The Textile Institute Entrepreneurial Society (TiES) was finally reformed and began performing its duties by inviting the first guest speaker for the fall 2011. Ms Faiza Mehmood, a professional therapist and a qualified counsellor and psychologist visited TIP on 7^th December, 2011 to deliver a valuable lecture on, “The Power of Positive Thinking and Attitude.”

The session was hosted by Asad Jafri of AMM2, a member of TiES. Ms Faiza delivered her lecture with the help of a PowerPoint presentation and a couple of intriguing videos. Key elements of her address included how one should stay focussed on his or her goals and motivate him or herself to achieve those goals. She laid emphasis on how every person should look at themselves in the mirror everyday and make believe that everything is possible if they just try hard enough to achieve it. A highlight point in her presentation was a quote by the renowned personality, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan,

“Intezar karnay walay ko wo milta hai, jo mehnat karnay walay kay hissay mein say bach jata hai…”

Through this quote, she laid emphasis on the point that those who believe that patience is a virtue and waiting for rewards to reach them is a more viable approach in life will always receive less of a reward. Hence it is better to strive and remain assiduous and determined so that you reach the reward yourself.

The session concluded with a few words by our honourable president, Dr. Zubair Bandukda, a Q & A session and a brief shield distribution ceremony in which the guest speaker was presented with a memento by the president on behalf of the Textile Institute Entrepreneurial Society.

This was surely a first, but definitely not the last. The amazing efforts of Waqas Saad, compiled with the highly appreciated help from Hafsa Azhar, Schaheerah Tazeen and Taha Farooqui resulted in an excellent event which was deeply acknowledged by the President and the faculty alike.

Well Done TiES!

There was no harm in trying though. And thus spurred a quest to figure out what could be done to make it possible. I don’t know how I concluded this but it somehow occurred to me that I had to get more people involved in order to increase my chances. And so started looking around for people who would be interested. What followed was something akin to Charles Xavier recruitment effort. Some said they were interested but didn’t want to make an effort while others basically told me to… well you know what. Nevertheless, there were eventually 5 recruits with a mix of Management and Science students ranging from sophomores to seniors. I don’t want to make this complicated with names so for now I’m just going to call them “the 5” with a lowercase “t”.

Now that we had the 5, there was also somewhat of a plan. One that was spontaneously concocted during the search for the 5. The plan was to apply for the bursary and hope for the best! And so we set out on our mission to write our statements of motivation and revise and re-revise them until the very bones in our hands gave in, until the keys on the keyboard cracked and until the electricity went out. Wait a minute, maybe it was the other way round. Regardless, we wrote until we were sure we couldn’t possibly sound more convincing and sent out our electronic applications. Some time later, each of the 5 received received the following notice from the TI.

Dear Mr XXXXX,

I am very pleased to inform you that your application for support to attend the 85th TI World Conference in Sri Lanka on 1 – 3 March 2007 has been successful. The Benevolent Society will pay the student delegate registration fee of 300 US dollars on your behalf and will also pay the fee of GB 30 pounds for one year’s student membership of The Textile Institute.

Now what?

Ok, so we had something. 5 students from TIP had around 350 US dollars each. In order to get to Sri Lanka we somehow needed to double this amount. The ball was set in motion and here’s part of what I wrote to the President.

Dear Sir,
I am pleased to inform you that 5 of our students who applied for the TI bursary have been successful in qualifying for the award and their conference fee which is 300 US Dollars (approx Rs.18000) for students will be paid by the Textile Institute Benevolent Society.

The 5 were:

1. Muzammil Ahmed (TS4) – The overenthusiastic optimist
2. Aasim Ahmed (TS4) – The optimistic pragmatist
3. Muhammad Ali Hakeem (TS3) – The technology and entertainment specialist
4. Zaid Zafar (TMM2) – The one that actually did the work
5. Furhan Hussain (TMM2) – The pessimistic pragmatist

It was a well balanced team. Not something that was planned but just turned out the way it did. I think it was just that each of us adapted to serve the roles that we needed to in time.

Together, we contacted the industry, faced countless rejections and more often than not were simply ignored. But we were persistant and eventually found ourselves face to face with some of the “Saiths” (owners). After much hard work and many convincing arguments on how 5 students would bring back knowledge to inspire countless others, we got sponsorship from Al-Karam Textiles, some more from Afroze Textiles and the remainder was generously plugged by TIP. And just like that were were all set to attend our very first, 85th Textile Institute World Conference.

By the way has anyone noticed that the exchange rate for a US dollar was around 60 rupees back then. Anyhow.

The conference was an eye opener. We found ourselves amongst some of the most influential minds from the field of textiles and what was more astonishing to us was the realization that they were ordinary people just like us. We had lunch sharing a table with Professor John Hearle, did the bhangra during fireworks at the official banquet dinner on an exquisite Colombo beach, saw some amazing and some not so amazing presentations by researchers across the globe and through the course of the conference realized that there was so much more to textiles and research that we were completely oblivious to.

Our experience didn’t end there. We trekked the streets and beaches of Colombo. Enjoyed some of the most amazing foods I’ve ever tasted in my life. Experienced what it feels like to step on a zebra crossing when the traffic actually stops. Fit 5 in a Sri Lankan Tuk Tuk (rikshaw). O and Ali Hakeem lost his Camera in excitement to purchase chocolates from the duty free. The chocolate helped so in short we still had some of the most amazing time of our lives!

The take home to me was simple. There was so much more we could do. The possibilities were endless.

Out of the 5, three went on to receive the prestigious Eqbal Ahmad Award which is presented to just one student from each graduating class at TIP.

Muzammil Ahmed went on to pursue an MBA and has set himself on track for a lucrative career in supply chain management.

Ali Hakeem bought a new video camera and went on to make some of the coolest student videos in TIP history. He is presently working as an auditor for the textile industry.

Zaid Zafar went on pursue a career at one of the most prestigious denim manufacturing groups in Pakistan.

Furhan graduated from TIP and is currently pursuing an MBA while working in research projects at Textile Research and Innovation Centre. Since then he has presented papers at various conferences in Pakistan.

As for me, I graduated from TIP and later that year became the first research assistant to join the Textile Research and Innovation Centre. In November 2008 I led another team of TIP students, this time to publish two papers at the 86th TIWC in Hong Kong. But that’s a story for another day.

We, Pakistanis have become a victim of this distressing state which is affecting our social and individual lives. No solution seems to be viable to this woe other than the only one and that is to establish EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

Emotional Intelligence can make us more productive and successful at what we do and how we do it. We need to develop rudiments to reduce stress for ourselves, decrease conflicts, and improve relationships, increase constancy, continuity and harmony.

EQ as most people refer it to as Emotional Intelligence rose to prominence with Daniel Goleman’s 1995 international bestseller called Emotional Intelligence.

EQ relates strongly with concepts of love and spirituality, bringing consideration and humanity to work and also to Multiple Intelligence which highlights and measures the range of potentials people possess and the fact that everyone has a value and we can all make a difference.

The EQ concept disputes that IQ is too tapered an entity to enable us to understand how successful one can be. We have all met people with high IQ levels who are academically so brilliant but socially inept. Success does not automatically follow a high IQ rating.

Goleman based his research on performances of top executives from some of the world’s largest corporations and concluded that almost 90% of leadership success possess EQ as its major key element.

There are 8 key fundamentals of Emotional intelligence:

BULID EMOTIONAL LITERACY

RECOGNIZE PATTERNS

APPLY CONSEQUENTIAL THINKING

EVALUTATE AND RE-CHOOSE

MOTIVATE YOURSELF

CHOOSE OPTIMISM

CREATE EMPATHY

&

COMMIT TO NOBLE GOALS!!!

Image Source: http://www.fhsc.salford.ac.uk/seminars/emotional-intelligence.php

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