Ahmed Sajjad Blog

Here is a brief history of my life:

I was born in Islamabad, Pakistan, in the year A.D.1978. My father was (and still is) in the foreign service at that time so we moved with him to Bulgaria when I was barely a year old. Bulgaria was where my brother Jawwad was born. I have only a faint memory of that time though I do know that life was tough in that still communist state, which was one of the coldest places my parents had ever seen.

The embassy in Bulgaria closed after a while and we were shifted to Rabat, Morocco, where we stayed for four years and where I first started going to school. Until I was seven years old, the only languages I used at school were French and Arabic, though I spoke Urdu at home. Maybe this exposure to many languages was what sparked my interest in languages later on.

When we moved back to Pakistan, I had to start learning a strange language commonly known as English, as well as my mother tongue. After a couple of years, we were again transferred. This time to London, England. We spent about three years there during which my dear sister Mariam was born. I really loved living in London, but had to move back to Pakistan once again. Another couple of years studying in a less than adequate "government" school in Islamabad and we were off to Singapore.

During my four years in Singapore, I went through a lot and had some pretty tough moments as a teenage foreigner in the small, island nation that Singapore is. I got my first taste of working life selling greeting cards on the street in my spare time. I also did some part-time work at all kinds of jobs. After my 'O' levels, which I passed with flying colors, I had to decide between spending the one year I had in Singapore doing half of 'A' levels or trying to get a job and an employment visa so I could stay on.

I spent about eight months trying to make a career out of commodities (or futures) trading, without any success. Although I grasped the technical aspects of it really well, I just couldn't generate the steady stream of clients required to keep the process running. By the time I got into it, commodities brokers had gained notoriety for using unethical tactics to get business and swindling people's life savings and rightfully so. This made it almost impossible to get business for a young and simple person like myself.

When I finally realised that it was futile to keep at it, I followed my parents back to Pakistan. Soon after, I started my career in IT by taking up a job teaching school children the basics of computing. Often, I ended up studying what I had to teach just before the lesson and that's how I learnt the basics of computer hardware and DOS.

Next, I joined BigTech, a newly formed company selling computers and other office equipment, as a sales executive. Initially I had trouble closing sales, but things slowly started to improve. After the other tech staff left, I also took up the role of hardware engineer. It was around this time that I started hearing about an alternative OS to Microsoft Windows, though I didn't pay much attention to it. In mid-1998, my father was posted to Tokyo where I followed him again. By that time, I was doing pretty well at BigTech, but thought Tokyo would be a better option for my career.

The first few months in Tokyo were quite frustrating. Japan was just recovering from an economic downturn and there weren't many jobs around for people who couldn't speak Japanese. Near the end of that year, I started work at a shop in Tokyo's Akihabara district. Initially, I worked on contract basis, designing websites and trying to absorb whatever I could of this new thing (new to me) called the Internet, but soon joined as a full-time employee. Now my work varied from fixing old computer hardware to doing bulk installations of software on dozens of machines at a time. The job didn't seem to offer a nice career path and just dealing with the eccentric owner was tough enough, but it allowed me to be in touch with the latest (as well as the oldest) hardware. Around this time, I also got involved with local volunteer groups such as the Tokyo PC Users Group where I made quite a few good friends.

After finishing work late at night, I would go home and play with the hardware I picked up from time to time in Akihabara. It was at this point that I first gave Linux a try. It seemed fun at first, but not enough to totally pry me away from Windows. Certain new ("current" might be more appropriate) hardware that I had on my system wasn't supported and there weren't many interesting applications but, I saw some real benefits in sticking to it. One by one, things started to be supported and new, improved Linux applications kept coming out. While audio CDs made my Windows 95 system hang, they worked perfectly under Linux.

The more I learned about Linux, the more interesting it became. One by one, I started learning how to configure basic network services and my skills improved. In early 2000, I sat for the Red Hat Certified Engineer exam and cleared it. Soon after, I started looking for a decent job and received some good offers, but had to turn them down when my employer at the Akihabara shop persuaded me to stay. A few more months and I decided enough was enough. I secured a job as a system/network administrator with a small, recently established development company named Vanguard and gave notice to my current employer. He was infuriated, but now I think that it was one of the best decisions of my life.

Working at Vanguard was really an eye-opener. I got to work together with a team of really smart and experienced people and had a lot of fun in doing so. I was also able to concentrate on one thing for once and hone my skills to a much higher level.

As good as things were at Vanguard, it wasn't to last. It was around the time of the dot-com bust and the crucial round of funding that we were expecting never materialized. Thanks to Tim's negotiating skills however, none of us ended up without a job. Vanguard was acquired by Digital Garage, Inc. and the staff that was still left was transferred to their technical department, though we still worked on the same or related projects.

After about 16 months at Digital Garage, something happened which again changed my whole life. There was a problem with my visa and I had to leave Japan and return to Pakistan. Though things had improved a lot (in most aspects) since I was last there, Linux and open source had little value in the "Land of the Pure". That's when I decided go ahead with something that I had dreamed about for quite some time. Start my own company.

iinix Solutions came into being in the summer of 2003. The timing was perfect since the spread of Linux and Open Source seemed inevitable with the tightening of IP laws. The initial response was luke-warm as expected, but I went ahead anyway. After almost 4 years, iinix Solutions still exists though things are totally different from what I had expected. It is mainly limited to an online presence. I have lost much, but have also learnt a lot.

During this time, I took up a full-time position with Dancom Online Services, Pakistan's biggest ISP, since the service provider industry was one of the best places to be in if you were looking for career growth. I initially headed their systems department and then the whole Network Operations Center for the North zone. Earlier this year, Dancom was acquired by LINKdotNET, a subsidiary of the Egyptian giant Orascom.

The last 3-4 years have witnessed phenomenal growth in Pakistan's Telecom sector. The stage is now set for the next major change in this region which is the birth of a truly dynamic and innovative Internet industry. I almost missed the .com bubble of the late 90s and couldn't afford to miss this opportunity so in summer of 2007, I joined Orgoo, an LA-based startup.

I'm currently working on a number of projects, providing innovative technology solutions and also trying to make a difference by playing my part in educating and helping others. If you're also looking for something similar, I'd love for you to join me.