South Asia Investor Review

3D printing (also called stereolithography or additive manufacturing) is a process for making a three-dimensional object of almost any shape. It uses a 3D model or other electronic data source primarily through additive processes in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control. 3D printing technology was introduced in Pakistan when Robotics Lab was launched in 2011 in Karachi. It was founded by two friends Afaque Ahmed and Yasin Altaf  who had previously worked in Silicon Valley . They bought a 3D printer for the lab as a tool to help children learn science. In addition to serving children, the Robotics Lab has attracted commercial clients such as Pak Suzuki Motors , architecture firms and college students doing senior projects, according to the  Express Tribune  newspaper. The founding duo is now looking for ways to expand its audience.“Our goal is to push this science lab to TCF schools , a nationwide school network covering about 150,000 underprivi

Zia Chishti, a Pakistani-American serial entrepreneur,  founded his first company  Align Technology  in 1997 in  Silicon Valley  on the idea of creating clear plastic braces by using advanced 3-D computer imaging. The technology now trademarked as  Invisalign  has  helped millions of people  straighten their teeth for a beautiful smile without enduring the pain and unsightly looks of the traditional steel brackets and wires used in orthodontics. Zia Chishti and Kelsey Wirth After graduating from Stanford Business School, Chishti wore braces when working as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. When his braces were removed he wore a clear plastic retainer. He noticed that when he did not wear the retainer for several days his teeth would move. However, putting the retainer back on helped bring his teeth to their desired, straightened state. It was this observation that a clear plastic device was capable of moving his own teeth that led to Chishti to conceive a process that becam

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

Pakistan government is handing out Rs. 40,000 per family to nearly a million internally displaced persons (IDPs) through mobile service operator Zong's mobile SIMs. The government is attempting to ease the discomforts of displacement for such a large number of people displaced after the start of Pakistan Army's Operation ZarbeAzb  to  root out terrorists  from North Waziristan tribal agency. Zong is one of several mobile service operators offering Easypaisa m-money service. It was pioneered by  Telenor Pakistan . Easypaisa  moved $3.5 billion in fiscal 2012-13. Bangladesh's bKash did $4 billion over the same period. These figures were well ahead of the $3.2 billion moved in comparable period by India's M-Pesa mobile money network, according to  New York Times .  Over the last 12 months, the m-money market volume in Pakistan has reached 153 million annual transactions worth US$ 6.2 billion, according to  Asian Development Bank . Easypaisa M-money Growth in Pakist

Even  before 3G and 4G roll-outs, Pakistan's mobile data users enjoy an average bandwidth of 1.5 Mbits/sec and peak bandwidth of 14.7 Mbits/sec, according to a report published by Akamai Technologies, Inc. The Akamai data includes usage from  smartphones, tablets,  computers, and other devices that connect to the Internet through mobile network providers. The only mobile broadband option available to users in Pakistan has so far been  PTCL's EVO . Results of Google-sponsored Survey in Pakistan Source:  Express Tribune Akamai Technologies, the creator of this  report , operates an Internet content delivery network headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Akamai's network is one of the world's largest distributed-computing platforms, responsible for serving between 15 and 30 percent of all web traffic around the world. Mobile Broadband Speeds. Source: Akamai Akamai report ranks 16 countries in Asia by  mobile Internet  speeds. South Korea tops the list wit