Aaj Puranee Raahon Say…
Posted by Sabahat (iFaqeer) on August 2, 2007
اسلام علیکم and Hello!
آداب عرز ہے!۔
Welcome to “NED Nama”, a blog about, by, and for NEDians. This is envisaged as a place for us to meet, greet, reminisce about the old days, and find out what other NEDians are doing.
This July marks exactly 20 years since my batch–”‘87-88″ we call it in NED–finished 12th Grade/High School/”Inter”, whatever you want to call it. Almost 15 since we stopped going to NED daily. And in all that time, quite a few of us have made several efforts to create organizations, databases, and other means of getting NEDians organized and on one platform. We’ll talk of the details, the history of those efforts as continue the journey on this blog.
NEDians.org is, you could say, another effort to do the same. But this time, maybe, just maybe we can pull this off, if we get into the spirit of open-ness that is starting to take hold in technology. Over the years, I had moved from trying to get everyone together on one platform–email group, organization, whatever–to just collecting information on all the groups, organizations, events, etc. in one place. Which is how I came to be running the NEDian Alumi page on WikiPakistan. (Do check it out, if you haven’t; it has a very good list of resources and events–listed batch-wise, geographically, and so on. And a lot of Multimedia stuff; pictures of NED, video… you name it.)
A couple of things have lead to starting this blog and the NEDians.org site.
First and foremost is the upcoming Convention of NEDians being held in Silicon Valley, where I live and work. It is actually the third in a series started by Moin Ahmad and others in Houston in 2005 followed by the 2006 convention in New Jersey.
Secondly, now that a lot of us are active and prominent in the Web 2.0 world–blogs, wikis, and suchlike–it makes sense to try and create a central place for NEDians to congregate and interact is this new medium.
So come on, and let’s talk about NED. As the masthead above says:
زبردست! زبردست!! این ای ڈی زبردست!!!۔
Gettign right to it: Like most other technologies, Web 2.0 has had NEDians all over it, involved, engaged, and at the bleeding edge. For example
- An NEDian is now Managing Editor of one of the most popular Pakistani blogs, especially in the diaspora. (Yes, Owais Mughal is from Batch ‘89-90 and also manages one of the most active NEDians mailing lists on Yahoo! Groups, founded around keeping his batch in touch, but open to all NEDians.)
- Shahran Asim helps produce and podcast a radio show out of Chicago (even though he’s moved to New York–that’s the NEDian spirit for you!)
- Tee Emm (EE, Batch ‘90-91)–how we can we discuss these things without talking about Tee Emm–is probably one of the first people to write blog out of Pakistan. And he seems to be taking a break from personal blogging, but you can read his work on Metroblog Karachi, and his thoughts on what he calls “Nex Gen Issues” here.
- Your humble correspondent (Comp Sys, Batch ‘87-88) also maintains a blog that gets noticed once in a while–and founded/helped start WikiPakistan, the Genealogy Wiki, and the Human Rights Database on ProgressiveIslam.org.
In other fields, too, NEDians continue to excel, make waves, and serve with distinction:
Harris Khalique (Mechanical, Batch ‘84-85), besides being a published poet and former president of Amnesty International, Karachi Chapter, is now CEO of the one of the biggest non-profits that works in the cyclone-affected area of Balochistan. (You can hear an interview with him on ABN Chicago here. Scroll down to 07-08-07. Harris’s interview starts at 2:18 or so in. SPO’s disaster appeal is here.)- Raghib Hussain (Comp. Sys., Batch ‘87-88), is now CTO of a billion-dollar (on a good day) company based out of Silicon Valley.
On the student side, I am told there’s an IEEE chapter on NED’s campus now. And the tradition of magazines continues. I have talked to two people involved with magazines their departments are bringing out. We’d like to request students to send in updates and links to their activities, too, so the wider NEDian community can learn about your efforts and you, and keep in touch.
That’s the kind of thing we’d like to discuss here–together with poetry, pictures, multimedia and more. We’ll start to add guest bloggers and regular bloggers shortly, so do participate. Please send in your contributions, comment on the site, and let’s get this discussion started. Check out the WikiPakistan page about NED Alumni for ideas, if you need to.
I hope this becomes the favorite hangout for the ‘NED nation’. We had needed this for so long and now it is here.
So unleash the sufi-secular-leftist-fundo-injinear in you and let’s get talking!
Oyay, Sufi Saahab, now contribute something already!
I want to know that how can i put my pen on this blog!
Shaiq, you can send me your contribution at iFaqeer@gmail.com
For regular contributors, we’ll be formally making them contributors, so they can post directly, and then we can edit the contributions and make them available.
I have gone through the websites it is amazing.I M proud of you “tappo”.I pray,that,god give you more rise.(pls.don’t mind my English).