NED Engineering Alumni
Celebrates ’Varsity’s Long History and Rich Heritage
By Riaz Haq
President, NED Alumni Association of Silicon Valley
What: NED University
of Engineering and Technology Alumni Convention
When: Saturday, Sept 8, 2007
Where: San Jose, California
Attendees: Open to all Nedians and Non-NEDians
Registration: Register online at www.nedians.org or call 1-888-267-5951
Riaz Haq |
NED University of Engineering
and Technology is the alma mater to thousands of NEDians currently
residing in North America with hundreds of them in and around
Silicon Valley, the high-tech hub of the world. Established
in 1921 as the Prince of Wales College, it was renamed in
1942 after a Parsee philanthropist Mr. Nadirshaw Edulji Dinshaw.
Until 1977 when it became a university in its own right, it
was affiliated with various universities including Bombay
University, Sindh University and Karachi University in successive
periods before and after Pakistan’s independence. It
remains one of the oldest and best-known institutions of higher
learning in Pakistan with a large number of very successful
alumni as testament to its rich and glorious heritage. Hundreds
of these alumni are gathering in Silicon Valley on Sept 8,
2007 to celebrate it.
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 and Dr. Khalid Razzaqi
at Illinois State and many more. It may come as a surprise
to some of you that Arif Mansouri, the managing editor of
this newspaper, is an NEDian.
Recently, several young NEDians have 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 just raised its second round VC funding of $25m. 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
start-up 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.
In addition to the well-known start-ups and mega successes,
there are dozens of NED alumni who work in many Silicon Valley
high-tech companies that are shaping the future.
You will see many of our well-known alumni in attendance at
this convention.
Reasons to attend
NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi |
Besides the sumptuous
Pakistani food catered by a Pakistani restaurant, nostalgic
Pakistani music by NEDians and unique comedy by British-Pakistani
comedian Shazia Mirza, the most important reason to attend
for NED alumni is to socialize and network with other NEDians
from around the world whom you may not have a chance to meet
otherwise. For non-NEDians, it is an opportunity to get to
know successful NEDians with a view to forming business and
personal relationships. The value of social networking is
not always obvious but it is beginning to be recognized more
and more with the success of both online and face-to-face
networking with the advent of Web 2.0 and various associations
and clubs catering to specific interests. Another reason is
to hear keynotes by well-known educator and speaker Dr. Pervez
Hoodbhoy of Quaid-i-Azam University, NEDian and mega-developer
business executive Aftab Siddiqui of Paragon Constructors
from Karachi, Pakistan and great panels with fellow NEDians
of distinction. Where else would you hear a discussion of
“NED to NASDAQ” or “NED’s Heritage”
or “Life beyond Engineering”?
This is truly a unique opportunity for both NEDians and non-NEDians.
A word about our sponsors:
Many of our alumni and friends have come forward to help fund
this event. These are companies either owned or run by NEDians
or in some cases generous individual NEDians have come forward
and offered both time and money to make it a success. So far,
we have Infonox, Jersey Precast, Nexlogic, K2 Ventures, Vertical
Systems, Wichorus, Jeewanjee Insurance, Pakistan Link, Koshish
Foundation, Taj Mahal Imports, Raghib Husain & Muder Kothari
(Cavium cofounders) and Badar Baqai (semiconductor veteran
and former VP at Fujitsu and LSI Logic). This list continues
to grow as we get closer to Sept 8, 2007.
The Future
Yesterday’s excellence is today’s standard and
tomorrow’s mediocrity. In science and technology, the
bar is being constantly raised. So, along with the well-deserved
celebration and genuine pride in our alma mater, we will talk
about the present and the future of NED as an institution
of higher learning. As NEDians and Pakistanis, we all have
a big stake in the continued success of this institution and
we will talk about how we can help it. Our keynote speaker
Dr. Hoodbhoy has been focusing on ways of improving science
and technology education in Pakistan. He has done a lot of
research on this subject and looked at our neighbor India’s
IIT system’s success. His insights will be helpful to
us in coming up with specific, concrete ideas and plans in
this pursuit of world-class competitiveness. This convention
will help kick off a conversation that can lead to a serious,
concerted effort to improve science and technology education
for Pakistanis. In this day and age, the future of Pakistan
depends on our success in science and technology as a nation.
The stakes here are very high. Pakistan’s economic competitiveness,
its political independence, its national security and its
very survival as a civil society in this brave new world depend
on the strength of its education system and the product of
its schools. It is a huge challenge. We need to show that
we are up to this challenge.
More information:
Please visit www.nedians.org for more details.
About the author:
Riaz Haq is the President of the NED Alumni Association of
Silicon Valley and Chairman of the Convention 2007 steering
committee. Riaz has more than 25 years experience in the hi-tech
industry. Riaz has been on the faculties of Rutgers University
and NED Engineering University. He has co-founded two high-tech
startups, Cautella, Inc. and DynArray Corp and managed multi-million
dollar P&Ls.
Riaz is a pioneer of the PC and mobile businesses and he has
held senior management positions in hardware and software
development of Intel’s microprocessor product line from
8086 to Pentium processors. Riaz's experience includes senior
roles in marketing, engineering and business management. Riaz
was recognized as “Person of the Year” by PC Magazine
for his outstanding contribution to 80386 program. Riaz earned
a MS degree in Electrical engineering from the New Jersey
Institute of Technology. Riaz has a blog at Haq's musings.
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