On November 23, 2008 more than 100 Pakistani bloggers gathered in Lahore in a meetup, the first of its kind in the city. The event was organized by LUMS IEEE Students Chapter (in collaboration with CIO Pakistan [1] and Google Pakistan [2]). The idea was to get the bloggers together to discuss about the blogging scene in Pakistan and promote this medium. The bloggers exchanged their views and shared success stories.
Initially this was planned to be an informal meeting for the twenty odd Lahore based bloggers. The only source of information on this meet up was an event posted at Facebook by Badar Khushnood [3](Country Consultant, Google). Quite unexpectedly more people showed interest and the number of probable attendees kept on increasing. The event organizers could succeed in collaborating with CIO Pakistan and RedBull, and the event turned into a mega bloggers meet where bloggers from across the country could participate.
Here's what Rabia Garib [4] (editor CIO Pakistan) wrote about this phenomenon:
What started off as a really small 20 person event at LUMS has grown into something more than 100 attendees overnight… literally!
I also attended there as a blogger and am happy to cover this event for Global Voices. In my opinion the event was more like a seminar to encourage the beginners. Badar Khushnood [3] explained the importance of blogging in today's world.
The key points discussed in the Meetup were:
- Blogging can earn you a decent living
- How blogging enables freedom of speech and expression
- Passion is important
- Tools for professional blogging were also discussed.
- Some success stories [5] were also featured.
You can find the details of the event here [5] at my blog or at the official coverage page at CIO Pakistan [6] website.
All photos by Farhan Janjua