Revolution Lahore Spotlight | Featuring Umar Bilal | Co-founder CodeNinja

Lahore is something it stays with you. Some of the, it has an impression on you and there's something about the city, probably something mystic. Wherever you are, it has an impression on you and that's what's something special about it. And I think this you do not find in any other city. I meet people from all the cities but I don't know what it is, but it's something very special. My name is Umar, I'm an entrepreneur and one of the co founders of Code Ninja. Most of my work here at Code Ninja is around two parts. Part one is where I work with some of the important businesses in the US set up their global capability centers in Lahore. And second part of my work is building AI systems that optimize our physical infrastructure. So like building systems like border protection systems, using vision AI to building predictive maintenance technologies for energy grids and this sort of work. So that's the kind of work that takes most of my time here at Code Ninja. The founding principle at Code Ninja was I wanted to land up at a point where helping some of the important businesses in the US solve some of their highest priority problems and creating opportunities for this part of the world, for this city, for the developers of this city. Both of these things come together as one holistic outcome. Second very important part which we came to know after we, we built Coordinate that was like Lahore's community, especially developer community is very tightly knit. There are regular dev meetups in Lahore every weekend. People meet, share new ideas. Lahore is I think in Pakistan one of, in Pakistan total there are 1.5 million GitHub accounts. The number of Lahore into those 1.5 million numbers is the largest. If you see, if you see the education sector in Lahore, so there are some of the region's top computer science schools here. So for example, think about lums, Fast, ucp bu. So that makes that developer workforce that you have highly skillful and not only just skillful, but they can communicate their ideas and thoughts properly when they are talking to these businesses internationally. So I think when you see these two parts that makes Lahore very, I would say one of the top choices in the region to build capabilities. The best part about Lahore is I would say it's a crown jewel of Pakistan. Let's put it this way, the infrastructure is just amazing. I don't see any city in South Asia even close to Lahore's infrastructure. The buildings are incredible, the overall workplaces are extremely spacious. One of the things that I was amazed was like why Lahore's developers and knowledge workers are willingly Going to these workplaces. And the core reason was that roads are very good. It takes hardly 25, 30 minutes to get to the workplace. That's a very, very important part. City infrastructure is the most important. I mean I have lists of businesses I'm working with who are just fascinated when they come to Lahore airport, come to this place and they say what an incredible infrastructure the city has to offer. And then they see talent here, my best projects that I won. It's not me that because of my sales skills, these were the talent, these were the developers, these were those knowledge workers who were part of it, who convinced those CIOs and CTOs that we are the right choice. So this entire, this thing in its entirety is completely untapped. Second part, I think if you see the ecosystem like you ask this question how many other businesses, global businesses have set up their global capability centers in the city. There are a lot of Fortune 500 businesses who have taken this initiative and set up their GCCs in the city. So it's setting up a GCC for a major business. Nothing new for Lahore, nothing new for Lahores workforce. But one of the things that I am very excited about from this point onward is positioning the city as R and D hub for the global technology company. I mean if you see the researchers in the universities, they're just amazing. I mean you would find researchers from Harvard and MIT's and Columbia that are part of the faculty here and what for example coordinate has done this incredible academic commercial partnership to solve a very interesting vision AI problem for business in the Middle East. That partnership, that R and D thing that is very, very important. If you see cities in South Asia, there are some very good cities who are very tightly integrated into the global supply chain. There are cities in China, it is in India, but this currently, I mean we're going there, but I think Lahore could be that city. I would say Lahore could be the Shenzhen from Pakistan. That's my vision for Lahore. But to really make that happen we need to do is we need to move the ecosystem of this city from entrepreneurial towards the policy making to include government into the policy making. We can come up with incentives for these global businesses to invite their direct investments here and then give them those capabilities that give them the true strategic edge in that global marketplace. I think in next three to five years, given the scale of AI, if we really successfully integrate that AI with human and with developers of Lahore, I mean I don't think there would be any difference in a software developer who's working in Bay Area and a software developer who's working from home, there won't be any difference. And there's one, I think there's one additional point here. Someone who's working from the Horde, I like to think, who would be more willing to give everything, to contribute more to the cause than someone out there. Because the people here, truly now, they desire, they have a desire to do more for themselves, for their families. So it's important part. Willingness to do extra hours, willingness to do, to give everything you've got. So I think this AI the young knowledge workers. And Lahore as a city, if you combine all three, I think that makes the mix really, really spectacular.