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.
I am surprised, and amused, that this post is fast turning into the usual India-Pakistan debate and “mine is better” game that people sometime play. The post is about a successful individual in America who happens to be of Pakistani origin. Good for him! One hopes that more NEDians and more Pak-Americans follow into his footsteps.
I just looked up the website of this company. From their names and biodata one could tell that 4 out of 7 people listed on their team, including the president and CEO, are of Indian origin, two sound like American-Americans, and one (Raghuib Hussain) is of Pakistani Origin.
So where did this India vs Pakistan thing crept into the discussion?
congratulations for the awesome achievements !!
For God sake please avoid dragging India/Pakistan battle over here! Its irrelavent!
We must be proud of them all, however, I hope they can do more to nurture the talent of Pakistani Engineers (residing in Pakistan)
[quote comment=”46261″][quote post=”692″]I’m no fan of India,[/quote]
I have a question for you Eidee Man, why do you say that?[/quote]
Well, I have Indian friends here too and I never said I was anti-Indian. I, too, used to believe that there was a sort of kinship between people from the subcontinent. However, as I have grown more mature, I have come to the realization that the Indian government and a lot of Indian people do not wish Pakistan well.
You can say the same about Pakistan, and yes, you would be correct. But I think there is MUCH less negativity from the Pakistanis side.
As a simple example, just go to Google News and search for Pakistan. You will undoubtedly find that ALL of the negative stories that have inflammatory and needlessly inciting headlines are from Indian media outlets.
Again, I hope Pakistan and India will make peace very soon and settle the Kashmir issue. But, I would be very skeptical of a special bond between India and Pakistan. I think we would be better served if we pursued our traditional allies instead.