TakingITGlobal - Panorama - Bridging the Gap...

Published on: Jul 30, 2004

Topic:

Type: Interviews

https://www.tigweb.org/express/panorama/article.html?ContentID=4055

“The E-Museum Project in Pakistan will bridge the gap between our Cultural Heritage and Information Technology. We are taking museums in Pakistan online - while maintaining a high-quality experience. This is not an idea anymore, it’s a revolution, it’s actually happening, we are going to open the project’s door to the grass root level of our society, the E-Museum Project is going to become a part of every Pakistani’s life! It will be in academia and schools, in the corporate sector, in the public sector, a part of sustainable development activities, we are going to help Pakistani’s understand their true identity.”
- Fouad Riaz Bajwa

If Mr. Fouad Riaz Bajwa had said these words a few months back, the masses would have called him just another fanatic writer and web designer saying he was going to try to reach Pluto by himself, but now as he says these words the world is a witness to one of the first and largest ICT revolutions from Pakistan. It’s all over the media; BBC titles it to be the first E-Museum in South East Asia. Faqir Sayyed Iftikhar and Fouad Riaz Bajwa are working on this project tirelessly for the past 6 months as if this was the last thing they would ever do with a team of over 12 youngsters from the 6th generation of the Faqir Family and Friends of Faqir Khana, artists, businessmen and art lovers. The media has now joined them taking them international and suddenly people are more interested in the art and culture of Pakistan from the world over then they were before.

In the real world sustainable development for our cultural heritage cannot be achieved while there are big divides between the three different segments of the society - the gap between the rich and the poor, between the government and the people and between those who know and those who don't. Knowledge and power are the two sides of the same coin. The monopoly over knowledge by the few means a total control of the World's wealth in the hands of a few, in terms of not only its productive resources but also the power to decide who gets what. Whether it is about our history, cultural heritage or who we are, information from the past moulds our future and if we forget our past, the future will only bring a generation that will have no link with their past or information on what is their true identity.

“I am a Bajwa by family, member of the Jatt Caste but didn’t know about my true identity in my family tree and how I was part of the Royal Family that once ruled the state of The Punjab 300 years ago, while creating this project I learnt I was a descendent from the Royal Family of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. My family tree starts from Raja Suchit Singh Bajwa and there is proof to this in the Lahore Museum, a portrait of the brave warrior on a saddled horse ready for a fight against the enemies of Punjab, I am from the sand of Punjab, does everyone else who live here know about their roots?”

The E-Museum Project has focused on taking the Faqir Khana Museum online in it’s first phase of developments and as August 14th, 2004 the launch date of the first E-Museum in Pakistan comes near, people will learn something they might have never heard of before, experience their true culture and the hidden treasures ranging over 30,000 historical artefacts and antiques will be displayed and the world will experience brand name Pakistan in a new way.

In short, this calls for a new equation of partnerships between the public, the private and the people's sectors, which is where the E-Museum Project would like to act as a communication bridge. Everyone needs useful and reliable information for learning and researching our true cultural heritage. A large part of this information, though available, is not easily accessible to them because they have no options apart from visiting museums and reading information at face value only. Over the past years there have been growing efforts by various sectors towards advancing cultural heritage preservation activities. However, their efforts have been considerably hampered by the lack of timely, reliable and useful information on our culture. As a result, preservation is very often based on partial information or conjectures of vested interests.

“Pakistan has given us so much, in my case it has given me a powerful identity in society, in my professional circle, my work has been recognised, my words have been heard, Pakistan hai tau main hoon! Now it’s time we gave something to Pakistan, a powerful identity of its hidden art and cultural heritage. ”

With the onset of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and particularly the Internet, information is now exchanged and transferred in a manner never before imagined.

The Internet has become a growing global network of people that can converse, teach, argue, learn, hold meetings, buy and sell things, and send and receive information of virtually all types. Among the developed nations, the Internet has fuelled a new era of information revolution wherein information is disseminated in an enormous quantity and quality at a very efficient rate. While part of humanity is cruising on the information superhighway, many remain isolated, equipped only with outdated technology and limited means of access to the required information. On one side of the coin, there is a widening gap between the 'information haves' in the west, and especially the 'have nots' in the east. On the other side of the coin, ICTs have a tremendous potential for helping make 'knowledge connections about our cultural heritage' within and among various countries - a potential E-Museum Project has been exploring since its inception.

The E-Museum Project aims to make information available and accessible in the electronic form on the cultural heritage and treasures of South East Asia, at the time required for research and development by the consorts of art via the internet, or through a dial-up telephone line. Given the circumstances, E-Museum Project is committed to the use of the Internet and other latest information and communication technologies as the tools for disseminating cultural heritage information of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. Without forgetting other avenues for delivering information (faxing, mails, courier), E-Museum Project believes that the Internet provides the most effective system for the storage, retrieval and dissemination of information vital to cultural heritage preservation and development efforts. It is for this reason that the E-Museum Project has been aiming to bring out databases on various cultural heritage subjects and Faqir Khana Museum being one of them where the E-Museum Project has implemented the first Digital Catalogue of Artefacts that is recording information of over 30,000 antiques, their images and historical information.

Since its inception in early 2004 by Mr. Fouad Riaz Bajwa and Faqir Sayyed Iftikahr, the E-Museum Project has aimed at providing solutions-oriented coverage of the gap between those with access to the web tool and cutting edge technology and those without. It is serving as a one-stop resource for tracking the many practical ways through which Pakistan can disseminate information on it’s cultural heritage to it’s citizens residing in the cities and rural areas to educate our communities as well as open the doors to the hidden treasures in Pakistan.
Today, E-Museum Project has graduated into providing a whole range of information technology services facilitating the preservation of cultural heritage of Pakistan and South East Asia. E-Museum Project is one of the first of its type in the country. It has undertaken work to help preserve the treasures at the Faqir Khana Museum by launching the first e-museum in Pakistan with a pilot example already online at http://www.faqirkhana.com.

The E-Museum Project has clearly identified its niche and role to formulate a strategy to utilize ICT for cultural heritage preservation and information dissemination using the rapidly changing information and communication technology facilities available in Pakistan.

The initial approach and interactions with the Faqir Khana Museum enabled the E-Museum Project to identify its niche and role in the rapidly changing information and communication technology scenario in Pakistan. The strategic partnerships that the E-Museum Project is forging are yielding significant results both on the ground and the internet. Considerable feedback and learning’s are available from local as well as international audiences.

Appreciation and interest -from the corporate sector, government, academic institutions, citizens, and international communities is very encouraging. The E-Museum Project now needs to consolidate and build its operations from a position of strength.

The changing face of E-Museum Project
The E-Museum Project is now stepping towards provisioning of its communication and information service systems to other areas apart from the Faqir Khana and the next target is to bring the Lahore Museum Online. Along with this, the E-Museum Project will be the ICT Services Provider for the upcoming History Street Project in Lahore. Opportunities exist for the E-Museum Project, through strategic partnerships, to prove that the Internet revolution can reach and empower Pakistan and its cultural heritage.

These opportunities have been tapped by the E-Museum Project in the following ways:
• Currently, most of the innovative projects including ICT services are geared towards bringing all the museums in Punjab online with Faqir Khana Museum being the pilot model project.
• The E-Museum Project is not limited to just websites, the E-Museum Project has come up with some very innovative activities offline to target grass root initiatives that includes the production of a cartoon series for children that tells the stories of Punjab, a Cultural Heritage ICT Programme for college level students and a larger ICT Programme for University Graduates which also involves bringing in students from various Universities world wide to study the South East Asian Cultures in Punjab, Pakistan.
• Partnerships have been forged with various tourism related projects in the Province that also includes all the ICT related work for the formation of the new History Street in Lahore.
• The E-Museum Project plans to respond to the growing opportunities being unfolded by electronic commerce. The E-Museum Project recognizes e-commerce as an opportunity to gain business that will fund its cultural heritage support activities. The E-Museum Project will play its role in information systems innovation, especially for the development of the community.
• The E-Museum Project is not limited to a handful of people; the E-Museum is forging partnerships with the local ICT companies, groups, artists, museums, art lovers, educational institutions etc.

It has been realised that the E-Museum Project objectives can be met only through the co-operation of a variety of stakeholders, including private and commercial partners, who are willing to be part of this grand experimentation process. Since the E-Museum Project does not intend to get into commercial relationships at large, it is more prudent for the E-Museum Project to enter into appropriate institutional arrangements. As an inherent part of the E-Museum Project’s organisational framework, it involves itself only in cultural heritage development & ICT related projects lead by Mr. Fouad Riaz Bajwa, while the media section of the E-Museum Project lead by Faqir Sayyed Iftikhar handles the business and marketing efforts. The Faqir Khana E-Museum is the first pilot project of the E-Museum Project initiatives to bring the cultural heritage of Pakistan online. The next step is to motivate the community at grassroots level through the usage of various online and offline medias including music, television, books, cartoons, movies and documentaries etc. to create a stir and attraction towards the cultural heritage of Pakistan and South East Asia.

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by Fouad Riaz Bajwa
Published on: Jul 30, 2004
Topic:
Type: Interviews
https://www.tigweb.org/express/panorama/article.html?ContentID=4055


“The E-Museum Project in Pakistan will bridge the gap between our Cultural Heritage and Information Technology. We are taking museums in Pakistan online - while maintaining a high-quality experience. This is not an idea anymore, it’s a revolution, it’s actually happening, we are going to open the project’s door to the grass root level of our society, the E-Museum Project is going to become a part of every Pakistani’s life! It will be in academia and schools, in the corporate sector, in the public sector, a part of sustainable development activities, we are going to help Pakistani’s understand their true identity.” - Fouad Riaz Bajwa If Mr. Fouad Riaz Bajwa had said these words a few months back, the masses would have called him just another fanatic writer and web designer saying he was going to try to reach Pluto by himself, but now as he says these words the world is a witness to one of the first and largest ICT revolutions from Pakistan. It’s all over the media; BBC titles it to be the first E-Museum in South East Asia. Faqir Sayyed Iftikhar and Fouad Riaz Bajwa are working on this project tirelessly for the past 6 months as if this was the last thing they would ever do with a team of over 12 youngsters from the 6th generation of the Faqir Family and Friends of Faqir Khana, artists, businessmen and art lovers. The media has now joined them taking them international and suddenly people are more interested in the art and culture of Pakistan from the world over then they were before. In the real world sustainable development for our cultural heritage cannot be achieved while there are big divides between the three different segments of the society - the gap between the rich and the poor, between the government and the people and between those who know and those who don't. Knowledge and power are the two sides of the same coin. The monopoly over knowledge by the few means a total control of the World's wealth in the hands of a few, in terms of not only its productive resources but also the power to decide who gets what. Whether it is about our history, cultural heritage or who we are, information from the past moulds our future and if we forget our past, the future will only bring a generation that will have no link with their past or information on what is their true identity. “I am a Bajwa by family, member of the Jatt Caste but didn’t know about my true identity in my family tree and how I was part of the Royal Family that once ruled the state of The Punjab 300 years ago, while creating this project I learnt I was a descendent from the Royal Family of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. My family tree starts from Raja Suchit Singh Bajwa and there is proof to this in the Lahore Museum, a portrait of the brave warrior on a saddled horse ready for a fight against the enemies of Punjab, I am from the sand of Punjab, does everyone else who live here know about their roots?” The E-Museum Project has focused on taking the Faqir Khana Museum online in it’s first phase of developments and as August 14th, 2004 the launch date of the first E-Museum in Pakistan comes near, people will learn something they might have never heard of before, experience their true culture and the hidden treasures ranging over 30,000 historical artefacts and antiques will be displayed and the world will experience brand name Pakistan in a new way. In short, this calls for a new equation of partnerships between the public, the private and the people's sectors, which is where the E-Museum Project would like to act as a communication bridge. Everyone needs useful and reliable information for learning and researching our true cultural heritage. A large part of this information, though available, is not easily accessible to them because they have no options apart from visiting museums and reading information at face value only. Over the past years there have been growing efforts by various sectors towards advancing cultural heritage preservation activities. However, their efforts have been considerably hampered by the lack of timely, reliable and useful information on our culture. As a result, preservation is very often based on partial information or conjectures of vested interests. “Pakistan has given us so much, in my case it has given me a powerful identity in society, in my professional circle, my work has been recognised, my words have been heard, Pakistan hai tau main hoon! Now it’s time we gave something to Pakistan, a powerful identity of its hidden art and cultural heritage. ” With the onset of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and particularly the Internet, information is now exchanged and transferred in a manner never before imagined. The Internet has become a growing global network of people that can converse, teach, argue, learn, hold meetings, buy and sell things, and send and receive information of virtually all types. Among the developed nations, the Internet has fuelled a new era of information revolution wherein information is disseminated in an enormous quantity and quality at a very efficient rate. While part of humanity is cruising on the information superhighway, many remain isolated, equipped only with outdated technology and limited means of access to the required information. On one side of the coin, there is a widening gap between the 'information haves' in the west, and especially the 'have nots' in the east. On the other side of the coin, ICTs have a tremendous potential for helping make 'knowledge connections about our cultural heritage' within and among various countries - a potential E-Museum Project has been exploring since its inception. The E-Museum Project aims to make information available and accessible in the electronic form on the cultural heritage and treasures of South East Asia, at the time required for research and development by the consorts of art via the internet, or through a dial-up telephone line. Given the circumstances, E-Museum Project is committed to the use of the Internet and other latest information and communication technologies as the tools for disseminating cultural heritage information of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. Without forgetting other avenues for delivering information (faxing, mails, courier), E-Museum Project believes that the Internet provides the most effective system for the storage, retrieval and dissemination of information vital to cultural heritage preservation and development efforts. It is for this reason that the E-Museum Project has been aiming to bring out databases on various cultural heritage subjects and Faqir Khana Museum being one of them where the E-Museum Project has implemented the first Digital Catalogue of Artefacts that is recording information of over 30,000 antiques, their images and historical information. Since its inception in early 2004 by Mr. Fouad Riaz Bajwa and Faqir Sayyed Iftikahr, the E-Museum Project has aimed at providing solutions-oriented coverage of the gap between those with access to the web tool and cutting edge technology and those without. It is serving as a one-stop resource for tracking the many practical ways through which Pakistan can disseminate information on it’s cultural heritage to it’s citizens residing in the cities and rural areas to educate our communities as well as open the doors to the hidden treasures in Pakistan. Today, E-Museum Project has graduated into providing a whole range of information technology services facilitating the preservation of cultural heritage of Pakistan and South East Asia. E-Museum Project is one of the first of its type in the country. It has undertaken work to help preserve the treasures at the Faqir Khana Museum by launching the first e-museum in Pakistan with a pilot example already online at http://www.faqirkhana.com. The E-Museum Project has clearly identified its niche and role to formulate a strategy to utilize ICT for cultural heritage preservation and information dissemination using the rapidly changing information and communication technology facilities available in Pakistan. The initial approach and interactions with the Faqir Khana Museum enabled the E-Museum Project to identify its niche and role in the rapidly changing information and communication technology scenario in Pakistan. The strategic partnerships that the E-Museum Project is forging are yielding significant results both on the ground and the internet. Considerable feedback and learning’s are available from local as well as international audiences. Appreciation and interest -from the corporate sector, government, academic institutions, citizens, and international communities is very encouraging. The E-Museum Project now needs to consolidate and build its operations from a position of strength. The changing face of E-Museum Project The E-Museum Project is now stepping towards provisioning of its communication and information service systems to other areas apart from the Faqir Khana and the next target is to bring the Lahore Museum Online. Along with this, the E-Museum Project will be the ICT Services Provider for the upcoming History Street Project in Lahore. Opportunities exist for the E-Museum Project, through strategic partnerships, to prove that the Internet revolution can reach and empower Pakistan and its cultural heritage. These opportunities have been tapped by the E-Museum Project in the following ways: • Currently, most of the innovative projects including ICT services are geared towards bringing all the museums in Punjab online with Faqir Khana Museum being the pilot model project. • The E-Museum Project is not limited to just websites, the E-Museum Project has come up with some very innovative activities offline to target grass root initiatives that includes the production of a cartoon series for children that tells the stories of Punjab, a Cultural Heritage ICT Programme for college level students and a larger ICT Programme for University Graduates which also involves bringing in students from various Universities world wide to study the South East Asian Cultures in Punjab, Pakistan. • Partnerships have been forged with various tourism related projects in the Province that also includes all the ICT related work for the formation of the new History Street in Lahore. • The E-Museum Project plans to respond to the growing opportunities being unfolded by electronic commerce. The E-Museum Project recognizes e-commerce as an opportunity to gain business that will fund its cultural heritage support activities. The E-Museum Project will play its role in information systems innovation, especially for the development of the community. • The E-Museum Project is not limited to a handful of people; the E-Museum is forging partnerships with the local ICT companies, groups, artists, museums, art lovers, educational institutions etc. It has been realised that the E-Museum Project objectives can be met only through the co-operation of a variety of stakeholders, including private and commercial partners, who are willing to be part of this grand experimentation process. Since the E-Museum Project does not intend to get into commercial relationships at large, it is more prudent for the E-Museum Project to enter into appropriate institutional arrangements. As an inherent part of the E-Museum Project’s organisational framework, it involves itself only in cultural heritage development & ICT related projects lead by Mr. Fouad Riaz Bajwa, while the media section of the E-Museum Project lead by Faqir Sayyed Iftikhar handles the business and marketing efforts. The Faqir Khana E-Museum is the first pilot project of the E-Museum Project initiatives to bring the cultural heritage of Pakistan online. The next step is to motivate the community at grassroots level through the usage of various online and offline medias including music, television, books, cartoons, movies and documentaries etc. to create a stir and attraction towards the cultural heritage of Pakistan and South East Asia. « return.