Koshish Foundation Helps Pakistani Student Om Prakash

[Riaz Haq]

Koshish Foundation is a non-profit foundation focused on education and funded by many NEDians and other Pakistanis in Silicon Valley. It is run by Suhail Muhammad, also NEDian.
As an example, the foundation recently helped out a Pakistani student Om Prakash, according to Suhail.

Om Prakash was born in a small town called Naukot in district Mirpur Khas, Sindh, Pakistan. Om Prakash, like many young Pakistani students has to tackle financial challenges head on in order to continue his studies. Financial disadvantage, rural and minority background have not dampen Om Prakash’s spirits, he has completed his HSC (Hyderabad Education Board), B.Sc (University of Sindh) and M.Sc (Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad). He is currently a 2nd semester student pursuing his M.Phil (Microbiology) at Quaid-I-Azam University. Om offers coaching (tuition) to young students to support his studies.

At the beginning of his current semester Om found himself in especially tough financial situation, he approached Koshish Foundation for assistance. Koshish Foundation evaluated his request and agreed to support his second semester tuition and hostel fee. On Feb/11/2009 at a simple but heartwarming ceremony Om Prakash received the checks:

a) Tuition fee = PRS 8,910 (payable to Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad)
b) Hostel fee = PRS 9,100 (payable to Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad)
c) Traveling Allowance = PRS 1,990 (payable to Om Prakash)


Koshish wishes Om Prakash well.

To learn more about Koshish activities, please visit: http://www.koshish.org/happenings.html

[Riaz Haq]

Here's another, earlier story of Koshish helping another NEDian Qasim Bukhari in 2008:

Follow Your Dreams
(Qasim Bukhari)

In May 2008, an ex-NEDian, Zeeshan Ahmed told me that an IEEE international conference on wirless communication, named WiCOM2008, is going to be held in China this year and if I could claim such a reputed publication under my name, it would be highly beneficial for my future. I always had the intention to present some paper at an international conference so that it can help me for my future studies but had never found the courage to do so. Zeeshan Ahmed, really backed me up in the initial phase and encouraged me that I can do it easily. It took some tiresome effort to read many previously published articles, extracting and analyzing results and then writing my own. However things went fine and I submitted my paper that entitles " Wimax and UWB interference analysis and suggestions for future advancements".

It was the 15th June, 2008 I still remember, when I recieved the notification of acceptance of my paper. To me it was something very very strange because I really was not expecting recognition of my work from such a reputed conference. There were some very good remarks from the reviewer that were enough to lift me upto the sky. However, the real cause for concern at that moment was to pay the registration fee that was 400 USD. I had been the member of PakAlumni Association and had witnessed Sir Riaz ul Haq helping many young fellows. So I decided to ask for his help, he introduced me to the NED Alumni Silicon Valley and from there I reached Koshish Foundation. Koshish helped me to register my paper by paying the registration fee which was 400 USD.

I must thank my subject teacher Madam Saima Athar and Dr. Saad Qazi for their invaluable sopport, helping me in the initial phase and correcting my basic concepts. I would also like to thank enitre NED Alumni Silicon Valley as well as the Koshish Foundation, without whom it would only have been a dream.