Pakistan's potential (Happy 75th!). On a recent field trip I was reminded why, despite the macro challenges, there is much hope for Pakistan.

A thread on what I learnt from a conversation with Saima (Class 5) and Nadeem (Class 3). (1/n) Saima & Nadeem (names changed to protect privacy) are siblings who attend a non-formal public school in a low-income settlement near Islamabad. Saima is a confident and bright girl, Nadeem an (initially) shy boy with the proverbial twinkle in his eye.

Is Pakistan’s economy really in a deep crisis ?

And more importantly, what can one do about it?

Sharing some thoughts in this thread & welcome yours - 1/n My friend and colleague @AtifRMian has rightly raised concerns that Pakistan is in trouble.

And while I agree with the symptoms he describes, we need to think more about what the deeper causes and viable solutions may be.

1/n On Loss. 2020 has been a hard year. It has been the hardest of my life so far. I lost my father, father-in-law and brother over the summer. I loved & miss all three. As I work through the losses, I am sharing thoughts & advice I received in the hope it may help others 2/n- Loss&Grief #1 “Be Strong” While I have tried to control intense emotions, it has also helped more to let them thru–the bad but also the good. Seeing my 9-year old still finding moments of laughter even when surrounded by deep grief has made me not feel guilty about smiling

COVID-19 & cellphone data (CDR) (1/n): Countries need to leverage CDR data to efficiently address pandemic. This can be done while respecting privacy (see 8/n below). Need Telcos & Govts to collaborate. For starters, here are 6 critical uses for such data: COVID&CDR #1. Contact-tracing: Algorithms run by Telcos/privacy-protecting apps identify who was in contact w/ an infected person. w/in minutes of being identified as positive, these contacts can be sent a message asking them to self-quarantine w/ a link for free testing

Corona Calculus (CC) 1/20: The past few days have been overwhelming the world over–going from mild concerns to most places (work, school, shops) closing & interactions limited to remote ones. What is happening & what can we do? CC 2/n: since this thread is long-for those who don’t want to read all of it here’s the bottom line: While we are in a tough situation, using data and some basic reasoning (modeling) can allow us to make fairly informed responses that can save lives