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YLES 13th Edition Report

The following report highlights key fact and relevant information regarding the 13th edition of the Young Leaders’ and Entrepreneurs’ Summit

  • Dates: 23rd December – 27th December (5-day event)
  • Held right after the final exams (one of the biggest challenges for this year was to prepare for the summit during the dead week and final exams)
  • Introduced a new delegation system where participants were not divided as ‘head delegates’ and ‘delegates’, but rather were assigned the following roles at time of registration:
    • Managing Director
    • Finance Director
    • Marketing Director
    • Operations Director
    • Communications Director
      • This system inculcated a sense of responsibility within the delegates and also ensured equal participation across a team as a different round put varying levels of responsibility on different position holders

The theme for this year was ‘be inspired’ – the logic behind this was to portray that one must have some source of inspiration before they can venture out onto their entrepreneurial journey. Each delegate was also given the following card to note down their goals and important learning points over the course of YLES:

A new format was introduced for the networking night – firstly there was a panel talk in the academic block courtyard, led by Hina Rabbani Khar and Ahmed Khan (founder and CEO of cheetay). Secondly, there was a networking session in the academic block courtyards where panels of 4-5 mentors (comprising of CEO’s and industry experts) were placed in each aud and participants were divided amongst the auds to go to their respective panel and receive feedback on their business idea (that they will be using for their idea junction round). This was very well received by both the mentors and the students – who received valuable feedback on their ideas.

Present at the networking night was also our Official Incubator Partner – ID 92, which is another milestone for us. Not only did ID 92 set up a stall at our networking night and provide delegates with feedback but they also provided us with CEO’s and industry experts to judge the final round of Idea Junction. Currently ID92 is in contact with the top 3 position holders in the idea junction round to offer them potential incubation as part of our partnership this year. This was a big deal for us as the ultimate purpose of an entrepreneurial competition is to provide exposure and support to the business ideas being presented at it. The Co-founder of ID 92, Nabeel Qadeer also gave a presentation at our opening ceremony where he talked about the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Pakistan.

  • YLES this year also had an official app, which was used for the following purposes:
    • Navigating across LUMS (and posting the venues for rounds)
    • Posting scores
    • Advertising sponsors
    • Assigning internal duties
  • The YLES host team ramped up its academic prowess by writing original case studies, all in all we wrote the following cases and rounds:
    • 5 cases on failing brands for the round Brand Rush
    • 12 cases on companies that face Public Relations crisis, for the round Plug It In
    • A market entry case on Starbucks for the round Strategic Business Management
    • A case on a hypothetical airline for the final round of Strategic Business Management
    • An extensive storyline based on a hypothetical country along with profiles of 10 different companies for the first round of Investomania *more on this later
    • A set of news updates for Investomania Round 2
    • 8 cases, adapted from those provided by Seed Out, for the first round of Social Enterprise
    • 3 cases for the final round of Social Enterprise

Investomania Round 1: A new concept was introduced for investomania Round 1 where a stock market simulation was created in a hypothetical country. This was done in person in the free parking where we had set up 10 stock broker booths and a news centre. The news Centre comprised of 2 SMD Screens where news updates were posted at regular intervals along with price updates. There were a total of 10 companies and the finance director from each company could approach any of the stockbrokers to buy/sell/trade shares. The Entech Project of LES created an entire ‘stockbroker’ application to allow transactions to be carried out in real time. This entire project and concept took over 5 months to develop and shows the devotion of the host team to enhance the quality of the rounds at YLES.

Investomania Round 2: This round built on the concept introduced last year and created a trading game where the finalists had to trade the following commodities in real time: oil, wheat and rice. Each team was given a PC in trade lab where they had to play the game on a java interface created by the Entech Project of LES. This was again a standalone application created just for this round.

  • 25th December: Christimas Carnival – a first of its kind social event held in LUMS. The Christmas night was held in the REDC lawn and it was a fun time with a lot of music, dance, and Christmas décor!
  • 26th December: Concert – YLES brought strings to LUMS for the 2nd time and it was perhaps the highlight of the entire event
  • Bilal Bin Saqib was the speaker for the closing ceremony and he talked about entrepreneurship and his start up Tayyabah
  • The Marketing and Corporate Relations Department of LES set a new record this year for the highest amount of sponsorship ever brought by a society
  • For the first time ever, YLES had international delegates – a total of 15 international students from Nepal and Afghanistan. Thus, growing our image internationally!
  • As part of our social outreach program we had to SOP teams compete at YLES this year for free. These students belong to schools from underprivileged areas and were provided mentorship throughout the event. For the first time ever, an SOP team won one of the winning prizes as they placed third in the Investomania Round

 

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Removing the Taboo One Conversation at a Time

The sunlight dances its way into the room through the huge windows as soft music plays in the background, yet the atmosphere inside remains tense. A young woman clad in a burqa sits on a sofa, clearly distressed. I cannot see her face, but her eyes water up as if in pain. Her voice falters as she proclaims, “Zindagi buri lagti hai…khatam karnay ka dil karta hai” (Life itself seems to be horrible, I sometimes want to end it). Across from her sits Dr. Fareed Aslam Minhas.

Dr. Minhas is a psychiatrist- perhaps one amongst a limited number in Pakistan. As he welcomes me into his clinic during the afternoon on a Monday, I get a quick look into what is my first ever visit to a psychiatrist in Pakistan. The office itself seems to defy my expectations of the typical whitewashed doctor’s office filled with the distinct smell of medicines and blood veiled by antiseptics. One side looks into the garden outside with big windows stretching up to the ceiling. A watercolor painting of a cat faces one of the many comfortable seats lying around. An armchair sits in one corner, behind it the wall is covered by huge wooden cabinets that hold papers and books.  The doctor himself sits in the center, in a swivel chair that he moves around in as patients come and go. He is impeccably dressed in a black suit, a bright pink tie loosely fastened around the collar.

“I think I was in my third year of medical school when I learnt about a woman who was operated on twice- yet it was later discovered that her ailment was mental and not physical. It was then that I realized how psychological and social factors in illness are neglected in our country.”, says the doctor, as he explains his choice of profession to me. Born in Rawalpindi to a large family with 6 siblings above him, Dr. Minhas breaks into a smile as he tells me he had eight parents to supervise him growing up. He moved on to do his MBBS from Rawalpindi Medical College, where he specialized in Psychiatry. It has been a long road since then, and 30 years into his practice he tells me that psychiatric disorders are not only misunderstood by the community, but also by the medical profession in Pakistan.

“Either there are physical problems or there are medical problems, but people by and large tend to disregard mental illnesses due to the belief systems our population has”, he tells me, taking off his thinly framed glasses. Dr. Minhas has throughout his successful career, tried to raise awareness about mental illnesses. Having remained the head of the Institute of psychiatry at Rawalpindi Medical College and the Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Benazir Bhutto Hospital, he has overlooked various projects that work on removing the taboo from mental illnesses in Pakistan, while improving the facilities available to both psychiatrists and patients. It has not been an easy journey.

“You do get problems from time to time. There are certain people who find it difficult to leave treatments, and that is when sad incidents take place. I’ve been hit by my patients several times; my colleagues have faced the same. The people we are dealing with don’t understand what is right and wrong- they lose that sanity, that control over their behavior and actions”, he says.

As patients walk in, the doctor gets up to greet them, remembering their names with ease and greeting them in different ways. He disarms them with his warm smile, making the occasional joke and letting them rant about their problems. As a couple walk in, the woman complains about her husband to the doctor, who responds by jovially remarking “Wo shohar hi kya jo tang na karay” (What sort of a husband is he who doesn’t bother his wife at all). The patient almost at once falls into ease, smiling at his response. Expecting him to use medical jargon, I am left surprised at the way he translates the diagnosis he has for his patients:

“Imagine that you have to go to Siachen from Rawalpindi- you can either walk or take the plane. The plane will get you there faster. These medicines were supposed to be that plane you took on your route to faster recovery. However, we will take the longer route now- but we will still get there.” he says as he reassures a worried patient whose medications are not having the desired effect.

As we fall into a conversation about the recent cases of child abuse in Pakistan, he remarks sadly that child sex abuse is so common in the Pakistani society that around 1 out of 5 patients that he gets have suffered from child abuse at some point in their lives, which has affected their behavior as adults.

“Unfortunately, we live in a very hypocritical society. We choose not to talk about these things- the things that need to be talked about. All the players who matter are involved themselves in the sad events that take place during child abuse. That is how I view my society as a psychiatrist”.

As our meeting moves towards an end, I ask the doctor about his views on the media and its portrayal of mentally ill patients- who are (usually) sadly portrayed raging lunatics, with poorly crafted stories of supernatural control over these patients. Dr. Minhas seems to be upset about this. “The portrayal of mental health in the media is itself stigmatizing the cause of mental health in this country. They simply don’t seem to care- they are more concerned about what news brings in more money”. He does, however, remark that the media too can help join the fight against mental illnesses by showing them as they are and not creating a warped image of people who are victims of various mental illnesses just to create content that the public enjoys at the expense of others.

At the end of the meeting, Dr. Minhas remarks that it is his ability to affect people’s lives for the better with the knowledge he has, that motivates him every single day. As I leave his clinic, I take with me a changed perspective on the world of psychiatry in Pakistan and a renewed hope in the state of the psychiatric care in Pakistan, through the commitment of individuals like Dr. Fareed Aslam Minhas who leave no stone unturned in their fight against mental illnesses.

 

 

 

 

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Restoration of Basant Festival

Restoration of Basant Festival

“Punjab Government recently announced its decision to celebrate Basant festival in the second week of February thus lifting the 12-year ban on this celebration which marks the advent of spring”

This news was met with joy especially by the people of Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot and adjoining areas where even the ban could not suppress the people from displaying their love for flying large colorful kites. The past governments had banned the celebrations in order to avoid injuries and deaths caused as a result of the festival but since the supreme court clarified that there is no restriction on celebrating Basant as long as it remains under the extent of law and boundaries defined by the government. Coated with abrasive materials, kite strings often become the cause of injury and death of people, to avoid such mishaps, Punjab’s information minister told reporters that a committee comprising of Punjab’s law minister and other administrative people would deliberate and propose plans to avoid such sad incidents from taking place.

Basant festival has its roots in our culture. In every culture, people welcome spring with celebrating different festivals. The celebration of Basant can be traced back to the era of Ranjeet Singh who declared holidays for as long as ten days to appease the masses. The festival holds great importance for Hindus who celebrate the creative energy and power of goddess Saraswati. While for the majority of muslim population of Pakistan, Basant is still considered a cultural heritage, a festival which is celebrated for the positive synergy it creates amongst the common people.

Banning the Basant Festival had affected many in an adverse manner as a great many people who had their livelihoods linked with providing kites, strings and similar products found themselves out of work. Not only would the restoration of Basant boost economic activity but it will also promote tourism and increase goodwill among the people who long to have such events where they can experience festivities, and socialize while, in this case, enjoying the view of a sky full of color and competition.

In the words of a luminite, Shehreyar from Gujranwala, “I can’t wait to go back to my village and feel the adrenaline by flying kites with everyone”. While this may not be the case for many but it is easy to say that a lot of people have positive albeit dormant memories of the festival, the revival of which will make a lot of them happy.

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When I find you….

When I find you… 

When I find you through the darkness of my life, the light of you mocks my own existence and decays me to nothing. 

And I rise with joy, oh yes! I have discovered the biggest truth of my life: what really exists is you. 

Let me imagine my existence, 

let me perceive truthfulness and let me hope for the single candela of that light. 

Not because I love that darkness, truthfulness and the light of you but because I live only because you exist…

Only when I find you, I try to live

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Cloth on my face

It’s just a cloth on my face

It’s just a cloth on my face

Don’t look at me so

Don’t raise the eyebrows

Don’t turn your faces

Don’t ignore my views

Don’t make judgments about me

It’s just a cloth on my face

I am scared to go ‘all black’ today

Because I am scared to hear ‘ninja’ in the silence that spreads

Each day I adorn myself with ‘colour’

While inside the voiceless comments suffocate me

I dress while always fearing their ‘liberalism’

I am scared to go out today, though I wonder

Isn’t it just a cloth on my face?

I see people I know pass by me

Every time I have to stop and wave at them

I have to wait for them to recognize

I have to wait for them to see

I have to wait for them to acknowledge

Every time I wonder, why don’t you see?

Don’t sell me excuses of how the cloth hides me

It’s just a cloth, there is so much more to me

The way I walk

The way I speak

Says a lot about me

If you only cared to stop and see

Don’t you dare sell me excuses about how you failed to see

As soon as I walk in a room

The cloth on my face stands out more than me

A silence spreads and eyes bore into me

Each glance is loaded with judgment

Each person maintains a distance

I want to ask so much

What is it that repels you so much?

It’s just a cloth on my face

I want to scream out to you

I want to be heard

I want to be seen

I want to be known

Because there is so much more to me than the cloth on my face

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Agents of change

Opinions, opinions

Incessant, aplenty

Unsafe to voice them,

Unsafe to act

Guards who swear

Protection and safety

Would not hesitate

To break the pact

The worth of life

Is not much more

Than a few bills of cash

We take to our keyboards

And Facebook and Twitter

In a hurry to bash

To lash

Out at the world – the system that seems so unfair

But none of us can dare

To actually care

Enough to start with ourselves

And change what we can.

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LUMS from the lens of a Freshman   

The greatest moment of happiness was when I got my LUMS acceptance letter, instantly Facebook and WhatsApp groups were made where people talked about joys of Oweek and horrors of enrollment. Everyone was happy wondering about life at LUMS especially about hostel-life. On my check-in day, I was a little scared about living away from home. I can still feel the excitement and fear in my heart which I sensed when I entered LUMS. First night was a bit troubling as I was new to this place and knew nothing. I felt like an outsider to this ‘bubble’ of LUMS but I was able to make it. I met a few Facebook friends and we talked about practices and places at LUMS and about courses while sitting at Khokha. Next day was our orientation day and from then on a whole orientation week kicked off. Orientation day was great. Speeches delivered by the Dean of HSS and Law were the best ones. My mother also came to orientation and I had to meet her. When I left to meet her after orientation, the scene of hall changed. I was in middle of a talk when I saw coaches lifting banners and shouting their group numbers and slogans. I soon had to leave my mom because I didn’t want to miss the fun. I found my group in the flood of students. A few of my group members were already there. We all started shouting our group name and slogan. It felt like battle of slogans; all trying to shout louder and louder and struggling to win the battle. We then left to sit in a ground and had icebreaking session. We had different activities during the whole week which helped me in getting comfortable with the environment of LUMS and understanding how it functions. I learnt a lot, met amazing people and coaches, and gained confidence. I am grateful to especially those people who guided and advised me about the life at LUMS and they are still there to help. We freshmen enjoyed O’week a lot but didn’t know this was the silence before storm: the Enrollment. Our breaths were hooked up on the day of Enrollment. We all were advised to go to respective labs at least two hours earlier. I had enrollment at 12:00 pm and I was at the lab at 8:30 am just to be on the safe side. I was not alone. Many students were at the door of lab. We waited and waited but didn’t move from the lab entrance because we were told you won’t get seats. At last, clock ticked 12:00; the students who were already in there came out and we rushed in. We were given an introductory session about how to enroll, what to do, and how to deal with Zambeel. We had to place our courses in shopping cart between 12:30-12:59 pm and enroll them at sharp 1:00. The whole period was numbing. I could feel a mantle clock ticking in my brain. It felt like a ticking bomb, ready to explode at any time. The clock struck 1:00 and everyone started clicking on enroll button holding their breaths. Lab was in utter silence. As for me, I could feel blood rushing in my cheeks, my palms getting sweaty and heartbeat getting fast. I was reciting all the duas I could remember in my mind. I clicked on “Enroll”, and waited and prayed while starring at the rotating circle on the top of screen. Moments later, another screen appeared with green circles in front of each course.  After passing one difficult stage of enrolment, there was another waiting ahead: “Finish Enrolling”. One dungeon after another! At least it felt like a dungeon at that time. I swiftly clicked “Finish Enrolling”. Again, the same rotating circle and I starring at it! A soft scream came out of my mouth “Alhamdulilah!” I got all my courses with all the instructors I wanted (Alhamdulilah!). I was on the seventh sky. But then I heard little shouts behind me: ‘Shit!’, ‘I didn’t get my course’, ‘I didn’t get my instructor’ and so on. I saw lab attendants rushing for their help. It was heart breaking for me, though I was happy for myself but still I had feelings for them too. The severe stress I got was on second enrollment i.e. enrollment for second semester. It was held at 7pm and all labs were full by 11:30am Luckily, I got one last corner seat at the end of IST lab 4 but unluckily no friend around. All the labs were assigned 15 minutes policy that is after 15 minutes computer would log out and anyone can sit at your computer. I didn’t have a laptop so it was necessary for me to be glued at my place. I also had to skip my class for that. I had light breakfast and had to skip lunch just to save my seat and because of that I got stomachache. I had to leave for prayer and asked the girl sitting next to me to take care of my seat and assured her I will be back in 15 minutes but she refused. There was a class-fellow of mine in the same lab. I asked her and she sat on my seat leaving hers (May Allah bless her!). I prayed and came back. Now the next problem was hunger. I tried to divert myself till 4:30pm but after that I couldn’t resist more so I decided to text my roommate. She was in E-lab. She immediately agreed to bring me food (I am really thankful to her for this favor. May Allah bless her too! ) Finally comes the enrollment time and I got the course I wanted (By the way, all this trouble was to get one course and there was Phase II waiting ahead). On that day I realized how people can be both mean and kind. Where I experienced unhelpful behavior, I also experienced kindness and love. It does not matter what life gives you, what you focus on matters and I decided to focus on the love of people that I received. In Phase II, I got my courses but they were dropped because of some issue. In re-Phase II enrollment, I got only one course but it is the way life is: “Kabhi khushi, kabi gham”. I have completed my first year now and Thanks to Allah it went really well, not much of mental stress. I experienced real life during this year; I met snakes, I met pigeons, I met hawks and it is just one year. I hope to learn and experience much more in the coming years.

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LUMS & Mental Health Awareness

This year mental health awareness was a major part of the discussions and events all around campus. On 10th October in honor of World Mental Health Awareness Day, a student-led initiative led by the Student Council, Psychology at LUMS and LUMUN organized a panel talk with mental health experts to initiate a productive conversation about mental health amongst students and to address questions regarding stress coping mechanisms. Similarly, on 9th October the LUMS community service society arranged a mental health awareness day in order to contribute towards ending the social stigma surrounding the topic. Moreover, 12th February marked the epilepsy day, on which LCSS took the Initiative to set up stress management activities in the central courtyard to help spread mental health awareness. These student led initiatives and many more proved to be extremely helpful in raising awareness and answering questions regarding stress coping mechanisms. It is due to these major steps by the LUMS community that the institution’s attitude towards mental health has changed in a positive way. The admin too, like previous years, made an effort to address such problems amongst the student body.
The LUMS website recognizes that “when students fail to succeed during the 4 years of undergraduate program, it is often due to personal problems interfering with their academic performance.” Problems such as “Depression, anxiety, procrastination, lack of motivation, stress, relationship problems and substance abuse” are recognized, by the department of counselling and psychological services at LUMS, as problems that hinder a student’s progress at the institution. To help students through these issues a qualified student counselor is available in the sports complex from 9:00 am- 5:00pm. Moreover, many instructors offer their offices as safe spaces to talk with students about their problems and struggles. While all these efforts by the admin are of immense help and are extremely valuable in creating an understanding and positive attitude around campus, much more work needs to be done on part of the administration to make LUMS an institution that approaches issues regarding mental health in the most appropriate way. Many argue that the problem, on part of the institution, stems from not recognizing the role it plays in perpetuating or even causing such issues. Examples of the universities contribution to increasing stress and anxiety amongst students include an atmosphere of increased pressure and impossible expectations. The enrollment process in itself takes a major toll on mental health as it is accompanied by extreme uncertainty and helplessness. LUMS is a university where each and every day of the semester counts, from attendance to projects, quizzes and presentations. However, despite working hard enough throughout the semester the final exams (which begin a short while after the mid-terms) can discredit the hard work of the entire semester. Hence one bad day tends to overshadow months of planning and studying. Recognizing this struggle on part of the students, the university gives a week off to the students just before the finals to give them time to prepare for the big day. However, dead week, this semester (like the semesters before) did not really serve its purpose as many students reported being expected to take quizzes, turn in essays and attend classes during this week. This semester the administration made an attempt to help the students through this hard and demanding period. They put up standees all over campus. Standees that equipped the student body with coping mechanisms to deal with the stress that the dead week and the finals brought along. One standee, in the central courtyard, read “stressed? Follow the following simple steps: slowly inhale through your nose, hold your breath for two minutes, slowly exhale through your mouth.” While such messages are a great way to recognize the stress and anxiety induced in students through the increasingly demanding atmosphere on-campus, they are only a minor step in the right direction. The reactions to this attempt by the administration varied amongst the students. Some were thankful for the effort and appreciated the thought that went behind this act, some joked about the trivial solutions proposed for highly unnerving problems, and others expressed that while the thought is absolutely necessary the solutions provided are “inconsequential”. However, one thing that everyone agreed upon was that more effort needs to be put in in order to provide our campus with a more stress free, positive and safe environment. The administration and the student body need to ensure that a cooperative and supportive attitude is maintained not just before the finals but throughout the academic year. It must be recognized that while many psychological problems stem from personal issues, a stress inductive environment adds to them and might even cause them. Therefore, an effort must be made by every individual to ensure that, all necessary actions are taken to help with, and recognition is given to, problems relating to mental health. Some students suggested that the administration should take a step towards formulating a policy to ensure that the work load put on the students, throughout the year, is only as much as they can cope with. Standees with emails and numbers of the qualified counselors, or symptoms of depression and anxiety must also be placed around campus to spread further awareness. Experts state that many students do not recognize the stress, anxiety or depression they suffer from due to a lack of awareness of the symptoms, to add to the problem, many of those who do realize the symptoms do not know how to reach out and ask for help due to the stigma and shame attached to the topic. Hence an urgent effort needs to be made, especially by the administration, to reduce the stress of impossible expectations and unmanageable workload. Similar efforts must be made to reach out to all students with regular mental health screenings along with regular talks by the counselors on stress coping mechanisms and symptoms of mental health problems.
With the year and the semester ending we must learn from past mistakes and continue with all efforts and progress made. Every step taken in the right direction is invaluable, however, this New Year we must take greater action to ensure that more major and urgent steps are taken in addressing the problems pertaining to mental health.

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The Twilight Zone

*Originally published in the December Edition of the PLUMS Dispatch*

My childhood has been a war between reconciling two levels of cultural religiosity. I have reached a (perhaps still incomplete) judgment; being a Shia’a puts you on a spectrum that is constantly at a tug of war between culture and religion. My friend Amna Haider is as Shia’a as they come. With the first of Muharram, the colored clothes go in and the Alams come out, but she does not subscribe to religious practices like fasting or praying. Asad Zaidi, on the other hand, focuses more on the basic tenets of religion, treating them as central rather than the specialized traditions of the sect. Although there are exceptions, I have largely noticed that Azadaari is more a preservation of a cultural identity especially for Pakistani Shia’as, who see it as an act of resistance from the oppressive state not dissimilar to Husssain’s (RA) defiance to Yazid.

Although Partition brought Shia’a and Sunni groups together in the Muslim League, after Independence the Sunni majority established a monopoly on issuing religious legitimacy at the expense of minorities like Ahmedis and Shia’a. It might be interesting to explore why Aga Khanis were not subject to the same level of persecution, perhaps because of the political and economic importance of the Aga Khan. The bloody history of sectarianism is evident with the Hazaras in Quetta, protesting terrorist attacks by sitting with the corpses of family members in the biting cold. This history is evident in my maternal uncle, a doctor, getting death threats and eventually leaving the country. It is evident in never being allowed to go to Majalis because my father was in the government and our expression of our faith was a threat to the powers that be. However, these experiences do not get the same coverage in mainstream media which reduces these issues to meaningless statistics. We are just an “attack on Shia’a mosque leaves 20 dead”.

It’s actually called an Imam Bargah. The growing disenchantment just fuels a reclusion by Shia’a groups into their Garrison towns which become oasis communities defined by their distinct culture. My only surviving grandparent, Nano, reminisces about how when she was young, her Hindu and Sunni friends and neighbors would take part in the festivities of Muharram. Their door would be open to all, with people flocking in to try her mother’s handmade Niaz. The subcontinent accepted these culturally driven traditions outside the confines of religion and saw them as an open experience for all rather one divided on religious grounds. In Lahore still, Hindu communities in Mochi Gate participate in Muharram processions and show a great reverence for the history behind it. Perhaps, persecution despite all its evils does one good thing of bringing minorities together in a shared resentment of their oppressor. These narratives of inter-minority relations are missing from discourses surrounding sectarianism.

Now, Azadaari in my Nano’s house has crept back behind closed doors and selective invites. The microphone is kept at an optimum level where the Salam can be heard in the other room but not to the passersby outside in the street. The Niaz still tastes great, but it has become a relic. An attempt to preserve what used to be, rather than to celebrate a belief grounded in religious history. An attack on culture is tackled by further strengthening the cultural bonds. Interestingly, I have encountered many people who attempt to write our story for us. Well intentioned individuals assume that by reading articles online or doing a basic Google search about the bloody Maatam that makes their insides squirm, they understand our traditions and by extension get to comment on what they do not like about these. Without relating these actions to the horrific history of persecution and the consequent symbolism attached to these traditions they do a disservice to the communities they attempt to understand. What they need to do is to listen. Leave your depersonalized screens micromanaged by censorship laws and listen to individual stories which give you a sense of private experiences that are lost to popular discourse. This article cannot possibly claim how to eradicate sectarianism completely but it can contribute to a few more open individuals. Having more personalized discussion on individual experiences of sect can attempt to bridge the gulf between groups. That is what builds a community which incorporates the white in the flag

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Coding Guru

CodinGuru 2018
By IEEE LUMS
Post-Event Report prepared by:

• Sayed Tauqeer
• Aafaq Sabir
• Taimoor Ali
• Aiman Khizar
• Azan Bin Zahid

About IEEE LUMS:
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is the World’s largest organization for the advancement of technology. Over 125 years old; it boasts a huge collection of resources on engineering and educational services for its members. The IEEE LUMS Student Chapter is one of the thousand branches of IEEE around the world and regularly arranges technology talks,workshops and student competitions.

CodinGuru 2018:
CodinGuru is a coding competition that was arranged by IEEE LUMS. The main objective was to promote coding and computer science in local community and goal was to conduct a state of the art coding competition at LUMS (by collaboration of CS Department, LUMS), that will serve as a healthy co-curricular activity.

Event Description:
The IEEE LUMS Computer Society organized CodinGuru on December 01, 2018 in Information Systems and Technology (IST) Labs at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore. In this competition 52 teams from different universities, mainly LUMS, FAST, PUCIT, BNU, COMSATS and FCCU took part. There were total five interesting problems to solve i.e. Food distribution, Dam Water Storage, Introvert Computer Scientist, Chess King and Colored Balls Sequence. Teams were allowed to use any of the three languages namely C++, Java and Python.
Automated checking was used with PC square. The event started at 11:00 am and concluded at6:00 pm.

Special Guests:
• Dr. Arif Zaman
Arif Zaman, Ph.D., is a Pakistani mathematician, an academic scientist and a professor of Statistics and Mathematics at LUMS. Before joining this university in 1994, he also served Statistics Department at Purdue University and Florida State University. His publications have been in various journals including: The Annals of Probability, Mathematics of Computation, Journal of Applied Probability, and Journal of Statistical Computation. In his student years at Stanford, he was also rumored to be one of the two people involved in creating one of the first rabbit
worms that replicated themselves over the local network.
• Dr. Muhammad Hamad Alizai
Dr. Alizai is the assistant professor of Computer Science at LUMS. He has over 10 years of experience in Germany and Pakistan as a researcher, software engineer, and technical lead both in industrial and academic settings. His research interest is in Systems and Networks. He was Awarded DAAD grant to “Greenify Older Buildings in Emerging Countries (2019-21) “.

Judges:
The judges of the competition were Computer Science Juniors at LUMS.
• Aafaq Sabir
• Taimoor Ali
• Saad Khan
• Soban Ali
• Naima Samreen
• Azan Bin Zahid

Event Proceedings:
A total of 52 teams arrived at the registration desk. They were registered and settled by 11:00 am. At 11:00 am, the competition rules were explained to the teams.The judges introduced themselves and the testing software (PC^2) to the teams. Moreover, the marking scheme was also shared with the participants. To give the teams a how know of the testing environment, a test run was conducted. in which they submitted a pseudo problem provided to them. This process lasted for an hour.Teams were then sent to Pepsi Dining Center (PDC) at 12:00 pm where they had
lunch and rested for about an hour.

By the time, the teams arrived after lunch, their secret accounts had been set up into PC^2 and the platform was all setup for them to start coding. The coding started at a high note and there was a strong competition between the team “Nemesis” and “Hackermen” from the start. The hustle was increased with the ticking of a live scoreboard. In the last hour, the eyes were all set on the scoreboard and positions were changing with the difference of seconds. Eventually, after a very strong competition, “Nemesis” made it to the top of the scoreboard. After the exhausting session of coding, we arranged refreshments for the teams
until the results came out. The result was compiled while the participants were having tea and were announced
by Dr. Arif Zaman in the closing ceremony right after the refreshment break. The results were as follows:

Winner: Nemesis – Waqar Ahmad, Muhammad Hasan (PUCIT).
1st Runner Up: Hackermen – Ammar Tahir, Abdul Mannan (LUMS).
2nd Runner Up: StrawHats – Usama Ikram, Junaid Haris (PUCIT).

After announcements of the winner and runner ups, the distribution ceremony was held at 5:15 pm in which certificates were given to the participants by the judges. The honorable guests Dr. Arif Zaman and Dr. Muhammad Hamad Alizai were specially invited to distribute prizes to the winners and IEEE team members.The event was greatly successful in achieving its main objective i.e. to promote coding and to motivate the programmers. This event helps us to understand that what is the potential and skill in this nation, which is great, but there is still need for such big events to be organized in other parts of our country, so that more youngsters can come out and take part in such kind of events, as they are the next generation programmers for the most emerging fields in the world.