The talented Pakistani youth

[Dance]

Saad Shahid, is a first year medical student, and a professional squash player in second position in the world ranking for under 17 squash players. Saad won the Under 15 event in India and grabbed the second ranking in the Under 15 category in Pakistan. Grateful to his parent’s support both financially and morally, Saad says he wants to regain the lost glory of Pakistan in Squash. He brought five European titles to Pakistan fetching his ranking to number five in Under 19. Saad’s aim is to play at sports and cultural events and make Pakistan proud. – Photo courtesy Saad Shahid

Hafiz Usman (Right) and Syed Imran Ali (Left) invented the first Pakistani made anti-virus. Known as IVK it is an antivirus, recovery program, with data security and data protection. Since creating IVK in November 2009, they have provided this technology to the coperate sector, educational sector, armed forces as well as home users. They have expanded their reach to 35 cities in Pakistan. They were also invited to Singapore by EAS Maritime and gave a presentation in National University of Singapore on Cyber threats. They said that although the IT sector of Pakistan seems to have been defeated, it is time to once again highlight the achievements in this sector in Pakistan. – Photo by Sara Faruqi/Dawn.com

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. This quote of Rene Descartes can be best applied towards 22-year-old-girl Sadia Shahid. She had the world’s highest scores in A-levels biology and chemistry securing a 100 per cent in both of the subjects in 2009 from the Middle East International School, Riyadh. To fulfill her dreams, she earned a scholarship to the Institute of Business Administration Karachi (IBA). Sadia has also topped the BBA Dean’s honour list for four consecutive semesters. She further proved herself by winning the first prize in IBA National Finance and Economic Reformation Competition 2011. At the moment Sadia is an MBA student at IBA while working as a teaching assistant. – Photo courtesy Sadia Shahid

24-year-old Zaid Azam fulfilled his dream of being an entrepreneur by starting ‘Sara Solar Pvt Ltd’. As Pakistan is an energy deficient country, Zaid felt his calling towards initiating the solution by using solar power. With the aim to provide better service, long term warrantee and complete solar solutions to its client. He hope to provide solar energy to rural areas. Zaid said that he believes any thing is possible in Pakistan and that Pakistan is not behind any other country in terms of technical knowledge. – Photo courtesy Zaid Azam

Taabeer is a philanthropic organization established by young undergrads from various Pakistani universities. Tabeer’s motto is “identifying different ways through which we can fulfill the dreams of the less privileged people around us”. The organization’s strategy differs from others since they don’t believe in distributing donations only. The young volunteers at Tabeer first assess a situation then figure out the best way to help. So far they have provided funds for weddings to help young women get married, bought medicines for the sick who could not afford them and helped children receive education through donations. Their biggest achievement, they say, is helping collect donations for flood affectees, which they say was approximately 20 lakhs. – Photo courtesy Tabeer.

Striving for Pakistan | Multimedia | DAWN.COM

 

[Dance]

Twenty-one year old Sarah Nasir (Left) is the only female karateka from Pakistan to have earned a gold medal in karate at a recognised martial arts competition. It was during the South Asian Games in Dhaka that Sarah bagged a gold in the -53kg kumite (sparring) and bronze in kata (imaginary fight routine) events. A student of the Shotokan style, she earned her black belt at the age of eight. Sara started training Karate at the age of three and gives the credit of her success to her mother who enrolled her in Karate training and supported her the entire way. Regarding her perspective towards Pakistan, she says she loves Pakistan and her biggest dream is to represent Pakistan at an international level. – Photo by Dawn

Pakistani scientist, Faisal Kashif has devised a non-invasive way to sense brain pressure which could significantly change the current model of neurological care of those suffering from brain injury or disease. He dedicated his Maters thesis entitled “Modeling and estimation for non-invasive monitoring of intracranial pressure and cerebrovascular autoregulation” to his parents and to all the martyrs of Independence. April 2011, Faisal won MIT’s Helen Carr Peake research prize for his doctoral thesis contributions to the field of bioengineering. He has also presented his findings at two major international conferences – the American Heart Association’s Stroke 2010 and ICP 2010 in Germany. For Pakistan he says “I am proud to be a Pakistani because I know the reasons for its creation. I am very happy to associate my honours to the ideology behind it. I want to do a lot more and contribute in all ways I can”. – Photo courtesy Faisal Kashif

Eleven year old Sitara Brooj Akbar is the youngest person to have passed the O’level examination. She said it was the motivation her parents provided her to helped her prove herself. Sitara wants to be a Scientist in a bio-chemistry to boost the research area of Pakistan. She said she believes in honesty and hard work, and would like to dedicate her life work to serving humanity through scientific research. – Photo courtesy Sitara Brooj Akbar

Aware Girls is an organization established by the 25-year-old Gulalai Ismail (Right). Being a student of Quaid-e-Azam University she realized the importance of the role women in society play. Hence with a vision of providing equal right to women and to achieve education, employment, governance, and justice, Gulalai endeavored to set up Aware Girls. The organization is based on a unique strategy, where problems are first discussed then a team is set up and briefed after which several teams are sent to areas requiring help. Speaking about her experience as social entrepreneur, Gulalai said that “young women have the power to change the world, they have strong leadership abilities, but they need platforms where they can strengthen their capacity and can voice their opinions”. – Photo courtesy Gulalai Ismail

Nixor Hospital is a project managed and run by the students of Nixor College. It is a project under a registered and tax exempted NGO under the ‘House of Dreams Community Welfare Society’. This project started in October 2009 to help Pakistan come over one of its major social issue that is of poor healthcare condition. Nixor Hospital provides a platform for students to learn and visualise the real condition of Pakistanis. All together six medical camps have been set up till now in which patients of under privileged areas, as well those affected from the floods, were also provided assistance. – Photo courtesy Nixor Hospital

Striving for Pakistan | Multimedia | DAWN.COM

 

[Last Hope]

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. This quote of Rene Descartes can be best applied towards 22-year-old-girl Sadia Shahid. She had the world’s highest scores in A-levels biology and chemistry securing a 100 per cent in both of the subjects in 2009 from the Middle East International School, Riyadh. To fulfill her dreams, she earned a scholarship to the Institute of Business Administration Karachi (IBA). Sadia has also topped the BBA Dean’s honour list for four consecutive semesters. She further proved herself by winning the first prize in IBA National Finance and Economic Reformation Competition 2011. At the moment Sadia is an MBA student at IBA while working as a teaching assistant. – Photo courtesy Sadia Shahid

I know her personally.
A great girl with a great personality.

 

[Last Hope]

Two young girls from Pakistan took Pakistan’s name across the globe to the Unreasonable Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

The institute annually unites 25 high-impact entrepreneurs, to live and work with 50 world-class mentors in order to pitch their ventures to over hundreds of investors in San Francisco and Boulder.

The fellows obtain legal advice and design consulting and form relationship with up to 20 investment funds and prepare to launch self-sustained, globally scalable ventures that could serve the needs of at least one million people.

One of the two local finalists, Saba Gul, is going to stay under the same roof with the other 24 fellows at the institute which is a mentor-intensive accelerator for budding entrepreneurs, founded in 2010.

Gul was selected for her venture BLISS (Business and Life Skills School), which educates and promotes entrepreneurship training for girls hailing from the lower economic strata.

“BLISS provides adolescent girls with an education, while simultaneously lifting them out of poverty” Gul says.

“Before coming to BLISS, the girls used to spend 14 hours a day working at carpet looms, now they come to school, learn basic subjects along with embroidery and needlework.”

Gul added, “The embroidered fabric is finished into trendy handbags for sale in the global markets, the generated revenue goes back to the girls so that they can support their families while getting educated, so it’s a win-win!”

Gul said that she was troubled by the vast social disparities which were prevalent in Pakistan, her birth place. After graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a computer science degree, she could contrast herself with millions of Pakistani girls who wouldn’t even get basic education.

“I firmly believe that the world cannot escape poverty if it does not harness the potential of the 600 million girls that live in the developing world today and the first step to it is to send these girls to school,” Gul insisted.

Gul said that the problem is too grave to be ignored.

The young entrepreneur said that she has partnered her venture with various online handbag retailers based in US and UK. She said a team of four MBAs from the MIT Sloan School were also devising a marketing strategy for her to launch the products in US.

Gul added that the board of advisors at BLISS comprises individuals coming from all walks of life.

“Unreasonable Institute helped me find new board members, strike valuable partnerships with retailers, and start discussions with funders,” Gul said.

“It taught me to not be afraid and to think big and never compromise. I am now part of a network of like-minded entrepreneurs,” she added gleefully.

Gul said that her enterprise has plans to launch a financial literacy and business curriculum for the girls enrolled in BLISS, which would enable them to participate in other parts of the chain, e.g. marketing.

“We are designing a new line of handbags, with assistance from students at the Naqsh School of Art in Lahore. We are also planning to expand our network to other cities,” Gul said.

Gul said that their venture enrolled 30 girls in Attock and hired local staff. “An attendance rate for the girls at these schools is now almost 90%,” she remarked. “Our first line of 65 handbags was launched in May 2011, and all of it was sold out. We are now struggling to meet the local and global demand for our handbags.”

Gul said:

As the American writer Joseph Campbell would say: “Follow your bliss”. Life is too short to spend it doing what you don’t love or feel passionately about.

 

[MZUBAIR]