Lo and behold, the Pakistan Blog Awards 2011 have finally concluded. It was a long, long month of gathering votes, fixing the site up, keeping track of the competition and gathering more votes.I first heard about the Blog Awards last year when a co-worker (Danial) told me things like this started happening in Pakistan, it’s not everyday we see a huge awards show promoting and highlighting some of the more forward minds of our I.T. industry. Unfortunately, we weren’t ready last year to submit this fine website to take part, we were still just learning the basics of things and didn’t want to rush our way to an instant loss. The Blog Awards finally came back this year and we were ecstatic beyond words! This year’s theme was “Colors Of Pakistan: Celebrating The New Media Spaces”.

It was set to be an amazing night at the Regent Plaza Hotel. The night kicked off with a Qirat, followed by an awesome play by the true youth of Pakistan portraying the different cultures of the country. And without further delays, the awards got announced. I was very happy to see the best Social Activist Blog award went to Aisha Aijaz of My Bit For Change, a personal friend of mine. Our category, however, was set to be announced at the very end, since there was more than 65 blogs competing in the Best International Technology Blog award. We were up against the big names, one of them being Redmondpie. I have immense respect for Taimur and Waisy and I was expecting them to win this year hands down.

Right in the middle of the gala, Mr. Imran Khan, the legendary cricketer and politician of Pakistan made a surprise appearance which led the entire room to give the man a standing ovation as he walked towards the stage to give an admirable speech like one of his many others. Seeing Imran Khan, Faisal Qureshi, Abid Beli, Badar Khushnood, Jehan Ara, all of these big names there made me believe the future of Pakistani online media is not lost and is destined for greatness. After a quick speech and a few awards, Imran Khan left with his huge entourage, cameras and news channels chasing after him to get a piece of his mind.

And finally, the time came for our category’s awards to be announced. I must say, even though I wasn’t expecting to win, I still had that tingly feeling in me. The website was announced:

TechDeville won the Best International Technology Blog Award!

For a moment then I couldn’t believe it, my best friend and mentor Ziyad Jameel was sitting beside me and his screams led me to wake up. It was one of the best moments of my blogging career to receive the award from Abid Beli’s hands. It was a moment to cherish. There were two more awards for our category, merit awards, the merit awards went to:

TipsOTricks
The Technology Cafe

After the last awards, we went to mingle with the IT people of our blogging industry. It was one of the most rewarding nights I had the honor of being a part of.

How Is This Good For Pakistan?

Because change is very important for the masses to grow. We never had such appreciation for the new media spaces. Although most of the contestants who didn’t end up winning, ended up boycotting and cursing the blog awards, which was a foreseen thing to be honest. But events like this are a vital part of our industry, especially today. Countries abroad have enough meetups and events to keep their bloggers and online community coming back for more, we hardly have one. In order to spark that fire in the hearts of our bloggers, bring them out of the dark realm of spam and “I want more money” blogging, such exquisite events are what matter. The very next day, the Blog Awards were bombarded with hate comments and digressing talks from the sore losers of our proud industry, I stand by the Blog Awards, not because my site won, but because we need change! Looking forward to the meetups and events that are to follow.

Check out some of the photos from the gala night: