President's Message Archives

Outgoing AKUAANA President’s Message to Alumni, December 2019

December 27, 2019 By Saeed

Dear Alumni,

2019 is coming to an end and it has been a great year for the AKU Alumni Association of North America (AKUAANA). The last twelve months have been filled with momentous occasions such as the appointment of our alumnus, Adil Haider ’98 as Dean of AKUMC, Karachi to the presentation of Saad Omar (also ’98) to the US Congress. Our alumni have reached heights in academics, private practice, health policy, bioinformatics and as entrepreneurs across this nation.

Unfortunately, we lost three amazing and beloved alumni, Uzma Yunus ’95, Fida Khan ’97 and Asma Saleem ’90. The alumni community feels their loss and prays for their families. As this year ends, we celebrate all our alumni who are with us, and those who are not.

We had our annual Alumni Reunion in Orlando this July. Adil Haider ’98, first alumnus Dean of AKUMC and his family, honored us with their presence. It is these momentous occasions we look forward to as an ultimate way to give back to our alma mater. Thank you for your continued participation and support of this alumni association.

It takes every one of us to make this work, and together we can make sure that AKUAANA is here to grow and make a difference, not only in Pakistan and at AKU but also locally in the United States.

AKUAANA is 100% volunteer-run. As the President, I value every minute that is devoted by our Executive Council and member volunteers to our mission: to establish a platform to promote and facilitate healthcare, educational, social, and philanthropic missions of our community, and to nurture enduring ties with our alma mater.

Every year our volunteer Executive Council, Board of Advisors, and sub-committee members go above and beyond in their commitment and service to the organization, and we celebrate those individuals now: Ammar Javed ’13, Faiz Bhora ’92, Azam Kundi ’92, Nooruddin Punjwani ’92, Adnan Hyder ’90, Saleem Islam ’92, Fahim Rahim ’97 and Naeem Rahim ’98. AKUAANA thanks each and every one of these alumni for their dedication to this organization. We hope that they will continue to share their time and expertise with AKUAANA and look forward to recruiting more people like them!

In fact, everyone can jump in and sign up to become members and volunteer for various committees for the next year. One of the best ways to really get connected with other alumni is to become members of your alumni organization. Join us at our annual Alumni Reunion to reconnect with old friends, make new ones, to find mentors for career and other guidance, and most of all for coming up with ideas to strengthen and grow your alumni organization.

AKUAANA is a young association. We have a long way to go. If we want AKUAANA to be the resource that we think it should be, then there is only one way to do that. Join AKUAANA and participate as a member. Dream a small part of your dreams, through AKUAANA, to make it a household name, that your family and children can be proud of.

To those who have recently graduated; be curious, remain relentless, and don’t give up on your dream and you will reach greatness! And when you have, spread your wisdom and experiences through your alumni association.

I would like to thank our amazing Executive Council for 2018-19, Past President Habib Chotani ’95; Secretary Noor Afshan Khan ’96; Treasurer and President-Elect Faisal Cheema ’00 and Web Manager Abdul Basit Saeed ’07. I have had the privilege to lead our alumni association with such a great team of people for the past two years. That tenure is coming to an end, but not my commitment to advocate for our alumni here in the US. At the end of the year, I pass on the baton to Faisal Cheema ’00; I know that he will take the association in the direction that is best for us and look forward to working with him.

Best regards
Namirah Jamshed ’96
AKUAANA President, 2018-2019

AKUAANA President’s Message to Alumni: January 2018

January 3, 2018 By Saeed

Dear Alumni,

Happy New Year!

The theme for the next two years for our Alumni Association is “Alumni Engagement”. As such we want all AKUites to participate as we grow and expand our Association. The past presidents have laid the ground work to make this possible. We plan to continue their efforts and more. Our mission, vision and values remain the same as what our constitution states. However, this year we want to go a step further and bring value through actively engaging our alumni in AKUAANA activities. We hope that this will bring value to you as members and fulfill your need to give back to our local communities here in North America, to Pakistan and to AKU. For those who are not members, join us, so you can participate in your associations’ activities.

If you have any questions, comments or thoughts, please reach out to any member of the team.

AKUAANA Administration, 2018 - 19
Designation	Name	Class	Email Address
President	Namirah Jamshed	1996
Secretary	Noor Afshan Khan	1996
Treasurer	Faisal Habib Cheema	2000
Web Manager	Abdul Basit Saeed	2007

Looking forward to seeing many of you in Dallas, TX, July 6th, at the Annual AKUAANA Reunion!

Best wishes,

Namirah Jamshed ’96
President, AKUAANA (2018-19)

Outgoing AKUAANA President’s Message to Alumni, December 2017

December 26, 2017 By Saeed

Dear Alumni,

Happy holidays everyone!

Your Alumni Association’s new Executive Council will be taking over on January 1, 2018. I wanted to personally thank all of you for the support that my team and I have received over the last two years. It has been an honor to serve you all.

Our intent has always been to grow AKUAANA and provide value to our members. We have been met with many successes and some unfinished business. Our numbers have grown from about a 100 members to now over 200 active members and the traffic to our Facebook page and website is now in the thousands. Abdul Basit Saeed (2007), our Web and Social Media Manager, has been the rock around which the technical aspects of our web presence have been built and the organization will always be indebted to him.

Over the past two years our major focus was community building, and to achieve this we organized multiple regional meetings in 2016 and 2017. This has greatly enhanced our networking. Our alumni are now more informed about the work the Alumni Association has been doing. I would like to thank all the alumni who volunteered in hosting these regional reunions. We also hosted very successful annual reunions in Washington DC and Orlando FL.

We have been working with the leadership at AKUMC to help our alumni with issues that arise periodically. In fact, with the efforts of the Executive Council and our alumni, one of our fresh alumni was able to start residency on time this year rather than missing a year and potential residency spot.

AKUAANA also initiated its first project with AKU in August 2016. It is a project for the treatment of anemia in pregnancy by screening pregnant females and treating them with iron supplements and IV iron (Venofer). I would like to congratulate our Alumni who have raised around $70,000 dollars for this project. This would fund our project for a total of 4 years. A short video of the AKUAANA Outreach Clinic in Ibrahim Hyderi, and the most recent Impact Report of the project are available on the website.

This year we also partnered with APPNA for their National Food Pantry Project. We raised over $4,000 and APPNA matched it with $2,000. AKUAANA members spent a day volunteering at the Maryland Food Bank and also gave the check to the pantry.

The devastation in Houston with Hurricane Harvey affected a number of our Alumni as we have a significant concentration of Alumni in the area. We developed an emergency committee who reached out to alumni in Houston and offered them help. A number of Alumni in Houston in safe areas opened their home to accommodate other Alumni. We raised $10,000 for the Mayor of Houston Hurricane Harvey Fund also. This is a true testament to our AKUAANA community and I would like to congratulate everyone who worked and volunteered their time.

We enter a new phase in the coming years. The need for increased involvement of the younger classes, continued membership drives and defining our mission are the critical components of success. There are a number of new initiatives that are in the works.

I wish President-Elect Namirah Jamshed (1996) and her team the best of success, and thank you all again.

Best regards
Habib Chotani (1995)
AKUAANA President, 2016-2017

AKUAANA President’s Message to Alumni: January 2017

January 15, 2017 By Saeed

It has been another great year for AKUAANA, the Aga Khan University Alumni Association of North America. Our website, AKUAANA.org and Facebook page have both become excellent resources for our alumni members. We have some of the youngest professors, most successful academicians and brightest entrepreneurs in the country! We have featured many prominent alumni on our website/Facebook page and this has been a runaway success.

Our membership continues to flourish and Lifetime Membership has increased significantly. The number of recent graduates who are now actively participating in AKUAANA has grown, which is a great success as we have been able to engage our fresh graduates. There are currently over 1900 AKU graduates in North America and our goal is to bring as many of these graduates into the AKUAANA family and harness their incredible potential. We continue to grow and mold our association to tackle the most pressing issues of our times.

Last year we had a great meeting in Washington DC. Our medical college Dean, Dr Farhat Abbas and our beloved professor Dr Zulfikar Bhutta were in presence. The official signing of class gifts to AKU by the Class of ‘89 ($250,000) and Class of ‘90 ($500,000) took place. We were actively involved in various activities at APPNA including the CME and young physician coaching. This year for the first time in the 39-year history of APPNA, an AKUAANA Lifetime Member ran and won the election for Secretary APPNA. Rizwan Khalid, Class of ’99, will be the APPNA Secretary for the year 2017. This is a great achievement from our alumni body.

For community building and networking, regional reunions were held at 6 locations throughout the US (Minnesota, Dallas, DC/Maryland/Virginia, St Louis, Atlanta and New Jersey) and this has been directly tied to the incredible efforts of the local alumni.

We now have a functioning Board of Advisors. Their roles are defined by our Constitution and Bylaws Committee and have been approved by the General Body.

We also have started a charity project with AKU, Karachi, Pakistan. In the past, many individual projects have been done with AKU and outside AKU (like TCF) by various graduating classes. The AKUAANA Outreach Clinic Initiative at Ibrahim Hyderi, Karachi, Pakistan, is the first AKUAANA project that has been adapted by various graduating classes. This project will focus on treatment of anemia in pregnant females in the area. We have already collected approximately $70,000 for this initiative to date and the outreach clinic is fully functional since August, 2016.

As we look to the future, our hope is to leverage our individual successes and use AKUAANA as a platform to launch larger philanthropic endeavors. We will continue organizing regional reunions throughout the US and help grow the organization. We also hope to collaborate further with AKU and APPNA on its various platforms.

To do so, we will continue to engage our alumni and give them a platform to bring forth their ideas and eventually a mechanism to give these ideas life. Clearly, none of these goals can be accomplished without active alumni involvement. This participation has to begin with becoming an AKUAANA member and then active participation in all the decisions that we have to make over the next 25 years. We start the membership drive this month, so please join us, encourage others and get excited about the possibilities!

We thank you again for this opportunity to serve the organization and hope that we can live up to your expectations. If you have any questions, comments or thoughts, please reach out to any member of the team.

AKUAANA Administration, 2016 - 17
Designation	Name	Class	Email Address
President	Habib Ahmed Chotani	1995
Secretary	Muhammad Rehan Raza Khan	1994
Treasurer	Amber Hameed Syed	1994
Web Manager	Abdul Basit Saeed	2007

Best wishes,

Habib Chotani, 1995
President, AKUAANA (2016-17)

AKUAANA President’s Message to Alumni: January 2016

January 1, 2016 By Saeed

January 1^st, 2016

Thank you for nominating us as the leaders of your Alumni Association for the next two years. We would also like to thank our predecessors who have guided this association and made great strides in organizing AKUAANA.

There are roughly 2000 AKUMC graduates in North America and they represent the fastest growing segment of all medical graduates from Pakistan. Those of you who follow our website and our Facebook page already know how successful our graduates have been in their adopted homelands. We have some of the youngest professors, most successful academicians and brightest entrepreneurs in the country!

The last Executive Council of AKUAANA has made impressive progress; the membership has grown significantly, our tax-exempt status has been reinstated to 501(c)(7) status allowing our holdings to be tax-free, the Association’s constitution has been strengthened and a Board of Trustees has been elected. Over the next couple of years, the new Executive Council will continue working towards the goals set forth by our predecessors. We will continue working on improving our membership, work towards give a clear meaning for our Alumni body, and work towards getting more organized in the US. The new Executive Council have a bunch of new ideas to move our organization to the next level. We will be approaching our membership to share our ideas and also will seek new ideas.

To do so, we have to engage our alumni and give them a platform to bring forth their ideas and then a mechanism to give these ideas life. Clearly, none of these goals can be accomplished without active alumni involvement. This participation has to begin with becoming an AKUAANA member and then active participation in all the decisions that we have to make over the next 25 years. We start the membership drive this month, so please join us, encourage others and get excited about the possibilities!

AKUAANA Administration, 2016 - 17
Designation	Name	Class	Email Address
President	Habib Ahmed Chotani	1995
Secretary	Muhammad Rehan Raza Khan	1994
Treasurer	Amber Hameed Syed	1994
Web Manager	Abdul Basit Saeed	2007

Best wishes,

Habib Chotani, 1995
President, AKUAANA (2016-17)

Outgoing AKUAANA President’s Message to Alumni, December 2015

December 24, 2015 By Saeed

Dear alumni,

Happy Holidays everyone!

Your Alumni Association’s new Executive Council will be taking over on January 1, 2016. I wanted to personally thank all of you for all the support that my team and I have received over the last two years. It has been an honor to serve you all.

Our intent has always been to grow AKUAANA and provide value to our members. We have been met with many successes and some unfinished business. Our numbers have grown by 900% and the traffic to our Facebook page and website is now in the thousands. Abdul Basit Saeed (2007), our Web Manager, has been the rock around which the technical aspects of our web presence have been built and the organization will always be indebted to him.

We have been granted 501(c)(7) status and our taxes are up to date. I cannot thank Shazia Hussain (1990), our Treasurer, enough for getting these two critical issues taken care of. The 501(c)(7) status allows our holdings to be tax free and firms up our legal status.

The organization could not have flourished without the careful organization that Atif Shafqat (1993), our Secretary, has provided. We held regular meetings, kept careful notes and our agenda items stayed constant. He guided the rewriting process of the AKUAANA Constitution and Bylaws, as well as the Executive Council elections. He leaves a legacy that will help keep the guiding principles of AKUAANA strong.

We enter a new phase in the coming years. The need for increased involvement of the younger classes, continued membership drives and defining our mission are the critical components of success.

I wish President Elect Habib Chotani (1995) and his team the best of success, and thank you all again.

Best regards
Faisal G. Qureshi (1993)
AKUAANA President, 2014-2015

AKUAANA President’s Message, March 2015: Visit to AKU

March 24, 2015 By Saeed

March, 2015

Dear AKU Medical College Alumni,

I was fortunate enough to visit AKU on a recent trip to Pakistan. I met with Dean Abbas and some of the leaders of the AKU Alumni Association, Asia Chapter including Saad Shafqat. We discussed many things, with the most important being the continued need for alumni involvement with AKU. Our alumni have a vested interest in the continued success of AKU, as it is a reflection our accomplishments.

Just as the alumni of Harvard University are active in the affairs of their alma mater, and are very proactive if the Harvard brand is threatened, so must we be wary of anything affecting the AKU brand. Whether we admit it or not, AKU has directly impacted our continued success across the globe and we have to take an active part in protecting its legacy.

I brought up many other aspects of the relationship with Dean Abbas and Saad Shafqat. Our keynote speaker from the 2014 Alumni Reunion Dinner in Washington DC, Dr. Dale Shaw (immediate past president of the Duke University Alumni Association) made some key points about enhancing the role of the University in ensuring a strong future alumni body. Perhaps the idea that most resonated with me was informing current medical students of their role as future alumni. One method to do this is to provide them with a life long ALUMNI.AKU.EDU email address. This email will help them identify themselves as AKU alumni in perpetuity. Other techniques that Duke University uses is to give medical students a certificate as a future alumnus of Duke on day one of their lives as medical students. We could emulate this and AKU could invite alumni back to AKU on an annual basis to give insights to medical students on life after graduation.

Finally, Dean Abbas and I discussed the creation of a dedicated mechanism to give back philanthropically to AKU. Using the Aga Khan Foundation (a tax-exempt organization) donation page, we will create an AKUAANA specific menu that allows alumni to donate to student support, patient support or research activities at AKU, Karachi. This will allow our alumni to show their support of AKU via a dedicated AKUAANA method that will help us determine the total impact of our alumni. The creation of this mechanism will streamline efforts for individuals or classes to make a combined donation. This is the first step in developing a long term AKUAANA endowment fund.

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In summary, our continued involvement with AKU is critical to our mutual success. I hope that alumni are able to visit AKU on their trips to Pakistan and the AKU Alumni Office would be very happy to arrange a tour and meetings with the faculty. There are many opportunities to give back and continue to be proud AKU alumni.

Faisal G. Qureshi
President
AKU Alumni Association of North America

AKUAANA President’s Message to Alumni: January 2014

January 1, 2014 By AdministratoR

January 1^st, 2014

Dear AKU Medical College Alumni,

Thank you for installing us as the leaders of your Alumni Association for the next two years. We would also like to thank our predecessors who have guided this association as we celebrate 25 years since the first class graduated from AKU in 1988.

There are roughly 1800 AKUMC graduates in North America and they represent the fastest growing segment of all medical graduates from Pakistan. Those of you who follow our website and our Facebook page already know how successful our graduates have been in their adopted homelands. We have some of the youngest professors, most successful academicians and brightest entrepreneurs in the country!

At this juncture, your association AKUAANA has to decide what its future holds. Is it a group that loosely represents very successful physicians in North America and meets once a year at the sidelines of the APPNA summer convention? Or can we be a strong, successful organization that will help shape our collective response to this ever-changing social, political and economical landscape? How can we foster and nurture medical students and new graduates trying to achieve success in this competitive environment? Where and how, can we make our lives and the lives of our families, children and those around us better? Where and how do we give back to the nation that we call our ancestral home?

We don’t pretend to have the answers to these questions, but do believe that when you take some of the brightest minds that Pakistan has nurtured, these answers will come. They will come slowly, incrementally, in fits and starts, but they will come. To do so, we have to engage our alumni and give them a platform to bring forth their ideas and then a mechanism to give these ideas life.

Clearly, none of these goals can be accomplished without active alumni involvement. This participation has to begin with becoming an AKUAANA member and then active participation in all the decisions that we have to make over the next 25 years. We start the membership drive this month, so please join us, encourage others and get excited about the possibilities!

AKUAANA Administration, 2014 - 15
Designation	Name	Class	Email Address
President	Faisal Qureshi	1993
Secretary	Atif Shafqat	1993
Treasurer	Shazia Hussain	1990
Web Manager	Abdul Basit Saeed	2007

Happy New Year and best wishes,

Faisal Qureshi, 1993
President, AKUAANA (2014-15)

AKUAANA President’s Message to Alumni, December 2013

December 10, 2013 By AdministratoR

I hope you are all well and preparing for some down time over the Holiday season.

As we approach the end of the year, I would like to update you about what has been happening at AKUAANA. Over the last six months, your newly elected Executive Council has been hard at work enhancing our web presence and updating our databases. This has included additions and modifications to increase efficiency for users and administrators. As you know, maintaining an accurate database is a huge challenge, especially when it involves alumni early in their careers, when relocations are commonplace. We look to you to assist in this effort by ensuring that we have the most accurate contact information for you.

Early preparations for the Annual Reunion, 2014 to be held in mid-August in Washington DC have been initiated. The Class of 1989 will celebrate its 25th anniversary, Class of 1994 its 20^th, and the Class of 2004 will mark its 10^th year since graduating. The various classes have started to connect and plan. We look forward to celebrating with them!

The Aga Khan University is gearing up for a celebration to mark the 30^th year for the University Charter, the 30^th year of the School of Nursing, the 25^th year of the Medical College and the 20^th year for the Institute of Educational Development. Through the years, each of these institutions has raised the bar for their respective professions and I hope will continue to be trailblazers in the region. The festivities will take up most of December and will include at least two convocations and several reunions.

I would like to thank my Executive Council, Secretary Amna Iftikhar (’92), Treasurer Syed Jawad Sher (’97), and Web Design Project Lead Atif Jalees Khan (’99), for their hard work during the last two years. I would like to thank all of you for your support and applaud you for engaging with your alumni association. As is a constant refrain when I have the soapbox, it is your engagement that will allow this organization to fulfill its potential. And how can any organization that has the collective brains, charisma, charm and grit that is the AKU alumni not be a force to contend with!

It is my great pleasure to welcome the new Executive Council, President-elect Faisal Qureshi (’93), Secretary Atif Shafqat (’93), Treasurer Shazia Hussain (’90), and Web Director Abdul Basit Saeed (’07), as they take over the reins on January 1, 2014. They have already been hard at work and, I am sure, will continue to advance AKUAANA over their term.

On behalf of the outgoing Executive Council, please accept my gratitude for allowing us to represent your organization. Working with you has been an honor and a pleasure.

Engage, participate, own.

Sincerely,
Sadaf Khan, ’92

AKUAANA President’s Message to Alumni, August 2013

August 18, 2013 By AdministratoR

Eid Mubarak!

I hope all of you had a pleasant Ramadan and were able to get a break over Eid.

The Annual AKU reunion held at the APPNA summer convention in Orlando, Florida was a great success. We celebrated the 25^th anniversary for the Class of ’88, and the 20^th anniversary for the Class of ’93. We welcomed Dr. Farhat Abbas, Dean AKUMC, Dr. Saad Shafqat ’88, Dr. Anita Zaidi ’88, and Dr. Naseer Mehmood ’88 as speakers at the dinner.

I am pleased to inform you that we were able to successfully complete the election of the new Executive Council. As you are aware, the process was initiated several months ago. The positions of Secretary and Treasurer had single nominations. The position for President had two nominations. Prior to the reunion, an on-line vote was conducted. For the on-line component, only votes from dues-paying members were included. The final voting was conducted at the reunion dinner.

The new Executive Council, which will start its term in January 2014, is as follows:

President: Faisal Qureishi ’93
Secretary: Atif Shafqat ’93
Treasurer: Shazia Hussain ’90

I would like to thank Treasurer Syed Jawad Sher ’97 and Secretary Amna Iftikhar ’90 for their priceless contributions to the previous Executive Council.

At this time I would also like to thank Atif Jalees Khan ’99 for his work establishing and managing our web presence. He will be transferring his responsibilities to Abdul Basit Saeed ’07. Thank you both.

Ms. Shain Amershi, who for many years has been the force that has kept AKUAANA on track, is leaving us to pursue other opportunities. We are indebted to her for all the work that she has put in to developing a database, establishing the website, handling affairs with APPNA, organizing multiple reunions, and making the Executive Council look good. She has been passionate in her support of the association, both in thought and action. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors.

As far as other business is concerned, as we came to the reunion, we had record membership. If your dues are not current, I would encourage you to see to it. Your contributions help to keep the association and the website running smoothly.

Also at the reunion, we proposed and agreed to formalize the process of setting up host-committees for events. It was established that:

‘For all APPNA associated AKUAANA events, after the APPNA host committee has been established, all AKU alumni on said committee will be asked to join AKUAANA host committee for that event. This group will select one point person for purposes of communication with Executive Council. In the event the group does not select this person, the Executive Committee will do so.’

As always, we are looking for alumni to contribute to the website with blogs, opinion pieces, news etc. Please, let those ideas out onto paper (or screen) and share them with us!

In APPNA news – an anonymous donor, alumnus of Nishtar Medical College, has pledged to match up to $1,000,000 for donations to a newly established scholarship fund. Within the fund, each participating medical school will have a sub-account. A minimum of $10,000 from alumni is required to receive a matching contribution from the donor. The scholarship monies are allotted at the discretion of the particular alumni group and their medical school. I think this is an excellent opportunity for us to be able to give back to our Alma Mater. Please review the information at this link on the APPNA website.

In news from AKU – the Pakistan- Middle East chapter is in the last phase of its establishment. There is an election scheduled for later this month, after which the association will be fully functional. Our sister association is led by a President (Saad Shafqat ’88), Vice-President Under-Graduate (Saniya Sabzwari ’92), Vice- President Post-Graduate (TBD), and Vice-president Graduate (TBD). The Steering Committee (Chairman Hasnain Zafar ’91, Secretary Anita Zaidi ’88) has done a fantastic job with sorting through the very complex task of University and region-wide nominations and elections. They have been ably assisted by Abdul Haq Wahedna, Manager Alumni Affairs. We look forward to an excellent relationship with the association.

That’s all for now.

Engage, participate, own.

Sincerely,
Sadaf Khan ’92
President, AKUAANA

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