Winner of PKR 1 Million announced by Microsoft

Microsoft Mobile Devices & Services (MMDS) Pakistan has successfully completed the 1st phase of “Lumia Jeet Ka Khazana” and announced the names of winners in the first week of June 2015. First prize of PKR 1 Million and 20 prizes of PKR 50,000 were distributed among the lucky winners. Following are the names of lucky winners.

The winner of PKR 1 Million is Syed Amir Shah from Peshawar. The winners of the PKR 50,000 are as follows: Saifullah Rao from Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Sehrish Shakoor from Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Umair Ali from Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Farah Pervez from Karachi, Durriya Mansoor Hussein from Karachi, Shoaib Khalid from Karachi, Muhammad Jawad Mehdi from Lahore, Muhammad Jamil from Lahore, Amyad Justin from Lahore, Muhammad Waqas from Faisalabad, Mudassir Ali from Faisalabad, Mohammed Shakeel from Faisalabad, Hammad Hassan Ahmed from Multan, Tauseef Ali Khan from Multan, Khizer Abbas from Multan, Mohammed Arsalan Tahir from Peshawar, Syed Abdul Hadi Bukhari from Rahim Yar Khan, Gul Hassan from Shikarpur, Akhtar Rasool from Khanewal and Shazia Siddiqui from Shikarpur.

An independent third party audit firm has been taken on board by Microsoft Mobile Devices & Services Pakistan to ensure the legitimacy of the campaign whereby lucky draw process in being scrutinized under its watchful eye to ensure the distribution of prizes to the winners is absolutely transparent.With the end of the first lucky draw, Microsoft “Lumia Jeet Ka Khazana” has now entered the phase 2 of the campaign. The second lucky draw for phase 2 will be held on 28th June, 2015 where 10 prizes of PKR 100,000, and two prizes of PKR 500,000 shall be distributed among the winners.

Speaking on the occasion Mohammad Kamran Khan, General Manager, Microsoft Mobile Device and Services, Pakistan said “We are thrilled with the response we have received with Lumia Jeet Ka Khazana. This competition is in line with our ambition to bring affordable windows phone for all.

Hence, we are challenging the digital generation to use windows mobile communication technology to improve their lives, get more of what they want and feel more empowered. We are now looking forward to the second lucky draw where the biggest attraction will be the grand prize of BMW 2016 Model 318i along with other cash prizes”.

The grand prize of the campaign is a brand new BMW 2016 Model 318i, which will make the winner one of the first few owners of the vehicle in the world. Every customer buying a Microsoft Lumia 535 Dual SIM (DS), Microsoft Lumia 430, Microsoft Lumia 640XL and the recently announced Microsoft Lumia 540 Dual SIM (DS) smartphone will be entitled to enter this campaign.To participate, all you have to do is purchase one of these Lumia device with fool proof sticker on the sales pack and send the number on the scratch card (available inside the box) to 8881 with the phone’s IMEA number. Every customer will get a call balance of PKR 500 within 72 hours of activation of their Lumia Device making every customer a winner.

It’s time for all the Lumia fans to get hold of their favorite Lumia out of the ones mentioned earlier and get a chance to win a brand new BMW 2016 model as well as other high worth cash prizes.

Solar Powered ATMs to clean Drinking Water in Pakistan

Thirsty? Soon, you could be getting clean water from a solar powered ATM through the use of a smart card. The innovative solution is set to be launched in Punjab very soon.Physically, the machine is quite similar to an ATM. Occupying a space of two square feet, it can be used to claim a daily share of clean water through the use of a smart card.

It’s a prototype borne of the collaboration between Punjab Saaf Pani Company and the Innovations for Poverty Alleviation Lab (IPAL), a research center in Lahore. The water ATM is all set to be installed alongside water filtration plants in rural areas and the outskirts of major urban areas in Punjab.

Jawad Abbasi, program manager at IPAL, said:

The machine is designed to help the government cut water waste and ensure people have access to clean water. The innovative machines will help the government maintain a record of the exact quantity of clean drinking water being dispensed in a day in a specific locality, besides ensuring its quality. The quality and quantity of water being dispensed will be tracked in real time online through a central server.

The way the machine works is pretty simple. An audio message is played every time an ATM card is authenticated, you get two buttons for starting and stopping the flow of water and sensors keep a track of how much water has been dispensed and how much remains.

The first phase of the project will see Bahawalpur, Faisalabad and Rajanpur being fitted with water ATMs. These districts in Punjab are particularly known for water contamination issues. Per family, 30 liters of drinkable water will be available on a daily basis.

Jawad Abbasi said:

We are planning to install the machines at 20 filtration plants in the first phase that will benefit some 17,500 families. The organisation is seeking $23,500 in aid from the UK Department of International Development to put the prototype into production and install more of the dispensing machines at existing water filtration plants in Punjab.

The project was born out of a need for clean water for the masses. According to the Punjab Saaf Pani Company, in Punjab, which houses 98 million people:

• 13% people in rural areas have access to tap water
• 43% people in urban areas have access to tap water

Things don’t look better when you take the whole country into account. According to Pakistan’s national drinking water policy, 35% of the country’s population doesn’t have access to safe drinking water. Estimates for the diseases related to poor water sanitation and hygiene cost the economy over 112 billion every year.

35% of the Pakistan’s population doesn’t have access to safe drinking water

Keeping in mind the magnitude of the situation at hand, Punjab government has allocated 20 billion rupees to provide clean water to the people. The clean drinking water project aims to provide more than 35 million people with water in 2 years.

It’s one of the top priorities of the provincial government, to ensure provision of clean drinking water in each locality, as access to clean water is a fundamental human right. The clean water will be provided free of cost but beneficiary communities will pool money each month to pay for maintenance of the ATMs and filtration plants.

Water wastage is a huge issue and systems such as the water ATM, which is already being implemented in neighboring India, are critical to making sure we manage our resources properly.

According to Nazir Ahmed Wattoo, an environmental expert with the Punjab Organisation for Social Welfare, the real test will be whether the water dispensing centers are maintained and effectively monitored. He added that Pakistan needed to build new water reservoirs as well since the current water storage capacity is at 30 days, one fourth of what is needed.

via Tribune

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Online Shops Lie About Their Inventory and This is Killing E-commerce Industry in Pakistan!

How often have you come across a situation when you were told that the item you selected to purchase from an online store is actually out of stock? Or your order got notably late because of some procedural delays? Or that your order got cancelled altogether due to some system errors? If you’ve faced any of these situations, than you are not alone.A whole lot of consumers — who despite all the odds trust Pakistani online shops — undergo similar situations and their orders are either delayed or are never delivered. This can get uglier if you have paid in advance, such as through credit or debit cards because refund can take weeks, or even months.

Here is why it all happens:

Online shops lie. They lie about the items they display on their websites. They pose as if they are Walmart of Pakistan having thousands of items mentioned on their websites but in reality they don’t stock anything with them. I know a few stores that don’t stock a single item but their web-stores are filled with variety of products ranging from dresses to electronics to sports and medicine.

These huge looking online-shops buy products from open-markets only after an order is placed with them. This is how they avoid large-scale investments, which is wise, but this whole practice causes delays or cancellations and ultimately these shops earn disgruntled customers causing serious mistrust among the masses.

Majority of online-stores buy products from open-market only after an order is placed

One of my friend once ordered a  product from Daraz.pk, and paid with a credit card in advance. The order took more than 15 days instead of 4-9 days of advertised delivery time, which I believe is a deal breaker. Upon investigation we found out that Daraz actually had to order the product from Dubai and it took them over a week to have product with them to finally get it dispatched to the customer.

A similar situation arose just this week for Abdul Sattar Ansari who ordered one split AC (Air Conditioner) that was offered on promotion with 25% discount. Instead of getting the delivery of AC, he was instead told by Daraz that the order was cancelled due to a system error and his money (around Rs. 30,000) will be refunded.

After 15 days of initial payment, Mr. Ansari is still awaiting a refund and matter is reportedly yet not resolved. He is planning to sue to company for holding his payment for this long for no reason.

Daraz told me that delay in Mr. Ansari’s refund is due to banking procedures and it will be cleared as soon as it will be possible. But my real question that why a promotion was put online when Daraz didn’t have sufficient inventory went unanswered.

Daraz said that they are a marketplace and the vendor went out of stock when the promotion went viral. They had ultimately no stock and hence had to cancel orders.

Orders are cancelled or a different product is deliberately delivered when online stores can’t arrange ordered product from open market

Unfortunately, these incidents aren’t rare and aren’t specific to Daraz only. As I explained above, almost every online story tend to display products that they don’t have with them.

Since online stores have usually thousands of products listed with them on their websites, prices of several products go high and they find out about hiked prices only after getting the order when they go out to market to buy them. Instead of bearing the loss, online-shops tend of cancel the order altogether and whole exercise of fire-fight between store and customer is repeated.

Almost every online-store understands this and they know that their deeds have to be corrected but to win over competition they aren’t able to straighten their acts. In return, an already struggling industry is getting hurt and those select people who used to trust online shops are losing their faith too.

Lying about inventory to win-over the competition will one day kill the e-commerce industry altogether and these online shops won’t have any customers to tell a single lie.

Ufone to Charge WhatsApp Calls With Regular Data Tariffs

Ufone has decided to charge WhatsApp calls as per regular data tariffs, i.e. Rs. 20 for 1st MB and then 19 MBs free. Regular usage of WhatsApp will be charged from data bundles volumes as per routine. New pricing mechanism is effective immediately.WhatsApp calls, with all the amazing quality, have turned out to be a real threat for telcos, especially in developing markets where voice revenues are still notable and contribute a major share towards overall revenues of telecom operators.

Even worse for such telcos, WhatsApp calls work like a charm on 3G networks and this is exactly why Ufone has decided to charge WhatsApp calls as per regular data tariffs instead of bucket volume.

@ProPakistaniPK @Ufone is now charging #whatsapp voice calls as per standard 3g tariff #shameonufone pic.twitter.com/PuvnmiVDMz

— Muhammad Ashraf (@ashraf_dakhni) May 12, 2015

We anticipate that other operators, with exception of one or two, might follow Ufone.

Foodpanda launches Pakistan Food Festival 2015

Pakistan’s leading mobile and online food ordering platform foodpanda.pk has continued its digital food festival cycle by launching The Pakistan Food Festival this week.For the first time ever, the festival has been extended to seven days, commencing from 11th May to 17th May, 2015. More than fifty deals/discounts will be offered from an extensive range of 1,000+ restaurants across Pakistan.

On the announcement of this festival, Talha Ansari, foodpanda.pk Co-Managing Director shares,

“We have revived upon the unique idea of digital food festivals this month by making it even bigger and better than the previous campaigns enjoyed by our customers. The idea is not limited to deals and discounts. We aim to deliver the promised value added service”

PFF2015 is the eighth link in a chain of seven other festivals organized by foodpanda, which include The Great Karachi Pizza Festival, The Nationwide Fast Food Festival, The Chinese Food Festival, The Nationwide Pizza Festival, The New Year Carnival BestOf2014 and Food Jazba – a festival that was inspired by the Cricket World Cup.

foodpanda.pk co-MD Ahsan Mateen further adds,

“Our focus this festival is aligned two ways: one is to maintain consistency in innovative offerings and other to deliver best value for customer’s money. This festival will be a testimony of our profound service standards.”

Some of the biggest restaurants from Karachi, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore are taking part. Household names such as KFC, Domino’s Pizza, 14th Street Pizza, New York Pizza, Red Apple, Subway, Golden Dragon, Broadway Pizza and many others have already confirmed their participation with exciting offers.

Other restaurants participating in the festival can be accessed by downloading foodpanda mobile app for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.