KARACHI: Excellence in engineering is a must for getting self-reliance in economy and freeing the nation and country.
This was stated by speakers at a ceremony at NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi held to announce scholarships for students. A nonprofit organization, Trailblazers Engineers, announced here that it would provide scholarships to all the needy and deserving students of NED University, approved by the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC).
They said any donor is entitled to contribute in this regard whether he/she is an NEDIAN or not. Head of Trailblazers Engineers, Avan Amalsad, a graduate of the 1980-81 Civil Engineering batch from the NED Karachi, presently residing in Ottawa, Canada, said that education is the life blood of civilization.
She said it was a matter of great pride and joy to reach out to our future bright engineers of tomorrow, who are following our footsteps by joining the prestigious NED. She said their intention was, and has always been, to help the needy and deserving students, so that they enjoy the same privileges that we were endowed in NED.
She said the roots of this endeavor or venture goes back to August of 2021, when a few like-minded Civil Engineering classmates from the batch of 1980-81, jointly decided to pay back to their alma-mater on the centennial celebrations. With 15 team members from different continents, and after going through a rigorous collection campaign for over 2 months, hundreds of phone calls, WhatsApp messages and emails, team meetings and great support from 140 classmates who generously donated towards this noble cause, that were eventually able to raise a total sum of Rs 4,601,413.00 (forty-six lacs one thousand four hundred and thirteen rupees).
Amalsad said at this very momentous occasion, they would like to thank our fellow NEDIANS who’s kind contribution has enabled them to be where they are today: getting ready to give scholarships to young and bright NEDIANS, future stars of Pakistan, full of aspiration, who just need some guidance to innovate and accelerate; and make our country proud. She said God willing all they now need to do is to focus and concentrate on their study and show that they can broaden their horizons and make this contribution count.
She told the audience that they, the engineers of batch 80-81 formed this group called TrailBlazers Engineers with the intention of helping the truly deserving students financially for them to be able to comfortably continue their degree program at the prestigious NED. What could have been a better occasion than the Centennial Celebration year of NED to start our scholarship programmed!
She said; however, certain qualifying conditions had to be stipulated: the merit-based scholarship awarding process would be transparent and independently managed by ourselves. To formalize the process with the NED Engineering University, Arshad Wadood contacted Controller of Student Affairs with our scholarship advertisement. Arshad was welcomed with an open heart by the Controller of Student Affairs and they were willing to place the advertisement in the Civil Engineer Department Notice Board. For the scholarship programme to have evolved accordingly they created a website and developed their own Scholarship Form, comprising a questionnaire to properly evaluate the eligibility of a deserving recipient. Interested candidates submitted.
The selfless willingness to help and reach out from their fellow classmates was invaluable. Promotion of this scholarship programme has been undertaken by using social media. An advertisement for the scholarship programme was published in newspaper. The scholarship committee comprises seven members, three in Karachi and four from overseas.
They individually reviewed all 17 applications that were received before the interview. The final decision for awarding this scholarship to prospective candidates was based on the unanimous decision of the Trailblazers Engineer Group scholarship committee. However, it was learnt that one of the students did get the scholarship from another source, so they were left with 8 students to give a scholarship check of Rs 96,000 each and one student will only get Rs 66000 as his second semester fees were already paid by the department.
She said the committee raised a separate fund through personal sources, which was used for creating this scholarship organization, developing the website and arranging for this function and all other promotional activities. Presently, this scholarship program has been offered exclusively for the new batch students entering the Civil Engineering Department. Next year they will open this scholarship program to all Engineering Faculties which are approved by the PEC. Other speakers included PDP Chairman.