Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Race is on after Arfa kareem, Now comes Sikandar Mehmood Baloch

In my previous blog, I put emphases on parents to not make their child Arfa Kareem that appears to fell on deaf ears. The race for becoming young certified child is on; everyone is bringing their children to highlight them in the media.  This become more and more clearer to me after I met with the young boy named Sikandar Mehmood Baloch on February 6, 2012, a 14 year boy who did a lot of work and after two days he is on media.

I met this boy with his father and school teachers at COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad. He had done lot of work; ahead of his age no doubt, he is hardworking student, but with too much ego and less concepts.

According to him, he had developed seven different operating systems. On checking, it becomes clear that his operating systems are the live CDs like OPEN SUSE. Although they cannot be called as standalone operating systems but for a fourteen year child compiling these live CDs is a big achievement. Apart from this, he still insists that these are his operating system, so when he was asked to describe, what does mean by scheduling and paging in operating systems and how his operating systems handle that he had no answer. Boot process was scheduling for him and operating system's paging was the documents like text files.

According to him, he knows more than 107 programming languages and don't like them and writing a compiler for his own language. If that is true, that should come in the gunniess book of world record. But when he was asked to write a simple program to check the number is prime or not, he refused to do so. His answer was I don’t work for background or algorithms, I only develop GUI. Apart from softwares, he also has expertise in hardware and he can develop any kind of motherboard and microprocessor and even can build the world best processor. Whenever he was asked about how he can do that, his answer was, give him machines he will and can do everything :)

In his CV, 21 certifications are mentioned and he did them from 2009 onward mostly from Microsoft, Novell, Expert rating, Autodesk Revit, w3schools and Google. From his certifications, first time I come to know that Microsoft also certifies people in the installation of Microsoft Windows XP (Exam 70-270). His father had claimed at that time that he did that in only two or three months and on his own, I didn’t understand how he paid the fee of certifications as even expert rating (http://www.expertrating.com) is also charging 100 to 130 USD for each certification.

One of the most strange thing, that come to me during the meeting that he don’t even have his own email address and he uses his guardian email address. What could be the reason, I didn’t understand. The bad part of the episode that I see during the meeting was his father and teachers are pushing him for the race. It had created ego in him that was visible when we had talked to him. He had so much pride in him that he was not even ready to listen to others advice.

To summarize, I would say, his work was too much distributed, we the computer science faculty members told him to focus on one thing, he is no doubt very talented and hard worker, but jumping and trying to do everything and not going deep before starting another is not going to work even for him or anyone else. I wish him best of luck, we told his father to not bring him in media but no one listen :). I wish him to succeed in life and become good asset for Pakistan.

 I end this blog with one of his father’s quote that I liked a lot about him and prove him to be the hard worker. "In order to separate him and his computer I have to switch off the main power of house".

22 comments:

  1. lo ker lo gal, a new entry
    A 13 year boy become university lecturer
    http://www.kalam.tv/ur/video/102111/index.html

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  2. if he can not explain what paging and scheduling is, then i am sorry, he does not know much about operating systems, and does not have enough knowledge to build one.

    if he can not prove his knowledge at run time, then what he claims are just lies. it is humanely impossible to develop 7 operating systems. it is a complex program which even pros find it challenging to develop.

    also not knowing how to write a simple program and giving the reason that he only works with guis, shows that he either has little or no knowledge. knowing how to program is a prerequisite. if i would have met him, then i would not have taken him seriously if he would have given these answers to me.

    i would just have told him to learn the basics and to come back again when he knows how to program.

    also the media has a responsibility to find out whether the person whom they are giving the spot light to is genuine or not. this just makes a mockery of us.

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  3. @Mustafa: Agreed with you but everyone is in race and want to come on media.

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  4. why dont you contact SAMMA TV who gave him fame,

    http://www.samaa.tv/newsdetail.aspx?ID=42881&CID=1

    i have posted a comment, so lets see whether they allow it to be posted or will they reject it.

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  5. i tend to agree with usman to some extend. there are many more bright young student in this beautiful country. the goverment need to unleash their skills and invest education budget in small towns and village where people are eager to learn. there are already too many universities we need more and better primary, secondary and higer secondary system.

    media is lame, they can go to small towns if a gun shot is fired but if a student is not getting education they wont bother....

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    Replies
    1. i also agree with you and this is what we want

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  6. @Shahbaz: Excellent point 100% agree with you

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  7. I have started to wonder why these kids don't do anything except in computer sciences, like I haven't seen a kid who is intrigued by chemistry or physics or has made some innovating machine. Maybe it's just about the preferences...

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    1. i dont think so it is preferences. who give preference of physics to newton??? its all God gifted

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    2. Apart from preference, this is the era of computer science, just look at Iphone, why that is superior to other phones, its software. So this is normal, kids will be attracted to computer more and more with each passing day. We just need to guide them in a proper way so that they can become real scientists like Dr Shoab Ahmed and Dr Umar Saif. Learn how their projects help the society

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  8. he has uploaded his operating system on his website. im his guardian and i ahve a question u all said that dont go media and nobody is willing to give him platform. when there is no talent hunting in Pakistan than tell us what is the right way for a normal citizen of this country to follow to give a proper place for such child when no body is ready to understand him while only commenting but its not the solution . there is no institute for such type of child only high degree holder student has a charm but no compliment on him. every body degrade while pay salute to parvez and zardari like people who have fake degrees even and have no talent. but only argue on simple person but dont want to know the psycho of child i am not from this field but do you have any student of master level who knows all these he has no basic concept too much i agree with u because he never read books of computer sciences even in his school he read biology nt computer. can Pakistan give him a platform to polish him because he need the proper guidance and to show his talent??????? even a diamond a precious stone need polish when take out from the mine of coal.

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  9. @Kiran: First of all, welcome to my blog.
    Advise of not pushing him for media, is for his advantage. He is talented, the amount of work he had done in such a small age, is great no doubt. But media fame will put him under bad pressure to perform at par in cramming system of metric and FSC. Honestly that fell extremely bad on good students who focus more on work than cram (Ratta). So keep him away from that.

    Honestly COMSATS is the best place for him to study computer science and i know he will outperform inshallah, if he will be given time so again i will advise you, keep him away from media.

    Let him do what he is doing,he is already polished, he need time to bring something even bigger for the society and inshallah he will bring, i can see that. He is not in the coal. Media fame can make him proud and his focus will be shifted. So do not shift his focus.

    I wish him best of luck in the future as well.

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  10. hello computer people,
    if someone is wondering i do an on-line jobs on Google, odesk, elance,
    scriptlance,and freelance. and i know what paging and scheduling is but i was confuse at that time.and i haven't given you my email address because i have 20+ email accounts in which i get more 200 emails everyday so i don't have that much time to read it.and in 107 programming languages i use 7 programming language most of the time which is C,C++,C sharp,visual basic,php,action script 3.0 event though they are a lot of interpretation between these programming languages the syntax is the same accept php and vb but alot of them is the same every programming language is made form existing one and the looping ,switching and the if statement is the same.
    even though i also program in assembly and pascal but C and Shell Script is much better then these two.it depends on the programmer and the platform for which he/she choose to do programming or scripting for example if i whant to make an app for iphone then i would use objective-C but if i whant to make an app for android then i will choose java & xml but if i want to make an app that would run on all of these platform then i will use adobe flex or adobe air.and i learn to make Linux operating system from http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ (); i only did lfs and blfs.but i am still learning.i am also planing to make social media website like facebook, twitter etc much more better than these but still i learn something new every day .and my website is www.vsx.netai.net (); "and every Software on this website is free as for freedom"
    and my email address is vsx@netai.net.
    and by the way
    nice blog but if you change the interface to bit white,and post some computer or science based blogs then it will be no 1 in google, but nice blog.

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  11. @mr smartguy
    computer is the field of physics and chemistry it is madeup of more then 1000 different electronic parts example == "resistors",capacitor,inductor,transducer,Transistor) to make these parts chemistry is used and to calculate the voltage and current mathmatics is used.

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  12. @Sikvsx: Its nice that you give your point of view. My best wishes are with you. I hope that you will carry on with your hard work and dedication which i have seen in very very few people.

    By the way, my advise will remain the same and it is in your benefit. Instead of going to media, go for research publications, the dedication you have inshallah with in years your research which you have done will get more weight, you will get more grip and many many scholarships.

    And one more advise, if you really don't want to waste time and really want to work on something that can help the society with your skills, go to CASE Islamabad and meet Dr Shoab Ahmed or go to Lahore and try to meet Dr Ummar Saif. Both are real scientists and their works are extra-ordinary. I hope you will get the real project of your life where not only you will be able to prove your skills but also that work will help the society. Project like facebook will now not attract many others because that is already in use, so even if you will be able to make them, your precious time will go waste. So meet them and ask them to give you ideas for projects

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  13. Thank u so much sir for advising sikander. i told him about your comments becaue if someone wants to direct contact TO him OR want to know i dont mind but to watch him is my duty as his aunt and hope so u further encourage him n guide him to choose a right way for his future career. Inshallah try to meet Dr shoab and Dr ummar. God bless u.

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  14. I do agree with Usman Shahid in the direction he is trying to guide this young fellow, Sikandar Mehmood.

    Ultimate aim of any such promising talent must not be to secure spotlight early in his life or career, without having attention on not losing the right direction. Even if the goal has to be self-centered, first and foremost target should be to achieve excellence and to pursue opportunities for that; fame, wealth and all other fortunes will follow by themselves.

    Certifications hold no value in real world. True achievement would be far above than that. Dr Shoab Ahmed Khan (CASE), Dr Umar Saif (LUMS) and Dr Abdus Salam (late) would be real models to follow. Sikandar's guardians should go through their stories to seek inspirations for their young talent.


    [A comment on an individual case, Arfa Kareem] Having said all above, I find it hard to agree that particularly Arfa collapsed due to extraordinary burden of expectations or ambitions that she had to cope with. Personally, I have known her and her family since 2005 and we have been together at a number of occasions. She truly was a gifted being who was blessed by Almighty as well to get recognitions at highest levels while she was still in the bud. May she rest in peace.

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  15. Please add Dr Atta ur Rahman to your list. Sikandar's guardian can also contact him and seek his advice on how to plan on his grooming. Good luck!

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  16. @khalil: May her soul rest in piece. My advise is for general students. How she would have died, Allah knows the better. But i don't want that race for becoming youngest certified child should start just like race of getting more and more marks in matric or fsc. But unfortunately media has started this race and now everyone is trying to be part of that.
    This is not good for students overall.

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