Arfa Karim – Microsoft Genius!

16-year-old genius, Arfa Karim, is the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional from Faisalabad, Pakistan. When S. Somasegar, corporate vice president, Developer Division, Microsoft Corp learned about Arfa’s accomplishments, he arranged a trip for her and
her father to travel to Redmond to see Microsoft and its technologies up close.

Somasegar said “Arfa is such an inspiration to women and kids in technology, and really to everyone who learns of her story. Kids are gaining early access to technology, and she gives us insight into how people in emerging markets are using our technology.
I thought it was important for her to come to Redmond to give her exposure to Microsoft and let her interact with people here. I hope to see her working here someday."

Arfa was pleased with her achievement and her meeting with Bill Gates fulfilled was dream come true. She was awarded this certificate in 2005 and since then she has been working with Microsoft and completing her academic requirements as well.

In August 2005, Arfa Karim received the Fatimah Jinnah Gold Medal in the field of Science and Technology, presented by the Prime Minister of Pakistan at that time. She also received the Salaam Pakistan Youth Award again in August 2005 by the President of
Pakistan. She is also the recipient of the President’s Award for Pride of Performance.

She has represented Pakistan all over the globe; Dubai IT professionals called her for a two week stay to inspire youth so that they could also prepare themselves for miracles; she was also acknowledged by various medals and award on her tour to Dubai.

In November 2006, Arfa was invited by Microsoft to be a part of the keynote session in the Tech-Ed Developers conference held in Barcelona. The theme of the conference was "Get ahead of the game" and Arfa was presented as a true specimen of being ahead of
the game. She was the only Pakistani among over 5000 developers in that conference.

Pakistan is not full of criminals, hypocrites, terrorists and corrupt people only; it’s just the matter of bringing good faces as Pakistan ambassadors so that our country’s perception could be changed. No one cares for achievers; everyone deems for gossips.
Arfa has not been seen on any media forum for the past 4-5 years and this clearly shows that our media doesn’t focus on high-achievers.

No appreciation for talent will definitely crush our future for sure!

Views expressed here are the writer’s own and in no way represent newspakistan.pk’s official editorial policy.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=1938

Posted by Fahad Zafar on Oct 28 2011. Filed under Education, Opinion, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry