Faisal Qureshi

Popularity: 50% [?]

Startup Insiders session #7 - Karachi

 Here it is again.  This time more focused, and hopefully better than ever.  For those who have been coming to the sessions, you better be there.  Those who have been procrastinating… oh well….

For details please refer to the following:

• Jehan’s blog
• Jedi’s blog
• Green & White blog - Even though they’ve dissociated from SI’s.

P. S.  We obviously love talking.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Why did I quit Dawn

I have received an overwhelming number of queries and complaints about my absence from Breakfast At Dawn. Yes. It is confirmed that I have ended my career at Dawn News for the time being. Why? Long story. But the short of it is that I’m not a media person. I had set out, with my friends Umar, Tania, and my wife Reema, to change the country; to make a difference. In that effort we had started a social awareness (not reform) TV show called Loose Ends. By the grace of God, the TV show got more popular than we had ever imagined, and in spite of great opposition, stayed on air for 44 weeks. Before the TV show was finally “shut down“, it transformed into a Social Awareness Movement by the name of Loose Ends Pakistan.

Shortly after the end of the show, my buddy Umar (who had created Loose Ends) decided to sell shop in Karachi and move to the United Kingdom. His departure sort of broke the chain, and things slowed down.

Dawn TV made me an offer to do their breakfast show, and it seemed like the thing to do. I spent almost a year with Dawn News, working on the breakfast show, and it was the most educational, professional, and enlightening experience. Dawn, no doubt is one of the very best news channels in Pakistan; and the breakfast show gave me 2.5 hours of live transmission, 5 days week. In short, it was an unmatched experience. BUT, it was nothing like Loose Ends, which I had originally set out to do.

My websites, blogs, profiles, have repeatedly quoted:

What man is a man who does not make the world better? (From the Latin Inscription: Nemo vir est qui mundum non reddat meliorem)

When going through life you should always stop to ask whether you’re a taker or a giver. My answer to myself was, I want to be a giver, but I had of late become a taker. Cleaning up my archives, I came across the following clip and I realized that I had lost focus and was drifting away from my calling in life. Thus the sudden departure from Dawn, in the hope that I will be start something like Loose Ends again, very soon.

Popularity: 51% [?]

An anchor’s nightmare

Boemerang

Popularity: 26% [?]

SI5 - Islamabad

Mmmm… things didn’t really go as planned.  It’s tempting to get  on the soapbox and my two cents worth, but I guess enough has already been said.  Thus, I’ll just link what’s already out there.

•  An angry Jedi (Jawwad)
• Still angry Jedi
• Jedi cooling down
• Not so happy Osama

All I’d say is that everyone needs to learn what “empathy” is.  Steamrolling people without looking into their eyes is, in my opinion, one of  the biggest mistakes people make.  In my experience as a TV anchor, we often come across personalities, some politicians in particular, who want to use their 15 minutes of TV glory to rapidly and very aggressively say what they feel they have been longing to say forever.  The moment one gets an opportunity they spread their peacock feathers, and break into a mating dance, with a complete disregard of their audience.  The lady peakcocks in the audience may find the mating dance very attractive, but other males of the same species, and animals from other species have no interest in the call, and at times even find it very offensive and insulting.

With that quick lesson and cross-post to my Relationship Quotient, let’s move on and try to form a coalition government in the better interest of our audience.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Why I do it - Part 3

Jawwad Farid’s review of the Startup Initiative.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Why I do it - Part 2

Jehan Ara, has written a rather detailed review of the last startup session.  I am a lazy man and will simply copy a link to it, rather than getting into a ramble.  As it is I’m accused of talking too much

It feels so right by Jehan Ara

Popularity: 19% [?]