NED UET Alumni Convention 2016 at Houston, Texas

This year's annual convention of alumni of Karachi's NED University of Engineering &Technology (NEDUET) held in Houston, Texas over Labor Day weekend drew more than 500 NEDians from all over North America and the rest of the world.

Among others, it was attended by US Congressman Al Green from Texas and the Vice Chancellor of NED University Dr. Afzal Haque. Asharf Habibullah, a 1969 Civil Engineering graduate of NED and founder of Computer Structures Inc (CSI) of Berkeley, CA, was the keynote speaker. CSI software developed by Habibullah is used by thousands of engineers in more than 100 countries for the design of major projects, including the One World Trade Center in New York, the east span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Burj-e-Khalifa in Dubai, and the Centenario Bridge over the Panama Canal, according to an introduction of Habibullah published by University of California at Berkeley. CSI software is also widely used for research and education and CSI has generously donated software to numerous universities in many developed and developing countries. Mr. Habibullah is also recognized for his tireless work in supporting the arts and for championing the oft-overlooked artistic aspects of structural engineering.

There were several panel discussion during the day followed by a grand evening banquet with Pakistani food, music, stand-up comedy, mind-reading and other entertainment. Credit goes to NED alum Afzaal Hafeez of the class of 1984 and his dedicated team of volunteers for a job well done.

Keynote by Ashraf Habibullah:

Not only is Ashraf a successful Berkeley-based technology entrepreneur but he is also a very entertaining keynote speaker. His speech was peppered with interesting anecdotes of his years at NED and singing of parts of Mohammad Rafi songs he heard as a young man.

Keynote Speaker Ashraf Habibullah

Part of Ashraf Habibullah's keynote act was his "bling bling" jacket that he switched to in the middle of his speech. It's a shiny golden jacket studded with flashing LED lights. Another part of his act was that he took off his hat to reveal his bald head which he blamed on the branded shampoos he used to wash his hair after he arrived in the United States in 1969. Prior to that, he says he used cheap Pakistani "Oont marka sabun" (Camel brand soap) that he swears was good for his body and his hair.

In his keynote at Houston, Ashraf said the most valuable thing he learned at NED was to be "be sharam" (shameless). Once he became be sharam, he became free. He was willing to do whatever pleased him and took lots of risks. That helped him succeed when most people, including his father, thought he would amount to nothing.

He said there were two "qillats" (scarcities) at NED-water and girls. So he and his friend decided to capture this observation in two lines: Bhari balti main tera aks dekhta hoon/ phir usay hila hila ke tera raqs dekhta hoon. 

NEDUET Class of 1974: 

Among the hundreds of alumni attending the Houston convention, there were at least 14 of my classmates from the class 1974. Four of them live in Huston while the rest traveled from other cities to attend.

NEDUET Alumni from Class of 1974 with VC Dr Afzal Haque

Social Non-Profit Entrepreneurship:

A panel discussion, moderated by Silicon Valley NEDian Mukhtar Zaidi, featured a number of NED alumni and their friends who are engaged in social entrepreneurship to make life better for ordinary Pakistanis. They are addressing a range of issues from access to clean water and electricity to creating jobs.

A Panel Discussion Moderated by Silicon Valley NEDian Mukhtar Zaidi

The panelists include Omar Hasan, Asif Ansari,  Dr. Osama Khan and Dr. Khurshid Qureshi. Each is contributing in his own way to help Pakistan.

Omar Hasan is part of Sawayra, a non-profit committed to empowering people with basic necessities. It is providing home solar kits, drinkable water generators and heat and electricity using Biomass and waste to energy technologies.

Sawayra is working with interns at the University of Houston to develop, test and deploy a water purification solution based on clay-pot micro-filtration, with Pakistan being the first country selected for field trials. In areas where there's shortage of drinking water, Sawayra is providing dehumidifiers to extract water from the humid air found across the coastal areas of Sindh province.

Dr. Khurshid Qureshi heads DICE, a program to connect Pakistani universities with various industries ranging from automotive, energy and textiles to information technology.  It has spawned a number of joint projects to do research and design involving universities and industries.

DICE is sponsoring regular webinars for NED students featuring speakers from Silicon Valley and other parts of North America, including NED alumni working in various industries.

Earlier this year, DICE helped arrange a trade delegation of Pakistani Association of Automobile Parts Manufacturers (PAAPAM) to participate in and exhibit their products at Detroit Auto Show for the first time.


Non-Tech Entrepreneurs:

A panel at the convention featured Tabassum Mumtaz, an NED alum who decided to try his luck as an entrepreneur outside of engineering.  Tabassum stated working as a cook for Long John Silver and, through his hard work, ended up owning the entire chain of the seafood restaurants. In addition, Tabassum is a grand franchisee of A&W, KFC and Taco Bell restaurants in some regions of the country run under Ampex Brands.  The annual revenue from the restaurants exceeds a billion dollars.


Giving Back:

There are at least two endowment funds that have been established by NED alumni in the United States: Koshish Foundation fund and ALEF (Alumni Endowment Fund). Each has raised about a half a million dollars so far. More funds are being pledged to sponsor programs and projects at NED.

Koshish Foundation, funded mainly by NEDUET alums in Silicon Valley, provides merit-based tuition assistance to students admitted to NED University who can not afford it.

One of the projects sponsored by ALEF, headed by NED alum Tanveer Malik, that recently received media attention is the 3D Print Lab , called NED's MakerStudio, that produced a prosthetic arm for a child in Karachi.

Another project sponsored by NED Alumni is the Grid, a Virtual Reality Lab in the Petroleum Engineering Department. 360 degree Panoramic shots, shared by the Petroleum Engineering Department’s alumni working in oil fields around the world, are helping students to get a first-hand experience of field work as if they are actually there.

Summary:

NED Alumni are flourishing in the United States. They are now meeting at least once a year every year at NED Alumni Conventions in  different major cities in Canada and the United States. They are also giving back what they can to their country of origin and the university they attended.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Silicon Valley Pakisanis

3D Printing Revolution in Pakistan

NED Alumni Convention in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Pakistanis Celebrate Pakistan Independence Day

Pakistani-American Pioneered 3D Technology in Orthodontics

Edible Arrangements: Pakistani-American Success Story

Largest Ever NED University Alumni Convention in Toronto in 2015

Over 600 NEDians and their families from all over North America and other parts of the world converged on Toronto to attend the Karachi-based engineering university's 11th international alumni convention for the year 2015.  It was organized by the NED Alumni Association of Canada over the Labor Day weekend (September 4-6, 2015) at the Mississauga Hilton.  Last year, the NED Alumni convention was held in Silicon Valley, California. Next year's convention will be held in Houston, Texas.

Arrival in Toronto:

My wife and I were met by Pakistanis from the moment we landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport. Our first encounter was with a Karachi-born Canadian immigration officer. Our taxi driver who took us from the airport to the hotel was a Sikh gentleman. The manager at the hotel was a Pakistani as was the man minding the gift shop there.

What impressed us most was how "desis" from South Asia were very responsive and well organized in performing their jobs, a far cry from how badly the same people do the same things in their countries of origin.  It's a tribute to the efficient systems put in place and operated in Canada. Rule of law is a big part of it.

Mississauga in Peel region of Greater Toronto Area is an excellent choice for any gathering of Pakistanis in North America. It has a large number of people of Pakistani origin with a strong support system. There are over 30,000 Pakistanis in Mississauga making up the second largest immigrant group in the city, according to Canadian Census Data from 2011.

Welcome Dinner on Friday:

Alumni coming in from outside Toronto area were treated to Chinese food and Pakistani poetry and music at Symphony Event Center & Banquet Hall, one of many Pakistani-style  shadi halls dotting the Peel region around the airport. It was a great opportunity to meet lots of friends after many years.  Some were from 1974, the year I graduated. My wife met some of her Dow Medical College (DMC) alums who are now married to NEDians attending the event.

Energy Panel Discussion:

After continental breakfast and a brief welcome speech by President Imran Ahmad of NED Alumni Association of Canada, there was a panel discussion on a very hot topic for most Pakistan: the energy crisis. Mr. Arif Alauddin, Dr. Khurshid Qureshi, Dr. Asad Asghar, Dr. Afzal Haq and Mr. Tanveer Zuberi were on the panel. The people on the panel all have impressive backgrounds but the the content and the quality of the discussion left much to be desired. Panelists focussed mostly on engineering and manufacturing while ignoring major policy issues that are mainly responsible for severity of the crisis.  For example, panel members looked for solution to the crisis in engineering and manufacturing solar panels and turbines while saying little or nothing about the serious policy issues ranging from badly crafted IPP power purchase contracts to impact of fuel costs, lack of incentives for generation efficiency, and extremely poor financial management of the entire energy sector.

NED University's Finances:

Dr. Afzal Haq discussed the precarious financial situation of the university and how he is trying to fix it. Dr. Haq inherited a significant debt running in hundreds of millions of rupees when he took over as the Vice Chancellor of the University. Much of the money was borrowed from commercial banks at high interest rates. He blamed it on heavy political patronage-based hiring of non-faculty staff who he could not easily fire.  He did reduce the staff to some extent and then turned his attention to raising more revenue. One of the ways he's done that is by adding self-financed seats filled by those who pay significantly more than the standard tuition for the privilege of attending NED University. He's also added more graduate classes in the evening for working engineers who pay more. Dr. Haq has so far cut NED's debt in half by these measures.

Saturday Banquet:

The Saturday banquet drew the largest attendance. It was well organized with good food and great entertainment. The only complaints I heard were related to the length o speeches and other presentations that took time away from people wanting to spend more time meeting friends and families.

Summary:

The 2015 NED Alumni Convention went very well except for some minor irritations. The NEDians in Canada deserve full credit for pulling off the largest ever NED Alumni Convention in the last 11 years. Hope the 12th international NED alumni convention in Houston , Texas,  will be even bigger and better. I think my fellow alum Afzaal Hafeez is quite capable of delivering it.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

NED Alumni Convention 2014 in Silicon Valley

Energy Crisis in Pakistan

Pakistanis in Silicon Valley

NEDians in America

Promoting Culture of Innovation in Pakistan 

Asian Tiger Dictators Brought Prosperity; Democracy Followed

Industrial Revolution Power Shift

Steve Jobs' Syrian Father

Inquiry-Based Learning in Pakistan

3D Printing in Pakistan

Zia Chishti's Innovation in Orthodontics

Human Capital Growth in Pakistan

Khan Academy Draws Pakistani Visitors

Pak NED Alumni Convention in Silicon Valley Focuses on Innovation

Hundreds of my fellow alumni of Pakistan's NED University of Engineering and Technology (NEDUET) gathered in Silicon Valley for tenth annual North America convention for three days starting Friday, October 10 through Sunday, October 12, 2014. They traveled from dozens of US states and Canada. Many, including NED University's vice chancellor Dr. Afzal Haq, came from as far as Pakistan.

The Silicon Valley convention featured keynote speeches by IBA director Dr. Ishrat Husain and Silicon Valley entrepreneur and NED University alumnus Dr. Naveed Sherwani.  In addition, there was an interesting monologue by NED alum Aftab Rizvi which offered a fictionalized account of an NEDian rise from a Karachi slum to a lucrative career. In this post, I will focus on the innovation panel which I found particularly interesting.

Innovation Panel:

The topic for this panel was "How to promote innovation in Pakistan".  Distinguished panelists included Dr. Afzal Haque, Vice Chancellor of NED University, Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Dean of Karachi's Institute of Business Administration,  Dr. Khursheed Qureshi, Chairman of DICE  Initiative to promote innovation, Dr. Abdul Ghafoor, Chairman of Manufacturing Engineering Department at National University of Science and Technology (NUST),  Dr. Mumtaz Hussain, first Vice Chancellor of King Edwards Medical University, Tanveer Malick, NED Endowment - ALEF and  Professor Ali Minai, Panel Moderator.

After listening to the panelists for almost an hour, it became very obvious to me that the panelists were talking about imitation rather than innovation in areas such as automotive engineering and personal computing. Dr. Khurshid Qureshi and Dr. Ghafoor talked about designing and building an automobile engine entirely in Pakistan by assigning major parts of the project to various engineering departments at universities working with the local auto industry.  Then Dr. Khurshid Qureshi brought up working with some Silicon Valley alums to design and build a laptop in its entirety in Pakistan.

It was a relief to finally hear Dr. Ishrat Husain clearly articulate the fact that the panelists were essentially talking about doing what others did decades ago. He said it's not really a bad thing to begin with and cited the example of the imitation and absorption of Green Revolution technologies in Pakistan.

He went on to explain that imitation, absorption and diffusion of existing technologies can greatly benefit Pakistan and set the stage for real innovation in the long term.  Post WW II success stories of the Japanese and the South Koreans and other Asian Tigers have shown how this process has helped them develop and prosper by industrializing rapidly.  Beyond imitation,  real innovation requires a culture that promotes questioning of widely accepted conventional wisdom. Discouraging questions from children kills their natural curiosity and hurts innovation.

Moderator Ali Minai illustrated this important point with the following poetic lines:

yaqeeN kee baat mayN kuchh bhee naheeN thaa/ naye pehloo huay paidaa gumaaN say ( by late Saleem Ahmad)

(Absolute faith offered little/ doubts have helped open up new possibilities)

vo harf sach tha ke ahl-e yaqeeN naheeN samjhay/ dimaagh-e kufr se kyaa kyaa haqeeqatayN nikleeN  (by late Aziz Hamid Madni)

(People of faith did not comprehend the truth/ Agnostics' mind revealed many truths)

Dr. Mumtaz Husain of King Edwards Medical University added that there is nothing in Islam that discourages questions and critical thinking. In fact, the Quran repeatedly exhorts people to think, to ponder, and to go as far as necessary to seek knowledge. He particularly cited repeated Quranic exhortations like "Afala ta'qilun" (Why don't you reason?), "afala tatafakkarun" (Why don't you think?), "afala tubsirun" (Why don't you see?), "afala tadabbarun" (Why don't you find solutions?).

Here's a video clip of Dr. Ishrat Husain's presentation on innovation at the NED Alumni Convention 2014 in Silicon Valley:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x27up3a_innovation-panel-at-ned-alumni-convention-2014-in-silicon-valley-ca_news


Innovation Panel at NED Alumni Convention 2014... by riaz-haq


http://youtu.be/-NTy66ey6vc?list=UUkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ





Promoting Innovation:

Dr. Ishrat Husain succinctly stated some of the key points which I had brought out in a blog post titled "Promoting Innovation Culture in Pakistan".  It's reprduced below for those who didn't get a chance to read it:

Efforts to promote innovation in Pakistan are being spearheaded by several different groups including DICE Foundation and Pakistan Innovation Foundation.  Both DICE and PIF focus almost entirely on higher education institutions.

Before assessing the situation and making recommendations on promoting innovation in Pakistan, it's important to understand the history of innovation by studying the examples of major innovations since the industrial revolution.

James Watt:

James Watt (1736-1819) is credited with the innovation of the steam engine which is believed to have enabled the Industrial Revolution in Scotland. Watt only had high school education. He never studied at a college or a university. His invention enabled a wide range of manufacturing machinery to be powered.  His steam engines could be sited anywhere that water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained and provided up to 10,000 horsepower to run large factories. It could also be applied to vehicles such as traction engines and the railway locomotives. The stationary steam engine was a key component of the Industrial Revolution, allowing factories to locate where water power was unavailable.

Thomas Edison:

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), the man who invented the light bulb, was probably the most prolific inventor since the Industrial Revolution. He had no formal education. He was a tinkerer who worked with his hands to come up with many devices and was awarded over 1000 patents by the U.S. Patent Office. His innovations were transformational in their impact: electric light and power utilities, sound recording, and motion pictures, all established major new industries world-wide. Edison's inventions contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures.

Steve Jobs:

Steve Jobs (1955-2011) invented Apple personal computer. Jobs revolutionized several industries from computing and personal electronics to publishing and entertainment. Jobs, a highly prolific innovator, attended college briefly but did not complete college education. Jobs, too, was a tinkerer who worked with his hands to create things.

These examples clearly establish that some of the most prolific innovators have been people who had little or no college education. It is therefore not wise to limit promotion of innovation to just the college level.

In fact, it is much more important to start promoting innovation during early years in primary and secondary schools. It can be done through inquiry-based learning and provision of tools and training at the K-12 school level. Some examples are as follows:

Inquiry-based Learning:

Inquiry-based learning is a method developed during the discovery learning movement of the 1960s. It came in response to a perceived failure of more traditional rote learning. Inquiry-based learning is a form of active learning, where progress is assessed by how well students develop experimental, analytical and critical thinking skills rather than how many facts they have memorized.  Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF) and The Citizens Foundation (TCF) are beginning to promote inquiry-based methods to encourage more active learning and critical thinking at an early age in Pakistan. These skills are essential to prepare Pakistani youngsters to be capable of facing the challenges of living in a highly competitive world in which the wealth of nations is defined in terms of human capital and innovation.

Maker Movement:

The Maker Movement is a technological and creative learning revolution underway around the globe. It has exciting and vast implications for the world of education. New tools and technology, such as 3D printing, robotics, microprocessors, wearable computing, e-textiles, “smart” materials, and programming languages are being invented at an unprecedented pace. The Maker Movement creates affordable or even free versions of these inventions, while sharing tools and ideas online to create a vibrant, collaborative community of global problem-solvers.

Maker movement is helping spawn facilities in many different cities around the world. These places have a wide range of both hardware and software tools and classes available to help people to create and "make" things with their own hands.

The only possible example of "makerspace" that comes close in Pakistan is Robotics Lab that was launched in 2011 in Karachi. It was founded by two friends Afaque Ahmed and Yasin Altaf who had previously worked in Silicon Valley. They bought a 3D printer for the lab as a tool to help children learn science. The founding duo is now looking for ways to expand its audience.“Our goal is to push this science lab to TCF schools, a nationwide school network covering about 150,000 underprivileged students,” says Ahmed. The project, however, is currently pending because of funding constraints. “We have asked them to find some big donor for this purpose. Currently, we train these children only through field trips to our labs.”

Out-of-the-Box Thinking:

The key to innovation is not necessarily advanced education and training in a certain field. It is out-of-the-box thinking. Major innovations have often come from people working in unrelated fields. Recent examples of such innovations from people of South Asian origin include Zia Chisti's Invisalign and Salman Khan's Khan Academy. Both Zia and Salman came from investment banking background before they revolutionized the fields of orthodontics and education.

Summary: 

Encouragement of the culture of innovation should begin during children's formative years in primary and secondary schools. Innovation requires free out-of-the-box thinking. History tells us that some of the biggest innovators were tinkerers with little or no formal education in the fields of their biggest and most transformative innovations. Groups and foundations promoting innovation in Pakistan need to increase their outreach to the school kids. As a start, they can expand inquiry-based learning and build more makerspaces like Karachi's Robotics Lab in partnership with private industries and foundations in major cities.

Here's a video of my friend Ali H. Cemendtaur's visit to Karachi Robotics Lab:

http://vimeo.com/58856985


Visiting Robotics Labs, Private Limited in Karachi, Pakistan from Ali Cemendtaur on Vimeo.

PS: Since I first published this blog, Dr. Khurshid Qureshi, Chairman of DICE, has communicated the following to me:

While I was reading the article, I wondered that may be I failed to fully explain what DICE is all about. My apologies.

I would like to mention few point to clarify our mission.

1. As I mentioned earlier we have been arranging mega events for last 7 years  and that is to bring all innovative ideas from all domains disciplines to one platform in an effort to bring Innovaiton culture in Pakistan. We have seen innovations from increasing iron content of Basmati rice 10 times, fertilizer which works on saline land, design of low cost sugarcane planter to pain measurement device (if we are succesfful in creating such a device - that one innovation can have a potential to take Pakistan out of misery. At DICE we have been bringing 100 humdreds of such innovations on surface for the last several years.

2. When we talked about automotive and laptop, idea was not to say that we should not work on item 1 above, it is just that there are certain strategic areas where we have to fix the baseline first (we are far behind), before we can reasonably come up with some thing really innovative. And from my perspective even Pakistan having its own low cost car (indigenous design) with our own engine is highly innovative.

3. I always cite example of Shan Masala (one of the greatest innovations), and also ultimately having a Innovation market place such as Jumma Bazar of Innovations where people can market their innovative ideas and projects (does have to come from colleges / Univ).

So as I mentioned earlier, I am fully aligned with what you are saying that Innovation can come from anywhere - doesn't require degrees.

I thought I should try to clarify our position at DICE - we are not there just to imitate (which btw is also an innovation), we are truly after changing the culture of our nation.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistanis in Silicon Valley

NEDians in America

Promoting Culture of Innovation in Pakistan 

Asian Tiger Dictators Brought Prosperity; Democracy Followed

Industrial Revolution Power Shift

Steve Jobs' Syrian Father

Inquiry-Based Learning in Pakistan

3D Printing in Pakistan

Zia Chishti's Innovation in Orthodontics

Human Capital Growth in Pakistan

Khan Academy Draws Pakistani Visitors

NEDUET Progress Report 2008

Is NED Making Progress?

Is NED University making progress to deal with the challenges of the 21st century? Is it competitive within Pakistan with other institutions of higher learning? How have NED University administration and faculty responded to the institution's low ranking by the HEC? How are the NED alumni faring in the real world? These are some of questions I explored at the NED Alumni Convention 2008 recently held at Hartford, CT.

As part of my effort to get answers, I participated in panel discussions at the Convention and followed up with Dr. Shamsul Haq, Mr. Jawaid Saeedi and others. I also drew upon my personal experience with NED alumni in Silicon Valley, CA.

Research Efforts at NEDUET:

According to Dr. Farooq Rafiqi, the Dean of Civil Engineering who was a panelist at the Convention, NED Civil Engineering Department has been engaged in US government funded research projects and published research on earthquake disaster mitigation. Dr. Rafiqi also mentioned collaboration with UC Berkeley on some of the work being done at NEDUET's Cowasjee Earthquake Study Center.

Building of Faculty:

Dr. Shamsul Haq talked about how NED is trying to build a faculty to support expanded graduate programs and research. There are currently 50 PhDs on NED faculty and 50 more are expected to return from universities overseas in the next three years.

Petroleum Engineering Department:

According to NED Alumnus Jawaid Saeedi, Development Manager at Schlumberger in Texas, the PE Department within the faculty of Civil Engineering will graduate its first batch in December 2008.

Mr. Saeedi believes that NEDUET has started with the right input from various experts. The members of the Advisory Board are capable of providing support to the department. This support could be in the form of establishing scholarships, chair(s) and funding for post-graduate education.

With Professor Dr Khalid Aziz of Stanford University, a well known international expert in the area of Petroleum Engineering education, on the Advisory Board NED University PE department has the best resource. NEDUET does definitely lack the faculty members who could implement the proposed curriculum in its entirety. As an example one of the premier PE departments is in Istanbul Technical University. It has 11 PE PhD's on their faculty. Mr. Saeedi suggests that NED should use more industry resources to teach the required courses.

Mr. Saeedi said that the department has provided field trips and seminars over the first four years of its existence. However, it needs to do much more in this area to stay up on the latest cutting-edge technology. That was one of the reasons Saeedi has proposed regular video conferences from North America. If a video conference is not possible, a NetMeeting session would be a good alternative to get NED alumni and other PE experts involved in improving education at the PE department.

Dr. Shamsul Haq indicated that the PE department has good collaboration with petroleum industry in Pakistan, particularly Pakistan Petroleum Limited which has established a PPL chair at the university.

HEC Ranking:

Dr. Shamsul Haq talked about the HEC ranking process which relied on inaccurate and unaudited information provided by the institutions. In the case of NED, Dr. Haq said NEDUET took the position that the HEC as the funding body should not be ranking universities. NEDUET, therefore, did not respond to the HEC request for data. HEC used its own, unconfirmed data to assess NED's ranking. NEDUET disagrees with both the data used and the resulting ranking.

Issues at NEDUET:

Dr. Haq acknowledged that there are some issues in terms of faculty leadership and performance that have dogged some departments. Lack of initiative and absence of serious commitment have let the administration and students down and resulted in departures of faculty members. Dr. Haq did not elaborate on the specifics. However, he did indicate that serious alumni involvement and guidance can help alleviate some of these issues in the future.

NED Alumni Successes:


Looking at the worlds of high-technology, engineering, finance, journalism, writing, sports, music, politics or business, you will find NEDians making their mark. Among the sports personalities, you will find famous names such as cricketers Saeed Anwar and Rashid Latif, Asian games swimming medalist Asif Kausar, and national hockey player Hasan Sardar. Among the published authors we have Dr. Naveed Sherwani with a book on chip design and Imran Qureshi with a book on Cisco Internetworking, Ali Hasan Cemendtaur with several books to his credit, just to name a few. In the world of music and entertainment, you know and love NEDians Mohammad Ali Shehki, Ali Haider and actor Mazhar Ali who have made their presence felt. In the world of finance you have a recognizable NEDian Zakir Mahmood as the CEO of Habib Bank, one of the largest banks in Pakistan and Mohammad Aboobaker, former Intel executive and venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. In academia, we have Professor Ali Minai at University of Cincinnati, Dr. Jamshed Jami Shah at Arizona State University and Dr. Khalid Razzaqi at Illinois State and many more. It may come as a surprise to some of you that Arif Mansuri, the managing editor of Pakistan Link, is an NEDian.

Last year, several young NEDians made their names as successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Of particular note are Raghib Hussain of Cavium which recently went public on NASDAQ, Naveed Sherwani of Open Silicon which is likely to go public soon, Rehan Jalil of Wichorus, a high-profile mobile WiMax start-up that has raised tens of millions of dollars in VC funding. These are just a few names from a long list of very successful NEDian businesses and executives found in the Valley.

Other NED Alumni have had major impact in shaping this high-tech valley through their contributions at well known local companies such as Cisco Systems, Intel and Sun. Whether it is Intel CPUs, VIA chipsets, Sun Servers, Cavium Security processors, Cisco routers, Diebold or NCR ATMs, you will find NED Alumni fingerprints in creating these products and systems. So many of the advances in Chipset technology and Network Security Processors can be attributed to VIA and VP-Net; both these companies were co-founded by NEDians, Idris Kothari and Saeed Kazmi. Some of the VPNet alumni started Cavium. Earlier, Saeed, Idris and Zoaib Rangwalla served on the advisory board of another high-flying company called Exodus. Zoaib served as their first CFO. More recently, Idris and Saeed have a new company called Vertical Systems in the area of hospitality computing. In the field of manufacturing, there is NexLogic, founded by Zulki Khan, an NEDian. In the field of systems and software, away from the semiconductor tradition of Silicon Valley and highly successful without any venture funding, is Infonox (founded by Dr. Safwan Shah, an NEDian). Infonox is a market and technology leader in the delivery of complex financial services on Kiosks, ATM’s and other point of service devices. Each of these companies can boast of many fortune 500 customers and millions of users. Cumulatively, these companies and products have added economic value worth billions of dollars.

Alumni Relations:

Dr. Shamsul Haq said NEDUET is building an alumni network to improve contact and relationship with its alumni. He encouraged all alumni to register at the NED website.

Future Direction:

After four annual conventions of NED alumni in US and closer contact with NEDUET faculty and administration, the time is now right to begin a collaboration process between NEDians in North America and the NED University in Karachi. The first step is to sign up with NED Alumni Network and follow that up with specific, concrete proposals such as sponsoring lecture series, funding chairs at NEDUET, regular visits by alumni to offer seminars in their respective fields and arranging industry-academia links for NED University to work on specific projects or research.