[Music]
Flamme alaikum why do our graduates want
to leave the country why is it so that
the brightest and the smartest of our
graduates would like to leave the
country the moment they graduate why is
it so that the more elite the school the
more prestigious the university faster
the exodus of its graduates why is it
that our graduates would like to work
for a multinational but would not like
to accept the challenge of joining a
local company and bring it up to the
level or maybe even better than a
multinational I believe that there is
this doom and gloom narrative that has
been sold to our students it permeates
the entire environment and fabric of our
life here in this country this doom and
gloom narrative says that we are going
from bad to worse there is nothing good
happening around and the only way to
make your career is to just escape and
fly off when I was growing up in my
1960s and 70s in my school I listened to
that as a young boy I would listen to
the talk of the elders bemoaning the
plight of our government sliding down
after nationalization how the schools
were being
taken over by nepotism and corruption
how corruption was spreading everywhere
how hospitals were not performing and
but being made to go from bad to worse
the transportation system was going was
being taken away by the private mafias
the environment was sliding the bottles
in our rivers was going away and then we
get caught engulfed in this cycle of
violence and of course the economy is
going down and there doesn’t seem to be
any hope
actually Pakistan is about to
disintegrate and that was the narrative
with which I entered into my engineering
and it’s no wonder that all our students
while they are at school while at
they’re at University in their homes at
private gatherings at funerals at
marriage ceremonies in conference
everywhere
where a few people would gather they
will start talking about what is wrong
with this country and what is wrong with
us and it is no wonder that the moment
they graduate they try to fly off to the
place where they think everything is
hunky-dory I believe and so did I also
when I was in my third year of
engineering I started applying for
scholarships I couldn’t afford on my own
to go over there so I was looking for
scholarships eventually I got that
scholarship when I completed my MBA and
I was there too that dream world of USA
and I will say for seven years
eventually I have to return for France
because of family commitments but one
size
there were everyone was asking why did I
do that why did I leave that great
opportunity to come back and I must tell
you that having returned over here I
found that all this doom and gloom
doesn’t exist I felt myself wanted
everywhere there where I bought of
course it took me a lot of time and hard
work to make a place for myself but I
think the recognition and the acceptance
of what you are trying to do is
available over here also and as I
entered into academic administration
about 24 25 years ago I realized that
all my efforts on trying to inspire the
students to do hard work and to engage
in length in the pursuit of excellence
that is not making much impact so what
was happening and I realized that we as
the university administrators have a lot
to contribute we are not giving them a
vision or the challenge to take up this
situation and change the narrative it
was here that I think that a situation
arose about 10 15 years ago I was
sitting around a table with five other
top decision makers of universities and
like all discussions the discussion came
down to the stage where we again
everyone was saying about what is wrong
with our country and at that time I
could take it no longer and I said that
of all the people in Pakistan at least
v-5 who are at the top decision-making
stage of the universities cannot
complain about this about this situation
we
have around this table at least 20,000
students who spent from two years to
five years with us we can introduce any
course we like we can create any
curriculum that we like we can hire any
teacher we can like we can introduce any
methodology that we can like and if out
of these 20,000 schools we cannot
generate a few hundreds of the change
agents then the blame should be squarely
upon us and it was this motivation that
made me think about what I should be
doing the first thing I realized is that
there are about a half a million
graduates coming out from the University
and most of them are being taught
through books that have been written in
foreign lands most of them are using the
methodology that was designed for some
consumption somewhere else there was no
connection with the real life problems
of Pakistan of all these graduates have
they ever done a course which tells them
how to tackle corruption know how to
tackle this decline in the organizations
and they are working no and no wonders
that they do not have that confidence
when they graduate when they graduate
they are like fish out of the water who
wants to go back to where the water is
because that was the water that they
have become accustomed to so how do we
change this narrative I think what we
needed to do was to impact the heart and
minds of the students and how do we do
it we we can do it by connecting the
curriculum with the real life problems
and we need to instill
them that confidence that yes you can do
it to do this I have to identify an
intervention which I can introduce in
the university and this intervention
must use existing resources and
processes we didn’t want to disrupt the
entire working of the university we
wanted to introduce this intervention
from within the framework in which our
university works we should be able to
start small and grow big it should be
the intervention should be scalable from
one class it should be scalable to the
entire institution it should be self
sustainable we should not be asking for
money from the university or from some
other authorities it should be completed
within a semester and it must be
measurable concrete and visible to
everyone and of course it requires some
committed teachers so what I am going to
describe the things that I have done I
am not done it again it is through some
dedicated teachers that I found and
these I must like to mention mr. modulus
and mr. Norman Mahmood who have been
part of the design of these
interventions so what was that
intervention so it was a typical project
would be a class of 40 with the
committed teacher over there the
students were divided into groups at
least five students to a group and each
group was assigned a poor family for
which the group had to go and do a lead
analysis and needs to get some donation
from their family members maybe family
members maybe friends
maybe philanthropic people around them
so they need you to find the analysis
design and intervention and then go out
and be able to sell that to the people
who will give the donation and each
group managed to generate from anywhere
from
$100 to $500 which is which comes in ter
10,000 rupees to around 50,000 rupees
which was enough for the type of
intervention that we were discussing and
we were discussing an intervention of
enabling that poor family to start a
micro business so that it can be self
sustainable financially the type of
businesses that were set up ranged
across there’s a whole range of
businesses that the students came up
with it was like the repairing if this
rickshaw
Vala is unable to work because of the
problem mechanical problems with his
rickshaw then repairing it and probably
helping them to stall to start a stall
the small barber shop but jewelry shop
or a cobbler shop or it was like giving
them training of being electrician or a
plumber or something and they for some
poor families we made stalls and fruit
stalls and vegetable stalls and some old
women were also given or women who could
not go out and work swing machines and
then Oh from since 2010 if you can see
we had made across various sections at
various universities there was a
previous University where I was and in
that the current university where I am
we started this program a couple of
years ago and before that it was running
at another university and since then we
have been able to help more than 500
families and the students have managed
to collect over 7 million rupees and
they have impacted these 500 plus
families so there were 500 groups
working with 500 families and may
some change in their life so before I
talk about the Phase two I will say that
what was the result of all of these
projects the results that we saw
impacted various parts of their behavior
the first thing was that they grew in
confidence their body language changed
and and the body language changed and
they got that feeling that yes we can
change and they also developed empathy
of looking at those were families and
learning for the first time in their
lives how people in poor communities
actually survived with such meager
amounts and for them their small amount
that they donated would actually make a
difference between earning a halal
livelihood or not and from there we
moved to the phase 2 and phase 2 we said
ok now that we can do it in one course
let’s try to expand it to other forces
so we started experiencing learning
projects and across various other
courses and we tried to spread them in
various courses and then we designed
another innovative program which was a
full four year program eight semesters
eight projects and eight problems that
that program focused upon and these
projects again related to the various
problems that we have mentioned earlier
and based upon this based upon this when
we saw the impact that the students are
creating I think we can now scale up
this entire process of making these
force based interventions at the
University right now we have over 180
universities they are 1.4 million higher
education students and if we scale this
intervention to only four forces in a
program we will have at least hundred
thousand projects running every year
with five hundred thousand families
getting impacted through five hundred
thousand students and this is possible
and I can see that in future we will be
able to use this drop drop drop change
through a force drop drop drop changing
into a trickle and this trickle changing
into a river and from that River
it can become a torrent and that torrent
will be able to overcome this doom and
gloom narrative which Angeles engulfed
our entire environment and we can sweep
away this narrative with a narrative of
hope and with the narrative of promise
thank you very much
[Applause]
Flamme alaikum why do our graduates want
to leave the country why is it so that
the brightest and the smartest of our
graduates would like to leave the
country the moment they graduate why is
it so that the more elite the school the
more prestigious the university faster
the exodus of its graduates why is it
that our graduates would like to work
for a multinational but would not like
to accept the challenge of joining a
local company and bring it up to the
level or maybe even better than a
multinational I believe that there is
this doom and gloom narrative that has
been sold to our students it permeates
the entire environment and fabric of our
life here in this country this doom and
gloom narrative says that we are going
from bad to worse there is nothing good
happening around and the only way to
make your career is to just escape and
fly off when I was growing up in my
1960s and 70s in my school I listened to
that as a young boy I would listen to
the talk of the elders bemoaning the
plight of our government sliding down
after nationalization how the schools
were being
taken over by nepotism and corruption
how corruption was spreading everywhere
how hospitals were not performing and
but being made to go from bad to worse
the transportation system was going was
being taken away by the private mafias
the environment was sliding the bottles
in our rivers was going away and then we
get caught engulfed in this cycle of
violence and of course the economy is
going down and there doesn’t seem to be
any hope
actually Pakistan is about to
disintegrate and that was the narrative
with which I entered into my engineering
and it’s no wonder that all our students
while they are at school while at
they’re at University in their homes at
private gatherings at funerals at
marriage ceremonies in conference
everywhere
where a few people would gather they
will start talking about what is wrong
with this country and what is wrong with
us and it is no wonder that the moment
they graduate they try to fly off to the
place where they think everything is
hunky-dory I believe and so did I also
when I was in my third year of
engineering I started applying for
scholarships I couldn’t afford on my own
to go over there so I was looking for
scholarships eventually I got that
scholarship when I completed my MBA and
I was there too that dream world of USA
and I will say for seven years
eventually I have to return for France
because of family commitments but one
size
there were everyone was asking why did I
do that why did I leave that great
opportunity to come back and I must tell
you that having returned over here I
found that all this doom and gloom
doesn’t exist I felt myself wanted
everywhere there where I bought of
course it took me a lot of time and hard
work to make a place for myself but I
think the recognition and the acceptance
of what you are trying to do is
available over here also and as I
entered into academic administration
about 24 25 years ago I realized that
all my efforts on trying to inspire the
students to do hard work and to engage
in length in the pursuit of excellence
that is not making much impact so what
was happening and I realized that we as
the university administrators have a lot
to contribute we are not giving them a
vision or the challenge to take up this
situation and change the narrative it
was here that I think that a situation
arose about 10 15 years ago I was
sitting around a table with five other
top decision makers of universities and
like all discussions the discussion came
down to the stage where we again
everyone was saying about what is wrong
with our country and at that time I
could take it no longer and I said that
of all the people in Pakistan at least
v-5 who are at the top decision-making
stage of the universities cannot
complain about this about this situation
we
have around this table at least 20,000
students who spent from two years to
five years with us we can introduce any
course we like we can create any
curriculum that we like we can hire any
teacher we can like we can introduce any
methodology that we can like and if out
of these 20,000 schools we cannot
generate a few hundreds of the change
agents then the blame should be squarely
upon us and it was this motivation that
made me think about what I should be
doing the first thing I realized is that
there are about a half a million
graduates coming out from the University
and most of them are being taught
through books that have been written in
foreign lands most of them are using the
methodology that was designed for some
consumption somewhere else there was no
connection with the real life problems
of Pakistan of all these graduates have
they ever done a course which tells them
how to tackle corruption know how to
tackle this decline in the organizations
and they are working no and no wonders
that they do not have that confidence
when they graduate when they graduate
they are like fish out of the water who
wants to go back to where the water is
because that was the water that they
have become accustomed to so how do we
change this narrative I think what we
needed to do was to impact the heart and
minds of the students and how do we do
it we we can do it by connecting the
curriculum with the real life problems
and we need to instill
them that confidence that yes you can do
it to do this I have to identify an
intervention which I can introduce in
the university and this intervention
must use existing resources and
processes we didn’t want to disrupt the
entire working of the university we
wanted to introduce this intervention
from within the framework in which our
university works we should be able to
start small and grow big it should be
the intervention should be scalable from
one class it should be scalable to the
entire institution it should be self
sustainable we should not be asking for
money from the university or from some
other authorities it should be completed
within a semester and it must be
measurable concrete and visible to
everyone and of course it requires some
committed teachers so what I am going to
describe the things that I have done I
am not done it again it is through some
dedicated teachers that I found and
these I must like to mention mr. modulus
and mr. Norman Mahmood who have been
part of the design of these
interventions so what was that
intervention so it was a typical project
would be a class of 40 with the
committed teacher over there the
students were divided into groups at
least five students to a group and each
group was assigned a poor family for
which the group had to go and do a lead
analysis and needs to get some donation
from their family members maybe family
members maybe friends
maybe philanthropic people around them
so they need you to find the analysis
design and intervention and then go out
and be able to sell that to the people
who will give the donation and each
group managed to generate from anywhere
from
$100 to $500 which is which comes in ter
10,000 rupees to around 50,000 rupees
which was enough for the type of
intervention that we were discussing and
we were discussing an intervention of
enabling that poor family to start a
micro business so that it can be self
sustainable financially the type of
businesses that were set up ranged
across there’s a whole range of
businesses that the students came up
with it was like the repairing if this
rickshaw
Vala is unable to work because of the
problem mechanical problems with his
rickshaw then repairing it and probably
helping them to stall to start a stall
the small barber shop but jewelry shop
or a cobbler shop or it was like giving
them training of being electrician or a
plumber or something and they for some
poor families we made stalls and fruit
stalls and vegetable stalls and some old
women were also given or women who could
not go out and work swing machines and
then Oh from since 2010 if you can see
we had made across various sections at
various universities there was a
previous University where I was and in
that the current university where I am
we started this program a couple of
years ago and before that it was running
at another university and since then we
have been able to help more than 500
families and the students have managed
to collect over 7 million rupees and
they have impacted these 500 plus
families so there were 500 groups
working with 500 families and may
some change in their life so before I
talk about the Phase two I will say that
what was the result of all of these
projects the results that we saw
impacted various parts of their behavior
the first thing was that they grew in
confidence their body language changed
and and the body language changed and
they got that feeling that yes we can
change and they also developed empathy
of looking at those were families and
learning for the first time in their
lives how people in poor communities
actually survived with such meager
amounts and for them their small amount
that they donated would actually make a
difference between earning a halal
livelihood or not and from there we
moved to the phase 2 and phase 2 we said
ok now that we can do it in one course
let’s try to expand it to other forces
so we started experiencing learning
projects and across various other
courses and we tried to spread them in
various courses and then we designed
another innovative program which was a
full four year program eight semesters
eight projects and eight problems that
that program focused upon and these
projects again related to the various
problems that we have mentioned earlier
and based upon this based upon this when
we saw the impact that the students are
creating I think we can now scale up
this entire process of making these
force based interventions at the
University right now we have over 180
universities they are 1.4 million higher
education students and if we scale this
intervention to only four forces in a
program we will have at least hundred
thousand projects running every year
with five hundred thousand families
getting impacted through five hundred
thousand students and this is possible
and I can see that in future we will be
able to use this drop drop drop change
through a force drop drop drop changing
into a trickle and this trickle changing
into a river and from that River
it can become a torrent and that torrent
will be able to overcome this doom and
gloom narrative which Angeles engulfed
our entire environment and we can sweep
away this narrative with a narrative of
hope and with the narrative of promise
thank you very much
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: