile work using small portable devices like smartphones and tablets. Many Pakistani-Americans are making it happen.
Business Apps Convo (Faizan Buzdar), Infonox (Safwan Shah), Vertical Systems Inc (Saeed Kazmi, Idris Kothari)
TV Entertainment HBO Comedy Silicon Valley (Kumail Nanjiani), Jadoo TV (Sajid Sohail), Triple-Oscar-Winning Computer-generated Imagery (CGI) for Hollywood hits Frozen, Life of Pi and The Golden Compass (Mir Zafar Ali).
Venture Capital Sequoia Capita (Aaref Hilaly), CMEA Capital (Faysal Sohail, Saad Khan), Alloy Ventures (Ammar Hanafi), ePlanet Ventures (Asad Jamal).
Positive Media Coverage:
The mainstream media and the tech press have noticed the contribution of Pakistani-Americans in the Valley. I was recognized in 1980s by the PC magazine as a person of the year award given to the Intel 80386 microprocessor design team. More recently, there have been positive stories about Pakistani-American entrepreneurs in Forbes and other publications. A Forbes story recently acknowledged that Pakistan is among a dozen countries which are birthplaces of some of the most successful Silicon Valley companies funded by Sequoia Capital, a top venture capital firm credited with early investments in Cisco and Google. Another recent article called Silicon Valley Pakistanis a "model minority".
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has taken the world by a storm. It has drawn the attention of academia, businesses and governments around the world. This technology is expected to transform almost every sector from business and commerce to government, industries and defense. Are Pakistanis aware of its potential? Is Pakistan getting ready for what is being described as the "AI Revolution"? Let's examine the answers to these questions.
AI awareness is rising among Pakistan’s general public. The country ranks third with 76% of people being aware of ChatGPT, according to Stanford University’s AI Index Report 2024 covering a survey of 31 countries, including the United States, Europe and East Asia. India (82%), Kenya (81%), Indonesia (76%), and Pakistan (76%) have the highest awareness rates in the world. Brazil and Canada have 64% awareness, UK and Japan 61%, China, Germany and France 60% and the US 55%. Poland reported the lowest awareness, at 43%. Globally, 17% of users utilize it daily, 36% weekly, and 16% monthly. India (36%), Pakistan (28%), and Kenya(27%) report the highest levels of daily usage.
Pakistan is among the top 4 countries for enrollment in Coursera online GenAI courses, according to Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera. India, Egypt, Pakistan, and Brazil, make up more than half (52%) of GenAI enrollments on Coursera. It offers more than 4,600 courses and 55 Professional Certificates in up to 21 popular languages, including Arabic, Hindi, and Spanish. Coursera, a global online education platform, was launched in 2012 by two Stanford Computer Science professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller.
Pakistan's HEC (Higher Education Commission) has established a partnership with Coursera to give access to online quality education in Pakistan. As a result, more than 200 universities have gained access to Coursera’s library of courses. Over 267,000 courses have been completed with students logging over 1.4 million learning hours. More than 45,000 learners have achieved deep-skills specialized certifications from internationally recognized institutions, the most popular specializations being Communication, Data Analysis, and Leadership and Management, according to Coursera.
Ashar Aziz Foundation, created and funded by Pakistani-American technology entrepreneur Ashar Aziz, has sponsored Advanced AI Bootcamps at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Islamabad. The bootcamp series not only provides theoretical knowledge but also emphasizes practical, project-based learning, according to NUST.
The first AI bootcamp, which focused on Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), was successfully completed at NUST in November 2023. The second bootcamp provided participants with in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience in the development and application of LLMs (Large Language Models). Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences & Technology (GIKI) also joined this initiative in 2024, conducting its own DNN-focused bootcamp. Participants have the opportunity to work with advanced technologies, including access to a 10xH100 NVIDIA GPU AI supercomputer, ensuring they are well-prepared to tackle real-world challenges in AI. As part of its ongoing efforts, NUST plans to partner with additional universities across Pakistan to further scale this initiative, ensuring that more students have access to high-quality AI training, according to NUST.
Smaller towns in Pakistan are also setting up AI programs with the help of Pakistani-Americans. For example, Stanford educated AI expert Shoaib Lari and Silicon Valley based technology executive Jalil Shaikh have helped Islamia University Bahawalpur start an AI program. Jalil Shaikh is now working with US-based companies to place the first group of graduates from this program.
STEM education underlies Artificial Intelligence. Pakistan stands 4th in the world with 642,562 students enrolled in STEM courses– behind Nigeria (675,371), the US (4,639,771) and India (6,000,967), according to Coursera's Global Skills Report 2023. My own estimate based on HEC data is that STEM enrollment in Pakistan exceeds one million.
The Pakistan government has released its National AI Policy Draft for comments. It focuses on how AI can help the country promote its national competitiveness and improve the lives of its citizens by outlining a wide range of developmental initiatives necessary for awareness and adoption of AI, reimagining the transparent and fair use of personal data using AI, and stimulating innovation through industry-academia collaborations and investments in AI-led initiatives. The Pakistan government has set up a National Center for Artificial Intelligence (NCAI) at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST). NCAI has created a a consortium model consisting of 6 public sector universities with 9 specialized research centers spread across Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar.
Pakistan has also seen several private-sector led initiatives to create greater awareness of AI. For instance, Karachi.AI is recognized as a premier community for Applied AI practitioners. Established in 2017, the community proudly hosts over 10,000 members representing various domains. Its mission revolves around three central pillars: raising awareness, promoting engagement, and driving execution. Karachi. AI hosts regular meetups in Karachi, which are also live streamed on its YouTube channel, along with other educational content about AI.
In addition to skilled human capital, the GenAI apps require a lot of digital public infrastructure, powerful computers and large data centers to securely store and rapidly access vast amounts of data. A number of private investors are jumping in to build data centers in Pakistan. Mari Petroleum Company Limited (MPCL) is planning to develop data centers across the country as part of an expansion into digital infrastructure. Chakwal Spinning Mills Limited, has recently said it was pivoting to develop data centers.
Last week I attended a Silicon Valley fundraiser by iCodeGuru, a Pakistani-American group focusing on arranging training and guiding young men and women from underprivileged backgrounds to get full scholarships for advanced STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) degrees at universities in America. The well-attended event held at Chandni restaurant raised over $180,000. It featured iCodeGruru alumni who shared their success stories.
iCodeGuru Alumna Afsheen Ghuman Speaking at Silicon Valley Fundraiser.
The story of Afsheen Ghuman from Gujranwala shows how a poor girl from a small town can succeed in defying the odds with a little help from iCodeGuru team headed by Dr. Zafar Shahid. She was able to take advantage of the online platform remotely from her home. She is now studying at an American university with a fully funded scholarship. iCodeGuru uses its online platform to offer advice, training and financial assistance to get advanced technical education, scholarships and initial funding for successful candidates to come to the United States. Currently, there are 22,000 students signed up for help via the iCodeGuru platform.
There are several similar efforts underway by Silicon Valley Pakistani-Americans to help build Pakistan's human capital in technology. Ashar Aziz Foundation, created and funded by Pakistani-American technology entrepreneur Ashar Aziz, has sponsored Advanced AI Bootcamps at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Islamabad. The bootcamp series not only provides theoretical knowledge but also emphasizes practical, project-based learning, according to NUST.
The first AI bootcamp, which focused on Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), was successfully completed at NUST in November 2023. The second bootcamp provided participants with in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience in the development and application of LLMs (Large Language Models). Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences & Technology (GIKI) also joined this initiative in 2024, conducting its own DNN-focused bootcamp. Participants have the opportunity to work with advanced technologies, including access to a 10xH100 NVIDIA GPU AI supercomputer, ensuring they are well-prepared to tackle real-world challenges in AI. As part of its ongoing efforts, NUST plans to partner with additional universities across Pakistan to further scale this initiative, ensuring that more students have access to high-quality AI training, according to NUST.
Smaller towns in Pakistan are also setting up AI programs with the help of Pakistani-Americans. For example, Stanford educated AI expert Shoaib Lari and Silicon Valley based technology executive Jalil Shaikh have helped Islamia University Bahawalpur start an AI program. Jalil Shaikh is now working with US-based companies to place the first group of graduates from this program.
STEM education underlies Artificial Intelligence. Pakistan stands 4th in the world with 642,562 students enrolled in STEM courses– behind Nigeria (675,371), the US (4,639,771) and India (6,000,967), according to Coursera's Global Skills Report 2023. My own estimate based on HEC data is that STEM enrollment in Pakistan exceeds one million.
The year was 1986. Most personal computers used floppy disks to boot and to move files from one computer to another. Floppy disk was also the medium used by Amjad and Basit Alvi, two Pakistani brothers living in Lahore, to create and spread history's first known PC virus called "The Brain". Here's how Mikko Hypponen, a software security expert, described it last year at DEF CON, world's largest hackers convention held in Las Vegas:
Creators of First PC Virus: Amjad Farooq and Basit Farooq Alvi
"It's surprisingly advanced, and it has surprising features, including a capability of hiding itself. So when your PC is infected by Brain, and you go and look at your floppies, you will not see Brain on the floppies. It's watching you watching it, and if you try to look at the copy of Brain, it fools you and gives you a clean image of a floppy instead. And we would call this a stealth virus, at the time.... These guys weren't evil at all. They weren't evil even then, 25 years ago, when they wrote the first PC virus. Their intention was never to cause harm to anybody, and they didn't, of course, realize that they made history when they wrote the first PC virus. But Brain was the only virus they ever wrote and they never meant to destroy any data or cause any harm for anyone".
The Brain, also known as The Pakistani Brain, is the virus that challenged John McAfee to develop anti-virus software. Later, John McAfee launched his company that was acquired in 2010 by Intel for $7.7 billion. McAfee is just one of several security software companies inspired by the Pakistani Brain virus. Gartner estimates that the security software industry revenue was about $20 billion in 2013.
Here are some of the reasons for the success of Fire-eye as described by Business Insider:
1. The company's flagship product solves a really hard computer security problem. It is able to stop hack attacks that were previously almost impossible to stop.
2. FireEye bought another security firm, Mandiant, for $1 billion. Mandiant was famous for uncovering links between Chinese hackers and attacks on U.S. companies.
3. With Mandiant, FireEye launched a cloud computing security service that competes with SourceFire. SourceFire is the company Cisco bought last summer for $2.7 billion.
4. The company beat expectations on its fourth quarter with revenue of $57.3 million, a beat by $1.26 million, and EPS of $-0.35, a beat by $0.03.
5. Some Wall Street analysts have been really gung ho on the company. Wells Fargo started tracking it a month ago, saying it was "a once in a decade opportunity to invest in a truly disruptive technology."
The world has dramatically changed since the 1990s when Wintel ruled the roost. PC is no longer the dominant device. Smartphones and tablets have brought the era of mobile cloud computing where neither Intel nor Microsoft enjoy leadership position. Even developing countries like Pakistan are deploying cloud computing applications. A Google sponsored survey in Pakistan found that mobile computing is expected to overtake desktop computing this year. Several new and more innovative and powerful players have emerged to in this market.
As more and more enterprises embrace cloud-based computing, cloud security is becoming a hot area for many entrepreneurs. This shift means over $2 billion annual market for cloud security vendors like Fireeye and Elastica. Researchers at Gartner forecast the highest growth to occur in cloud-based tokenisation and encryption, security information and event management (SIEM), vulnerability assessment and web application firewalls.
Recently, a Silicon Valley cloud security start-up Ealstica was launched by Rehan Jalil, a Pakistani-American alumnus of NED University of Engineering, Karachi, Pakistan. Elastica received $6.3 million funding from Mayfield Ventures, a premier Silicon Valley Venture Capital firm.
Sabir Sami from Pakistan has been appointed the chief executive officer of KFC effective January 1, 2022, according to a YUM Brands announcement today. Sami, who currently serves as KFC Division Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of KFC Asia, will succeed Tony Lowings, who is stepping down as CEO at the end of 2021 in advance of his retirement in early 2022. Sabir Sami is a graduate of the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, Pakistan.
Sabir Sami, KFC
“Sabir is an exceptional leader with deep expertise and knowledge of our business and has a strong, proven track record of growing KFC’s physical and brand presence in markets around the world,” said David Gibbs, CEO of Yum Brands. “As a highly-respected strategic brand builder, operations expert and heart-led leader, Sabir is a natural choice to continue successfully executing KFC’s long-term global growth strategies in close partnership with our franchisees and further elevate KFC as a relevant, easy and distinctive (R.E.D.) brand.”
Sami Sabir graduated in 1988 with a Master's in Business Administration (MBA) degree from the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, Pakistan. He started his career at FMCG giant Proctor and Gamble (P&G) in Australia where he worked as assistant brand manager from 1989 to 1991. Then he transferred to P&G Pakistan where he served as brand manager from 1990-1994.
Sabir worked for four years at Coca Cola as regional marketing manager in Singapore before moving to Pakistan to work as general manager for Reckitt Benckiser from 2000-2009. He has been with Yum Brands since 2009.
IBA Karachi has produced many high-profile business and management leaders. Among them is Mr. Shaukat Aziz, former Prime Minister of Pakistan. Aziz served in senior management positions at Citibank in Pakistan, UAE, United States and elsewhere before returning to Pakistan to serve as Prime Minister under President Pervez Musharraf. Another prominent IBA alumnus is Asad Umar who is currently a minister in Prime Minister Imran Khan's cabinet. Umar was CEO of Engro Pakistan prior to becoming a government minister. Hasan Malik, an IBA alumnus, is a managing director at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street in New York. Hasan was a McKinsey & Company partner before joining Goldman Sachs.
The history of advanced business management education in Pakistan began with the founding of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in 1955 in Karachi. It was started in collaboration with the top-ranked Wharton School of Finance & Commerce at University of Pennsylvania. Additional help and support came from University of Southern California and USAID to set up facilities and train faculty. Now there are dozens of very high-quality business schools in the country, including LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences) and KSBL (Karachi School of Business Leadership).
Emmy award wins this year by British-Pakistani Rizwan Ahmed and Indian-American Aziz Ansari make the duo the first South Asian men to win the prestigious television academy award . It's the equivalent of Oscars given each year by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA).
Riz Ahmed
Rizwan Ahmed, an actor, rapper and activist also known as Riz MC, won his Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for HBO’s The Night Of. The show tackles issues of racism and Islamophobia in the United States.
Riz has seen a meteoric rise starting with films like 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist', ‘Four Lions,’ ‘The Road To Guantanamo’ and more recently the Star Wars Anthology film ‘Rogue One’. In April 2017, Ahmed was featured on the cover of Time magazine as one of its 100 most influential people in the world.
Riz was born in London in 1982 to British Pakistani parents who had migrated from Karachi in 1970s. He is a great grandson of Sir Shah Muhammad Sulaiman, the first British Indian to become the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court during the British Raj. He is a graduate of Oxford University with a degree in PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). He later studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
“It’s always strange reaping the rewards of a story that’s based on real world suffering,” Riz said in his acceptance speech at the Emmy's award ceremony. “But if this show has shown a light on some of the prejudice in our society, Islamophobia, some of the injustice in our justice system, then maybe that’s something.”
In addition to Riz Ahmed and Aziz Ansari as award winners, the Emmy Awards show also featured Pakistani-American Kumail Nanjiani, the star of "The Big Sick", on the red carpet.
Although Riz has begun “inching towards the Promised Land,” he still gets stopped and searched before boarding a plane every time he flies to the U.S., he wrote.
One person’s win does not fix “a systemic issue of inclusion,” Ahmed told the Washington Post backstage after the Emmys. “I think that’s something that happens slowly over time.”
Latest funding of Ashar Aziz's FireEye and Zia Yusuf's Streetline rank #1 and #4 among top 5 VC deals in Silicon Valley announced in January 2013, according to Silicon Valley Business Journal.
FireEye is riding high on a wave of growing cyber security concerns amidst increasing cyber attacks being reported almost daily from around the globe. FireEye's founder Asgar Aziz is among the top recognized experts in the field of Internet and computer security. With the recent $50 million round from top investors, the company has raised $100 million to date. The new funding comes from new and existing investors —
including Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs,
Juniper Networks, Silicon Valley Bank, and others.
Streetline is offering smartphone applications to help drivers find the increasingly scarce parking spots in crowded places. The company bills itself as "the leading provider of smart parking solutions to cities, garages, airports, universities and other private parking providers". The company has raised $25 million in January, 2013 from True Ventures, with participation by new investors Qualcomm Ventures and
Citi and existing investors Sutter Hill Ventures, RockPort Capital
Partners and Fontinalis Partners. The company has now raised a total of $40 million, and it says it
recently obtained a $25 million credit facility from Citi, too.
Another Pakistani-American who has been in the news is Rayid Ghani who served as the Chief Scientist in President Obama's re-election campaign organization. Before joining the Obama Campaign, Ghani worked for Accenture as Chief Scientist and developed tools to mine mountains of private data of client corporations to find statistical patterns that could forecast consumer behavior. Instead of just using Facebook for posting messages and
tracking its followers’ feelings, Ghani's
team turned social media into a tool for efficiently recruiting the
human resources it needed leading into the election’s home stretch.
Using Ghani's tools, the Obama campaign was able to match up supporters’ friends' profiles with voting
lists and decide how it should reach out to supporters to reach their
friends through micro-targeting. If someone was going to spread a message to 10 people, the
campaign wanted to ensure they reached 10 people most likely to take
actions such as donate money, get active knocking on doors or even to
switch sides.
Pakistani-Americans Ashar, Ghani, Zia and many other entrepreneurs and professionals like them from Asia represent a dramatic shift in Silicon Valley's racial mix over the last few decades. I have been a witness to this historic change. When I arrived here to join Intel in 1981, there were few non-whites in the Valley. In fact, I was the only nonwhite person in a picture of the six-member award winning Intel 80386 CPU design team which was published by the PC Magazine in 1988.
Standing L to R: Riaz Haq, Jan Prak, Gene Hill, Pat Gelsinger, John Crawford
Sitting: Dave Vannier
My experience of the demographic changes in this high-tech valley is not just anecdotal. It's supported by data compiled by the local San Jose Mercury newspaper in 2010. The data shows that 49% of Intel employees are now Asian, a full 7% more than whites. In Silicon Valley, the difference is even more pronounced with Asians accounting for 53.9% of the employees versus 37.6% white workers.
With Asians accounting for just 15.5% of the high-tech work force nationally, Silicon Valley's high-tech racial mix is also very different from the rest of the country. Silicon valley's employee pool also differs in terms of under-representation of Blacks, Hispanics and women relative the national averages.
Among Asian-Americans, Pakistani-Americans are the 7th largest community in America, according to a report titled "A Community of Contrasts Asian Americans in the United States: 2011" published by Asian-American Center For Advancing Justice. Pakistani-American population has doubled from 204,309 in 2000 to 409,163 in 2010, the second largest percentage increase after Bangladeshis' 157% increase in the same period.
The total fertility rate in the United States is now at 2.06, just enough to maintain the current level of US population. It's possible mainly due to the history of relatively liberal US immigration policy. If US immigration policy is tightened in response to pressures from various labor organizations and the traditional anti-immigration groups, the US fertility rate is likely to dip and hurt the US economy which needs more workers to pay for the retiree benefits of the growing population of senior citizens. Already, many US multinational corporations have added 1.5 million workers to their
payrolls in Asia and the Pacific region from 1999 to 2009, and 477,500
workers in Latin America, according to US Commerce Dept data as
reported by the Wall Street Journal. If the businesses can not find workers in the United States, they are more likely to continue to accelerate moving jobs elsewhere, depriving the US government the revenue it needs to balance its budget.
US President Joseph R. Biden has signed a sweeping executive order to promote competition in a wide range of industries from big tech to telecommunications, transportation, banking and healthcare. This order has come within weeks of the appointment of young Pakistani-American law professor Lina Khan as the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chairperson. Lina Khan, 32, is the youngest FTC chairperson in American history. She now holds one of the most powerful positions in the US government.
Biden Handing Pen to Lina Khan After Signing Executive Order
Biden's executive order includes 72 initiatives for federal agencies, targeting issues such as excessive early termination fees charged by internet companies, which hinder users from switching service providers. It calls for the end of noncompete agreements that block workers from moving to rival employers, according to Nikkei Asia. “Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation,” Mr. Biden said before signing the order. “Without healthy competition, big players can change and charge whatever they want, and treat you however they want. And for too many Americans that means accepting a bad deal for things that you can’t go without.”
Lina's 2017 seminal paper entitled "Amazon's Anti-trust Paradox" broke new ground in the application of anti-trust law against powerful technology monopolies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter. Traditionally, the US anti-trust actions have been focused on keeping consumer prices low. This narrow focus has helped big technology companies companies like Amazon, with its low prices, or Google and Facebook with their “free” services, to avoid anti-trust scrutiny.
Lina was born in London in 1989 to Pakistani parents who migrated to the United States when she was 11. She graduated from Williams College with a BA degree and then studied law at Yale University. She is now an associate professor at Columbia Law School in New York City.
Anti-Trust Scholar Lina Khan
US tech companies are facing increasing scrutiny in Washington over their growing size and power. In October 2019, an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee issued a 449-page report. It accused the big technology companies of charging high fees, forcing smaller customers into unfavorable contracts and of using "killer acquisitions" to constrain competitors. "To put it simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons," it said. The appointment of Lina Khan as FTC commissioner sends a clear signal to the US tech giants that the Biden administration means business.
Lina Khan acknowledges the popularity of the convenience and the free services offered by the large technology giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google but she worries about the longer-term implications of their anti-competitive behavior. “As consumers, as users, we love these tech companies,” she said. “But as citizens, as workers, and as entrepreneurs, we recognize that their power is troubling. We need a new framework, a new vocabulary for how to assess and address their dominance", she told the New York Times.
Biden Handing Pen to Lina Khan After Signing Executive Order
Biden's executive order includes 72 initiatives for federal agencies, targeting issues such as excessive early termination fees charged by internet companies, which hinder users from switching service providers. It calls for the end of noncompete agreements that block workers from moving to rival employers, according to Nikkei Asia. “Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation,” Mr. Biden said before signing the order. “Without healthy competition, big players can change and charge whatever they want, and treat you however they want. And for too many Americans that means accepting a bad deal for things that you can’t go without.”
Lina's 2017 seminal paper entitled "Amazon's Anti-trust Paradox" broke new ground in the application of anti-trust law against powerful technology monopolies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter. Traditionally, the US anti-trust actions have been focused on keeping consumer prices low. This narrow focus has helped big technology companies companies like Amazon, with its low prices, or Google and Facebook with their “free” services, to avoid anti-trust scrutiny.
Lina was born in London in 1989 to Pakistani parents who migrated to the United States when she was 11. She graduated from Williams College with a BA degree and then studied law at Yale University. She is now an associate professor at Columbia Law School in New York City.
Anti-Trust Scholar Lina Khan
US tech companies are facing increasing scrutiny in Washington over their growing size and power. In October 2019, an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee issued a 449-page report. It accused the big technology companies of charging high fees, forcing smaller customers into unfavorable contracts and of using "killer acquisitions" to constrain competitors. "To put it simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons," it said. The appointment of Lina Khan as FTC commissioner sends a clear signal to the US tech giants that the Biden administration means business.
Lina Khan acknowledges the popularity of the convenience and the free services offered by the large technology giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google but she worries about the longer-term implications of their anti-competitive behavior. “As consumers, as users, we love these tech companies,” she said. “But as citizens, as workers, and as entrepreneurs, we recognize that their power is troubling. We need a new framework, a new vocabulary for how to assess and address their dominance", she told the New York Times.
