Owais Mughal
Measuring success is a relative term. A type of success where most people seem to agree is the success in one’s profession. Pakistan’s public universities and colleges, inspite of their little known world status, have repeatedly produced people who have excelled at all world forums. We have one such recent success to report where members of Pakistani diaspora; all with education from a public university of Pakistan; have excelled in their profession internationally.
The sucess story is of a hi-tech company in US which went public yesterday and got listed at NASDAQ. The Company’s name is Cavium Networks. It was co-founded in 2000 by Raghib Hussain, a graduate from NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi. After the initial set-up, Raghib was joined by Amer Haider and Imran Badr; also the graduates of NED; who helped in establishing the marketing and software departments for the company respectively.
While many years of hardwork brought the success to these gentlemen and their team, the point to be noted is their roots of technical skills and education which was imparted to them in public institutions of Pakistan. I read it at PASHA (Pakistan Software Houses Assosiation) website that it is the story of people who are making it big from the corridors of NED university to Wall Street.
Up until 18-20 years ago, the three main characters of our success story, probably oblivious of each other’s existence, were studying at three different Government owned pre-engineering colleges of Karachi. 
Raghib went to Karachi’s Delhi Science College.
Photo to the left is a satellite image of Delhi College Karachi.
Amer Haider went to DJ (Dayaram Jethmal) Science college and Imran Badr went to Malir Cantt college. Good grades in their HSC exams got these gentlemen an admission into a public sector university (NED). Raghib was two years senior than Amer Haider and Imran Badr and went on to graduate as a Computer Systems Engineer in 1993.Amer Haider graduated as a Mechanical Engineer and Imran as an Electrical Engineer in 1995.
Despite graduating from the same university the paths of these three?gentlemen were still very different. Raghib started his career working at Zelin (Pvt.) Ltd., and then ITIM Associates in Karachi before moving to US.
Amer Haideralso started his technical and management career in Karachi with Wavetech and other local concerns before moving to the US.
Imran Badr worked in Karachi for 4 years with local companies and Reuters before moving to the US.
In US the newly founded company brought these gentlement together and the talent produced by Pakistan’s public sector educational institutes blossomed. Today Raghib is the company’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and VP for Software Engineering. Amer Haider is Director of Strategic Marketing and Ecosystem Development and Imran Badr is the Lead Software Architect.
In the photo above the three gentlemen standing from L to R are Amer Haider, Imran Badar and Raghib Hussain
Along the way,few more NEDians have been joined the team; specifically Faisal Masood, Syed Saadullah Hussain in Software and Sabahat Ashraf the lead technical writer. The total work force strength of the company has now grown up to 177.
Yesterday was a big day in this company’s history as it went public and we wish all the stakeholders good luck. We would also like to hear more stories of succes from you where Pakistani diaspora coming from Public institutions have done well in their profession. Please share your thoughts and experiences below.
Acknowledgements: Special thanks to iFaqeer who provided me with background material and two photos for this article.
Owais,
I think it is the right post at right time. I this is really an achievement which we as Pakistanis , NEDIANs should be proud of. Most other achievements that pakistanis have done are in software development or manufacturing sectors.
I think the team’s achievement is rare in the sense that the technology that they are working on is the cutting edge technology of the future (for example specialized single chip processors for broadband/ triple play audio voice and data applications). It requires real R&D investment to develop such an interesting product portfolio which is unprecedented among the Pakistani diaspora.
Companies such as Cisco and IBM have been their customers who use their embedded chips in their products.
As Owais mentioned earlier, I wish we would see more and more of these stories like that which could be a source of inspiration for a lot.
Not exactly on topic but another prominent Pakistani-run public firm is Ethan Allen (where I bought most of my home furniture) whose CEO Farooq Kathwari hails from Kashmir (born in Indian Kashmir but raised in Mazaffarabad). He has a very interesting story as his 19-year old American-born son was recruited by the Jihadists and was killed back in 1992 either in Afghanistan or in Kashmir. A very interesting article on him back in 2001:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_43 /b3754076.htm
Thank you Owais for highlighting this story and the role of Pakistani Public Universities in this success. Almost every American institution has few Pakistani professionals who have contributed to the collective success of that institution. Pakistani trained Doctors, Engineers, Professors all have brought good names to their colleges and universities in Pakistan. Your article decants reality from perception. YLH is right when he says here, “We Pakistanis need not grant any perception issues when they are not rooted in reality”. Let us hope that Ali Choudhury is listening to him. There is nothing that we as a nation are not capable of achieving. Believing in one self is the first step in that direction.
I know Amer (went to school with him at Illinois), he has always been a smart, kind and driven person. I’m not surprise at his success. Bravo!
Brilliant article Owais…
Qaisrani… ever heard of Ricardo’s Principle in International Economics…
Ali Chaudhry…
I am afraid that is not it. A development center in India would probably be a business decision. As far as threat perception goes Pakistan is way higher than India … but actual threat levels are exactly the same.. according to most surveys… Foreign investment is as likely or unlikely to get torched and foreign lives as much safe or at risk in Pakistan as they are in India…
We Pakistanis need not grant any perception issues when they are not rooted in reality.