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the-south-asian.com July / August 2006 |
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August/September Contents
Sufis - wisdom against 50
years of mountain Heritage cities:
Cotton - the fibre of
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Page
8 of 10 Telecom & Software - Trends & Future in South Asia
(cntd.) by
Salman Minhas
First published in
December 2001
Part II - Pakistan.
Safi Qureshi
Born in Karachi in early
1950’s , B.Sc Physics , Karachi; B.S Electrical Engineering , University of
Texas , Lives in Irvine, California with family.
Value /Wealth created in
1980 - $ 300 million.
Safi Qureshi came to the U.S. in 1971 for education in engineering and
worked in the Information technology industries of California for companies
such as Documenter, Computer Automation, and Telfile Computer.
In
1980 he co-founded a garage-based company making personal computers. As a
computer industry veteran Safi played a lead role in not only AST’s growth
in emerging markets but in changing the PC industry from a narrow corporate
enterprise into a global business . Due to Safi’s intense focus , vision [
that of evolving the digital age as a platform to develop tools that will
further promote global & personal communication in all societies.], and
passion for innovation AST earned a reputation in the PC industry as one of
the foremost brand names. It was recently acquired in the mid 1990’s by
Samsung Electronics.
Safi Qureshi has also been instrumental in commercial development around
the world. He has traveled to countries such as China , Indonesia ,
Thailand, India , Pakistan with high level US trade delegations to sign
several landmark agreements [ Intellectual Property Rights ].
He
has participated in GATT, NAFTA, APEC issues, and is a strong proponent of
education and reserach at University of California, Irvine [Bonney Center
for Neurobiology of Learning & Memory]
Recently he was instrumental [ as member of President Clinton’s Export
Council ] in ensuring that Clinton did go and talk to Pakistan military
leaders in 2000. He is currently on the board of Directors of Focus Software
International, Object Automation, NetInfo, IAFC.
His
brainchild is the ALIF [ the first letter of the Hebrew, Arabic and Urdu
alphabet] which is a televised series in the Urdu language of the Sesame
Street series for Pakistan Television broadcast to the children in Pakistan.
The programme has been broadcast from mid 1999 to 2000.
In
his most recent project, Safi Qureshi is helping Pakistan with Information
Technology efforts in becoming a major exporter of Software . He took with
him in March 2001 two fellow members Kanwal Rekhi [ who sold his company
Excelan to Novell ] and Dr. Kailash Joshi -- of the The Indus Entrepreneurs
Group from San Jose ,California to meet the President of Pakistan and also
the dynamic Minister for Science & Technology - Dr Ata-ur-Rehman. Later they
also visited and had an interactive session at the Institute of Business
Administration at Karachi. |
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