Logic is Variable

Saleem Shahab

Pakistan is a country beset with problems and blessed with solutions at once. It is up to the ruling people to make sense of fitting solution to an embryonic problem. Regretted to say, this is not being done at home; that is why the country is poor in performance despite having rich resources. Much has been discussed about natural resources of the country but little has been said about the prodigious youth of Pakistan which is making progress across the board.

Last month, the Pakistan British Council released a report about industrious Pakistani youth. The report informs that the country is passing through a phase with a positive ratio of productive youth. In other words, we have more fruitful youth than dependants. This phase set in 1990, and would probably set to close sometime in 2045. But unfortunately the ruling people never paid heed to make the most of this opportunity. That is why merely 15 per cent of the Pakistani youth believe that the country is headed in the right direction. The report reveals the country’s youth to be passionately inclined towards nationalism but having very little trust in national or local government.

In Information Technologies alone, Arifa Kareem Randhawa, Babar Iqbal and Ammar Afzal have worked wonder. Former Chairman, Pakistan Science Board Dr. Noor Muhammad Butt informed me a lot about the brilliance of Pakistani youth in the domain of natural sciences. As a matter of fact, we are not successful to give our prodigious youth way to progress at home. Our prodigious youth is compelled to perform on international stage having no opportunities in the country.

In 2005, Arifa Karim Randhawa dazzled the world by successfully becoming Microsoft Certified Professional (MCS) just at the age of 9. The Mir Khalil-ur-Rehman Foundation working with Microsoft, Pakistan awarded Arfa with the Shabash award for her achievements and arranged for her a trip to the Microsoft Redmond Headquarters in the USA. Being impressed with her genius, Microsoft’s Chairman, Mr. Bill Gates awarded him an opportunity for one-on-one meeting. After coming back from the US, Arfa received the Fatima Jinnah Gold Medal 2005, the Salaam Pakistan Youth Award 2005 and the President's Award for Pride of Performance in 2006.To get to such a certificate, one needs to demonstrate technical proficiency in areas such as .Net, Visual Studio 6.0 and Windows Server. Arifa did the same so successfully. Arifa was very much excited when her father got a computer at home for making use of the technology. Since then, she started to work hard and got results. While she wants to study abroad, works and Microsoft, she likes to conduct technology innovations at home. After her success, a large number of people appreciated her brilliance all over the world.

There is no end to Pakistani genius. Arifa set the record at the age of 9 years and 8 months, but se held the record for about four months since it was broken by the Babar Iqbal at the age of 9 years and 27 days. Babar Iqbal from Dera Ismaeel Khan set at least four world record: Youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) at the age 9 years, Youngest Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA) at the age 9 years and Youngest Certified Web Professional Associate (CIWA) at age 10 years and Youngest Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) at the age 12 in Dubai. Interestingly, all his siblings (two brothers and sisters ) are also Microsoft Certified Professional. By acknowledging his genius, President Asif Ali Zardari invited him at President House, Islamabad and awarded him a cheque of Rs5 million.

Thanks to our current Chief Minister who is showering money to the toppers in Annual Board examinations without improving the standard of our curriculum. It goes without saying our toppers fail to deliver in the society. Every year, students top in the examination but they do not benefit the society as expected. On the other hand, people with humble background in education miraculously dazzle the world off and on. It clearly indicates problems stuck to our education sector. Last month, we published an article about Ammar Afzal, a prodigious youth, who set several world records in different exams and tests.

Now we have learned that Ammar has also topped the exam of window development conducted by Microsoft itself and Mr. Bill Gates himself congratulated him. 49 people from different age groups appeared in the exam and Ammar outclassed all of them. Interestingly, Ammar, the only Pakistani in the examination, is the youngest of all. It is most probable that the coming version of windows will be developed by a team led by Mr. Ammar Afzal. At a time when the world media is portraying negative pictures of Pakistan, Ammar Afzal’s achievement gives a new ray of hope to settle the score.

Belonging to an average Pakistani family, Ammar Afzal got his early education from Okara District (near Sahiwal). He was student of 9th-class at Divisional Public School, Okara when he got wind of an online Organization called Brain Bench which offers online certification up to 600 different skills. Unlike other students of his age who like to visit absurdities on net, he not only visited the Brain Bench, but passed the two different online examinations with average result. However, the online tests encouraged him to do more.

He sought admission in C++ online classes and succeeded to get free admission there. Now he was fully prepared to create history and he did. After appearing in C++ examination, he was not very sure: what is going to happen. He could know only after the result that he had topped the world. The students of different age groups appeared in the test but nobody could attain the level he has secured.

Under the spell of success, he applied for other courses such as Web Developing, Java and set world records there too. At this stage, he wanted to do something exceptional. For this purpose, he selected the most difficult software development course that is none other but Oracle. Keeping in view his successful record, he was awarded free admission. For other students, the fee of the course is not less than 80,000$. Now he was fully aware about the serenity of the matter. He took interest in his studies and wasted no time in absurdities. He started from Oracle 8,8i,9,9i. Again he set the world record in Oracle 9i. Now he was not an unknown person. That is why; Stanford University took interest to avail his services and for this purpose the University offered him 60,000$ which he happily accepted. He had opportunity to learn Oracle 10 from Stanford University. He says, “They treat me like a son”.

Once again he began his studies there wholeheartedly and again he was able to set record in Oracle 10,10g,11,11g. He is second to none in Oracle 11g throughout the globe. Despite setting several world records, his thirst for knowledge led him to apply in GCSE for graduation in Stanford Junior University USA where he will complete his graduation in the days to come. Despite all, he never forgot his love: Divisional Public School, Okara where he spends 2 hours daily. Microsoft also awarded him an admission free of cost against a course whose normal fee is 1,25,000$. In this way he became the first student in these programs out of 49 students.

There is a long list of achievements on Ammar Afzals side. Some of them, we try to mention. An international bank’s customers were very, very much disturbed due to failure of ATM machines on wide scale. Many software engineers were on bank’s payroll. The bank assigned them to repair the problem. The software engineers started their work but they could not give a go ahead. At this the bank management contacted the brilliant brains available in the local market. But the problem remained. It was truly an embarrassing situation for the management. They were ready to go any extent. First they sought the services of the best software engineers available in the country; then they contacted the best softengineers continent to content. But in vain. In the age of plastic money, the non-functioning of ATM machines shook the confidence of bank’s customers. A vice chancellor of University found it appropriate to contact Ammar Afzal. The experts were in efforts for three days to resolve the problem. How much time Ammar Afzal should have taken to find the solution? Phenomenally he provided the “lost key” of solution in less than 2 minutes.

A very interesting event took place when Ammar Afzal was getting internet training from Mr. Simond who had been very much gracious upon girls than boys. Another teacher advised Ammar to pretend to be a girl student online. Ammar did so and succeeded to get his online lectures during a week. However, Mr. Simond checked his personal profile and got infuriated upon this innocent fun. He challenged him in an angry mood to solve some question, and pledged that if he succeeded to solve these questions within prescribed time, Mr Simond would resign from his job. Ammar solved the computer soft ware riddles within an hour. He got 4.99 marks out of 5 in the test which was a world record. Resultantly, Mr Simond had to resign. Ammar has profound regard for Mr Simond as a teacher despite his antagonism since he has learnt a lot from the teacher. Ammar gives full credit for his success to his father who deals in potatoes. His father wanted to see his son a well-groomed person. Now he is able to fulfill the dreams of his father. He says, I am nothing without my parents.”

Now Ammar Afzal, our prodigious youth is all set to join Microsoft after completing his training. One can hope beginning of a new era with Ammar Afzal at Microsoft. Interestingly, Mr. Bill Gates, an American business magnate, philanthropist and Chairman, Microsoft Corp. also appeared on the world scene like a true prodigy. In the early years of Microsoft, he was youngest of all those working in Microsoft. But he left each and everyone far behind due to his performance in the shortest span of time. 1973 is the year when Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair. In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft's mission has been to continually advance and improve software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people to use computers. Since then, the company is thriving with an accelerated growth.

Ammar Afzal topped the Windows development test and no doubt the key product of Microsoft is Windows, a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces, without which more than 90 percent computers in the world would not work. The most recent client version of Windows is Windows 7; the most recent server version is Windows Server 2008 R2. For the first time, Windows was introduced in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Since then Microsoft Windows is successful to dominate the world's personal computer market, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced previously. As of October 2009, Windows had approximately 91% of the market share of the client operating systems for usage on the Internet.

At this time, we need very sincere efforts to exploit the capabilities of our energetic youth. With the appearance of Ammar Afzal on world horizon, one can expect multifaceted breakthrough on international level from Pakistani youth. For this purpose we need to teach, education and prepare our youth so that they might replace the going stakeholders in a befitting manner.