On 8th Feb, 2016 NEDuet university which is amongst the most popular engineering Institutes of the country, invited us for a motivational talk on Entrepreneurship and Corporate Slavery. This orientation ceremony was organized by the IEEE NED Computer Society with an intention to welcome the new batches with positive energy and offer them productive counseling on how to make best possible use of their four years bachelor's journey. This was my second most memorable visit to Civil Audio Visual Hall of NED after "BluePrint to PlanB" seminar. Last time I presented there as a student and this time I was honored to present as an Alumnus. I am extremely grateful to NED administration especially Dr Muhammad Khurram for all their love and respect. Today's blog post will discuss all important highlights of the event that took place and some untold stories which followed afterwards.
Event Venue and Hosts
The orientation session was organized inside Civil Audio Visual Hall and hosted by the IEEE NED Computer Society. Popular IT disciplines which participated in the event were:
- Computer & Information System Engineering (CIS)
- Software Engineering (SE)
- Department of Computer Science and Information Technology (BCIT).
Event Page: IEEE NCS Orientation 2016
Topic: BE THE FIRST YOU!
Important elements of the discussion were:
- Sugar coated truth about higher studies
- Bitter truth of Silicon Valley
- White and Black Entrepreneurship
- Plan A and Plan B
- The human survival race,
- Corporate slave mentality
- New faces of ancient black slave traders,
- Online business myths and facts
- Becoming a Programmer or Inventor
- My journey as a student to becoming a father,
- A surprise message to INDIA!
Important Highlights of the Discussion
When it comes to facing a crowd, it's something I love the most. This presentation was different because I had rarely slept properly since a month due to new year's projects and some pending clients' work. I only had 4 hours to prepare the slides before the event could start and yet attend calls from friends (including family of a hard working tailor who also wanted to know more about online business) who wished to attend this motivational session. Somehow I managed to get prepared, take my laptop and drive straight to the venue.
What I saw next was a house-full auditorium with a humble and enthusiastic crowd of over 300+ students. Their hospitality and kind gestures deserves an applause. After a routine introduction of the orientation ceremony, I was invited to attend the stage.
This time my focus was more on advent of corporate slavery after Industrial revolution in 18th-19th century and how it effected our academic goals, living standards and priorities in life. I explained in brief that though different empires abolished black slavery completely back in 19th century but it has taken a whole new shape in modern era.
Back in old age, feudalists or capitalists needed black labors to work in their firms on fixed wages. Later as the world changed and got illuminated with education, capitalists started drafting new laws to attract a more skilled generation of workers towards their factories and empires.
Amongst their biggest success was reshaping the academic system to achieve their goals. They did succeed in giving the mindset to work hard in school to get enrolled in a good college then work hard in college to reach a good institute then work hard in university to get a good internship and finally a good job! Millions of dollars are invested each month in advertisements, seminars and workshops where students are taught how to write a good CV, how to prepare for a job interview and how to become a good employee. Today the primary goal of higher education is transformed into employment.
Believe it or not, today the biggest dream of our youth is joining a multinational firm. To explain it in more better words: youth today dream of getting enslaved in a corporate firm on fixed wages. Every IT student today dreams to join silicon valley and to become the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates but rarely do some choose to become the first him or her.
Mark Zuker Berg, Bill Gates and Steve jobs were all lovers of education but to live up their passion they preferred creativity and invention over following the social trends of better grades or GPA. They were considered as back benchers by their classmates but rarely did anyone realized that they were living a dexterous life that I call PLANB.
I am against higher education but never against higher education + skills combined.
Education is good only if applied else it will set you on a roller coaster ride with no direct path and goal in life. Academic education without skills equals multiplying equity with zero.
- What good is that education if a MBBS doctor can not prescribe you a good tablet compared to a salesman who works in a pharmacy.
- What good is that education if is a car mechanic knows more about how to tune an engine compared to an automobile engineer who read it only in books.
- What good is that hard work when a student gets 100% in an exam paper but fails to remember even 50% of it the next day.
- What good is that 16 years of education when a vegetable stall owner is earning more than a graduate doing job today?
All this is happening because we remember 80% of what we see and do compared to 20% of what we read.
Parents and teachers today are concerned mostly about a kid's grades but rarely do they care if the kid is provided with tools and resources to polish his technical skills.
A single Photoshop course at the age of 11, transformed me into a professional web developer today. Imagine if I had also practiced basics of programming at that age, I would have been an excellent programmer long before I joined the university.
Let me quote my last seminar speech here:
Today institutes, teachers and parents pay great focus to 100% excellence in education but rarely do they motivate students to distribute 70% of their time to education and the remaining 30% to extra curricular activities, innovations and building Tech skills. They would encourage a student with full attendance, great marks but never a student with 70% study performance who dedicated the remaining 30% to develop entrepreneurship skills. Nick D' Aloisio was an average school going guy but his summly App that he created during his 10th grade got sold out for $30 Million US Dollars to Yahoo. The credit goes to his parents who taught him programming skills at an early age when he was just 15! I salute such parents and such students.
To build an iOS app you need to have strong programming skills of Objective C. What Nick learnt at the age of 10, graduates today learn it after spending 2 years in a job that means at the age of 24-26!
Advice for parents and teachers:
Human is the most complex machine built by God with unlimited potentials. Where is it written that to learn or practice something you first need to wait for 16 years of education? Why can't our children be taught that they can practice a technology long before time.
Dozens of student commit suicides in India, Pakistan and USA because they fail to achieve their desired GPA in order to receive scholarships. Students today are so over loaded with assignments, exams, tests and forced attendance that they rarely get a chance even to put their creative ideas to execution.
We can't change this social system of education but we can at least change the way we counsel our children and attach expectations with them. Parents must allow their children to play with tools, learn their field related courses before time and participate in extra curricular activities. Buy your children an Apple laptop and iPad and ask them to start building apps. Give them such tools, the Dexter inside them will rise by itself.
Don't just buy them fancy books but also buy them gadgets to practice. When they break a toy or smartphone, don't punish them instead ask them to mend it through reverse engineering. Send them to participate in mini workshops, ask them to build an online store by learning web development, ask them to start a blog to share their random views with the world and cultivate in them the thirst for a startup business no matter small or big.
The benefits of such counseling are countless. They will be more mature than their classmates and financially established long before their graduation.
Advice for Students
Once a person came to Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and he asked him that what to do for living. The Prophet (PBUH) advised him three things based on decreasing priority:
- Start a business
- or Do farming
- or Find a job
The lowest priority was given to employment. Today the biggest priority is given to Jobs by the highly educated community of Indo-Pak. If you read the stats, most of the businessmen, stock market tycoons, real estate tycoons, transportation and textile tycoons are people with no Harvard or MIT degree but with simple 10th Grade certificates.
You need to choose one option out of the three below to decide your goals in life:
- Study like a nerd and work like an ass for a firm - PlanA
- Don't waste time studying and instead only develop skills to establish a business - PlanC
- Study like a nerd, develop skills to start a business and work like an ass to live up your dream! - PlanB
I chose the third option i.e. PlanB when I was a student and I am really thankful to God for this selection. Now it's your time to decide whether you will live someone else's dream or you will work hard to live a life of your own.
If you are an IT student, don't wait for years to learn programming from your professor, go learn it within few months from a nearby credible institute. Practice all basics programming languages within a year and start building mobile/web apps the same year. Yes your code will look ugly the first day but the more you practice it and take inspiration from successful products in the market, the better will you program. If you have 2-4 years before graduation than start a blog and share tutorials on whatever tools and technologies you know best. This blog could become a parallel source of income for you in future after graduation just like it become a source of living for me.
Can a Pakistani Student earn ?�2000 in two days?
Utilizing your energy and applying your skills in positive things can help you do wonders. Just now when I am writing this tutorial, I received a surprise visit from one of my closest high school classmates, Hussain Ali. His story is something that could be an inspiration to those who are seeking education abroad and fail to meet their educational expenses.
While Hussain was pursuing his bachelors in civil engineering degree from Imperial College London, he started looking for ways to afford his academic expenses which was around �26,000 annually. Instead of working like a normal boy at McDonalds or some other cafe, he used online technology to find students for tuition. Just within a year he managed to earn ?�2000 each weekend that helped him pay his annual �26,000 university fee. He did it by simply posting free ads on sites like thetutorpages and gumtree. This is one practical example of using online power!
PS: I am sorry Hussain but I had to share your story and photo because your story does surely deserves an applause! =)
Why there is no barkat in a job?
If hussain had given preference to an odd job, he would be making �7 an hour at McDonalds compared to �200 an hour giving tuitions which is something he loves to do.
Barkat in Islam means the blessing on whatever we have collected (assets).
- In business you have the option to multiply your coins and you have no fixed boundaries. In a job you are limited to a fix monthly wage/salary.
- In business you often have leisure time to try out new things or test your creativity. In a job you barely find leisure time to test your innovational skills and you are limited to a fixed SOP (Standard Operation Procedure).
- In business you earn the reward for every effort you put in. In a job, all credits are attached to the company's name. You may know how great is bill gates but you don't know those thousands of engineers who worked for him in developing Windows OS.
- In business there is Sabr and Shukr. You thank God when their is profit but you turn to God even more when you are in a loss. But In a job, an employee is more concerned with his monthly wage and less with whether the company's graph is going up or down.
- This list can go on...
A Surprise Message Of Love To India
Following is a message of love that the students of Pakistan wanted to give to their Indian brothers and sisters. It's also a video message on Indo-Pak peace from Pakistani Bloggers to India which was requested by my brother Abhishek Mishra from India.
Event Photos
Thanks to NED Photography society and Omais Siddiqui, we have plenty of HQ pictures to share with you all. Full list of pictures can be downloaded from this FB link and here.
Thank you President IEEE Syed Usama Jamil for this kind honor and brother Usama Masood Siddiqui for inviting me. =)
Thank you everyone! =)
Your Views
Respect comes from God. I was and I am just a small man who is trying his best to learn and share every single day. It's the greatness of this country and this youth that has given me so much love and honor. Throughout my 7 years of online business if there is anything that has helped me maintain barkat in my online endeavors then it is only through learning, practicing and sharing.
I am leaving you all with one important note:
Always remain thankful to your God for blessing you each day with a new sunshine. With the same healthy body but a fresh new start. God has placed all puzzles to success in front of you, you just need to join the dots to reach your targets. Never stop learning and sharing. And you must never fall a prey to pride, ego or prejudice after attaining success, they will destroy you inside and outside morally forever. Never give up hope because great future comes to people with great patience. If you are alive today that means, success is still watching your doors. Just let it in!
Wishing you all the best of life and a successful future a thousand times better than me or anyone else, full of happiness and joy. God bless you all buddies!
