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 Qazil Fazil Azeem, MFA, is a communication designer, media and advertising educator. Neurodiverse, he hails from Karachi in Pakistan.

Fazli Azeem is an Assistant Professor of Design at the Media Science Department, SZABIST (Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science & Technology) University, Karachi Campus, where he teaches undergrad and master students of media science, media studies, advertising strategy, and design. He is also the Program Manager of the SZABIST Master of Media Science (MMS), MS Media Studies (MSMD) and Master of Advertising (MoA) graduate degrees, focal person for ORIC, and focal person for the university Disability committee. He graduated with an MFA in Design from the Dynamic Media Institute at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt), Boston USA in 2014, through the US State Department's Fulbright scholarship.  His essays on ASD was published in 2014, Be there, Done that, Try this, - An Aspie's guide to Life on Earth. In 2006, he began advocating for awareness of autism in Pakistan through media appearances on Pakistani morning shows, and it has been 17 years since then.

 In this interview, Qazi Fazil Azeem, discusses the importance of the entrepreneurial mindset, which sees failures as learning experiences and encourages calculated risk-taking. The author reflects on his experiences attending hackathons and entrepreneurship events in Boston and Cambridge, where he saw the true spirit of collaboration and diverse groups of people working together. The author also discusses the cultural factors that promote or impede entrepreneurship in South Asian countries and the challenges faced by entrepreneurs with disabilities. In his opinion, in South Asia, foreign investors prefer co-founders with foreign education. He opines, it is not the curriculum that needs to change at all to support entrepreneurship, a parallel system needs to be created at all levels to support and encourage entrepreneurship. The author's advice to upcoming entrepreneurs is to start small, validate their ideas, seek advice and feedback, and take calculated risks.

Q1. Your thesis on “Inclusive Interfaces” was partially researched at the MIT media lab. “Curious learning” your graduate startup, won a residency at the Harvard innovation lab. Could you tell us more about it?

 A1. I won the Fulbright Scholarship to study in the USA for my MFA degree in Design in the Dynamic Media Institute at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2012-2014). This was my first time living away from my country for so long and my first and only time I have been to the USA. My graduate electives and capstone thesis project was researched at the famous MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Learning group under courses taught by LEGO Professor Mitch Resnick, a leading authority on the subject of learning through play, and the role of creativity in lifelong learning. My course group members were cross registered students from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, just as I was cross registered from MassArt. All of us had a background in education and our graduate degrees were all connected to EdTech and using technology to teach children and youth. I also took an elective course in Entrepreneurship with the same group of students, this course was offered at the MIT Media Lab through the MIT's famous Sloan School of Business Professors Joost Bonsen and computer scientist and entrepreneur Sandy Pentland. It was a course requirement to make a graduate student level startup and pitch the idea to the class and if selected, to the annual MIT $100k entrepreneurship competition. The initial direction of my research had started after meeting the acclaimed designer Don Norman, who has been quoted as saying "...when we design something that can be used by those with disabilities, we often make it better for everyone." My goal was to work under the parameters of Universal Design to create inclusive digital and analog interfaces which could replace conventional and traditional experiences for neurotypicals as well as those with learning disabilities such as Autism, ADHD and Dyspraxia. Through my research, I had even met and interviewed Lynda Weinman, founder of the world’s largest video training website back then Lynda.com (which was later sold to LinkedIn for over 1.7 billion USD), and had face to face conversations with famous south asian background educationist Sal Khan (Founder of Khan Academy) and acclaimed film director and educationist, Manoj Night Shyamalan.

The idea for my capstone project Curious Learning App was based on my personal experiences to use gamification theory (badging) as an extrinsic motivator while connecting a student’s smartphone GPS (through Google Maps) with open source data on publicly accessible Art, Sculptures and historic buildings (thorough Wikipedia), converting the city into a free public museum experience for students or tourists who could not afford tickets to expensive Museums and public entertainment. Thinking back about the idea now, it was not different at all from the mega hit game Pokemon GO which was made by Niantic and Nintendo years after I graduated, which confirms that my ideas were correct and I was right back then. We called the startup "Curious Learning", I designed the user interface and even got feedback on it from employees of IDEO (the world's number 1 design company) when they came to my class during the final presentation day. I pitched the startups Minimum Viable product (MVP) and became semi-finalists in the MIT $100k entrepreneurship competition, beating hundreds of other graduate level startups at MIT and winning USD$1000 to work on the prototype as well as 4 months incubation at the Harvard Innovation Lab (through my group members who were Harvard University graduate students). I even got the opportunity to present my Curious Learning startup at the 2014 Education Datapalooza event in Washington DC, which was organized by the US Department of Education and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), to educators from across the USA. A TEDx talk at TedxBeaconstreet was made on it by my Harvard co-founder Aya Jennifer Sakaguchi which can be seen on Youtube and I made all the slides and even wrote the script for her Tedx talk. I had taken this class in my last semester and had to graduate and return back to Pakistan due to my scholarship agreement with the US State Department (which funds the Fulbright Scholarship), that I had to return to Pakistan within 30 days of my convocation date and then stay inside Pakistan for the same duration that I studied in the USA. This is why I could not continue working on the startup. My research objectives were based on documented cognitive advantages of savants and those with higher functioning Autism spectrum of disorders (eg those with Hyperlexia and Aspergers Syndrome), using published autobiographical writings of gifted self-advocates and public figures such as Dr Temple Grandin and Jacob Barnett to create inclusive digital interfaces and tool that would aid them based on their well described extreme learning styles, with the goal that these same experiences could be used by neurotypical learners as well. Through my research journey, I even met Dr Dania Jekel, the director of the Asperger Association of New England, who turned out to be the great-grand daughter of the father of modern Psychology, Dr Sigmund Freud. It was like coming full circle, as the descendant of the pioneer of the entire field of Psychology, was running a center for teenagers and adults on the Autism Spectrum, training them for careers and mentoring them for entrepreneurship, supported by their families. I understand that all of this seems hard to believe, and I have photos with all the people I met, even videos in some cases. For many years, I still did not come to terms which the number of things I achieved in the USA during my two years there. I accomplished more in those two years than I did in my 25 years of living in Karachi, Pakistan. I have thought deeply about this, and it may have to do with the amount of money the US has invested in higher education, not millions but billions of dollars of investment in their educational ecosystem in higher education that directly leads to student level startups coming out of course projects which directly pitch for investment from angel investors and government funding. My Fulbright status at MassArt allowed me the privilege of taking courses at the world’s Number 1 university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the legendary MIT Media Lab, and as a consequence of my MIT student ID card, was able to access all of the libraries and student facilities at Harvard University, in particular the Harvard Innovation Lab space where I not only learned by also mentored and advised many other student level startups. It is the welcoming, supportive, radically inclusive nature of MIT that gave me so much courage to do things that I had not even thought of before in my life, to use all those opportunities. For many months, there I said YES to every possible opportunity that came my way, every public event, every hackathon, every competition, and every public lecture (that I had time to attend). I also cannot write all the above without thanking the US state Department' Fulbright Scholarship, which funded my education in the USA 100 percent, and even paid me a living stipend to take care of rent, food, travel and insurance. I could never, in many lifetimes, have ever afforded to study in the USA, let alone even travel there on my own. They welcomed my neurodiverse identity as an adult on the Autism Spectrum, seeing it as my individual strength, accommodating me at all levels, and welcoming what I had to contribute to their classes and learning under the context of diversity. My contributions were welcomed, my voice was heard. The context of explaining all this is that what I was able to do, to work on student level startups, on entrepreneurship, was only possible since they (The cities of Boston and Cambridge in Massachusetts, USA) have created systems for their masses (regardless if they are enrolled student/faculty or not) to collaborate and work together during weekend "hackathon" events, to pitch ideas, win prizes and then turn those solutions into startups, companies and partnerships.

 Q2. You mentioned having mentored two graduate start-ups. And participated in many entrepreneurial hackathons. How did these experiences help you shape your strengths and identify your weaknesses?

 A2. The city of Boston is where I was studying at MassArt, and its sister city of Cambridge is where I was taking my graduate electives at the MIT Media Lab and where I was incubated at the Harvard Innovation Lab. Surrounded by so many world-class universities teaching subjects in almost all fields, the multi-cultural classes had students from most countries on earth. Negotiations, communication, and collaboration only happen once the barrier of language and culture are overcome. This is an analogy for neurodiversity, inclusion and the work environment of the future. Not everyone can be measured by the same yard stick. Not everyone can communicate well in English. No everyone even has the same interests that you have, even while attending the same classes. However, during a class, groups were created organically, based on common interests of the students, in different domains. The process was democratic, but it was also curated, pushed gently in particular directions by the Professors leading the classes. Each class had multiple professors as well as graduate assistants, senior students helping with the teaching and evaluation of the submissions. This model was parallel in the public hackathons. Instead of limiting hackathons to students, they were events open to the community, with free food, gifts and prizes sponsored by startups and for-profit organizations. Every class I took, every hackathon I participated in, there were themes that repeated every time. They welcomed everyone’s perspectives and opinions, and their interactions were based on things they did that they enjoyed, it almost felt like playing, or rather, learning through play. One person would present an Idea, another would create a paper prototype, and the next team member would add to it or increment it or push it further, and a third would add their own insight into the idea from their own life or experiences or their experiences from their own field. Each group worked with members of different ages, different races, different nationalities, languages and cultural background. It looked to me like this is how life must have been thousands of years ago in south Asia, where diverse groups of people must have worked together over time on mutual interests. Entrepreneurship is not just a process or outcome, it is a way of thinking, now formally called the Entrepreneurial mindset, also known as a "growth mindset", that sees failures as experiences to learn from, not be ashamed of. In South Asian countries, and most of the developing world, we see failure as something to hide and not discuss, but in real life, no one has ever won without losing many times first. What about those around you who were born lucky into wealth? How many people do you know who have "won" or succeeded so much that they break down every time they encounter failure. The Fulbright scholarship was created 75 years ago for this single reason, for people to people cultural exchange between academics of the world and everyday Americans, for them to learn from us, and us to learn from them. One man is not an island, not much progress can be made in life by yourself, and you may be the best in the world at what you do, but you won’t get far without others feedback, support and collaboration. Before studying in the USA, I had done things mostly on my own, but it was the true spirit of collaboration which i saw at all these entrepreneurial hackathons across Boston and Cambridge that pushed me to rethink everything I had done before in my life, that pushed me to be social, welcoming of strangers, working together with them during short durations of time, adding my creativity to theirs. We are not born perfect, it takes a lifetime of experiences to get to the point where we become a role model for someone else. That is something to aspire to, as every conference I attended, every hackathon I attended, every public lecture, there were successful entrepreneurs in the audience or there as speakers and mentors to share their stories and experiences with new and potential entrepreneurs. These experiences not only changed my thinking, but I physically changed as well, my own family could not recognize me in some of my social media photos, based on the amount of weight I lost while studying abroad, while only eating things that I liked and eating less (as Boston is one of the most expensive cities in the world). These daily and frequent interactions with other creative, motivated students and the general public changed everything about how I saw the world and how I saw myself, how I saw my role in the world and what kind of person I wanted to be. It is the struggle, the journey that shapes a person, not the destination. Entrepreneurship or Entrepreneurial thinking is a mindset, not just an activity, and should become part of everyone’s life, encouraged at all levels in society.

 

Q 3. In South Asia, according to you, what cultural factors are conducive to promoting entrepreneurial abilities? And what are the impediments?

A 3. I could potentially write a book on this subject, based on the decades of experiences I have had regarding this chain of thought. I have been privileged to be Pakistan’s national speaker on the subject of Autism Spectrum of Disorders and invited in the last 15 years to speak at conferences in Bangladesh, India, Bhutan and many other countries (Qatar, USA) as well as speak at Autism events in Pakistan. This allowed me access to organizations, nonprofits, corporations, government-led initiatives across many countries, and all of them have radically different approaches to promoting entrepreneurship. Since I have so much to say and not enough space, I will generalize my perspectives between what I saw in South Asian countries vs what I saw in detail in the USA, the leading country in the world in context of entrepreneurship education and support of both young and established entrepreneurs. I was even invited at the US State Department’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES 2015) at the United Nations building in Nairobi, Kenya, where I met entrepreneurs from all over the world, especially those from India and Pakistan that had moved outside South Asia due to lack of support in their own countries. There is an analogy to be made here to explain the difference. Take the example of a TV commercial for McDonalds in the USA, with its famous tagline “i'm lovin' it”, showing the one lone person sitting alone, eating his burger, enjoying it on his own. Now take the same company and see an advertisement for it for any country in South Asia, India, Bangladesh or Pakistan, the advertisement will show a whole family sitting and enjoying a family meal, from the children playing with their happy meal toys, to their teenage siblings, their parents and even grandparents too, on the same table, sharing their food. There is a lot of interference here, in our family structures, trying to be micromanaged each time. This is the difference. Entrepreneurship is not just risk taking, it is calculated risk taking. It provides more jobs than all of the world’s corporations put together. Entrepreneurship is not just risk taking, it is calculated risk taking. It provides more jobs than all of the world’s corporations put together. The ONLY startups who have actually succeeded (been acquired) in Pakistan’s startup ecosystem are those whose founder or co-founders studied abroad (in the USA or UK), I am referring to CAREEM, etc. This is a topic still being debated in Pakistan. 

Q4. You are the focal person for the disability committee at Shaheed Zulfikar Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology accessibility committee, created to implement the 2021 HEC Policy for students with Disabilities. Is there a way to build entrepreneur skills through curriculum changes?

A4. These are two very different things. The Higher Education Commission (Government of Pakistan) is a regulatory body to check quality control for public and private sector higher education institutes in Pakistan, on the same model at the University Grants Commission of India (The HEC in Pakistan was previously called the UGC). I teach at a private university, where there are no financial resources or infrastructure support by the government, unlike the support given to Public sector universities. They only regulate quality, impose laws and demand standards to be met. The HEC Student inclusion policy clearly outlines that all campuses must be inclusive, that no student can be denied admission on the grounds of their disability, it outlines the processes and committees that must exist to provide accommodations when requested by the student and defines a basic report that must be submitted annually or when requested by the HEC. However, as I mentioned before, while the Government provides funding and training for their own public sector universities, they do not provide any support (financial, infrastructure or training) to private universities. As a consequence the accommodations are provided when the student requests them, based on documented criteria, and all the requests till now have been regarding accommodations during examinations. The HEC has a different entity that they created to support entrepreneurship at all higher education institutions in Pakistan called ORIC (Offices of Research, Innovation and Commercialization), and I am my departments focal person for ORIC in the university, so I am aware of their goals and events. The ORIC model has started only a few years ago in Pakistan and the university where I work, SZABIST (known across the world for their management sciences courses and their industry-standard MBA degree) has only recently started competitions where the final year project (FYP) of students can be entered into university and HEC level competitions to win potential funding. However, what you are asking is the intersection of the students with disabilities pitching their final year projects through the ORIC model to apply for incubation, funding and VC support. That has not happened yet in Pakistan, and I don’t see it happening for many years. The reason is a clear one to me. I started advocating for awareness of Autism in Pakistan (on a volunteer basis, no one ever paid me for it) back in 2006, through my media appearances in morning shows in Pakistan. In 2023, it has been 17 years of doing this self-advocacy for Autism spectrum of disorders in Pakistan. Only in the last few years has critical mass finally reached that the government has started created free or subsidized Autism therapy centers in some major cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. The NOWPDP nonprofit organization (Network of Organizations Working for People with Disabilities Pakistan) takes credit for this initiative, acting as the intermediary pressure lobby group to bridge the gap between the parents and organizations of special needs children and adults, and the government of Pakistan. Over a decade of writing articles each year since the UN World Autism Awareness Day started (which I even spoke at in New York at the UN in 2013), has finally pushed the government to allocate funds and provide relief and training to parents and special needs children. Almost no initiatives exist for adults on the autism spectrum, who approach the same organizations that deal with all disabilities, and the word neurodiverse is not understood at all in Pakistan, with NOWPDP’s efforts focused on the “visible” disabilities, such as paraplegia, the blind and the deaf. Pakistan has much to learn from its neighbors in India, Bangladesh and other SAARC Countries. I was on one of the last flights of PIA from Pakistan to India back in 2015, when I went to Delhi to be Pakistan’s national speaker at the south Asian autism regional conference. . Regrettably due to the political turmoil in the region, there has been almost no physical travel or collaboration at conferences between India and Pakistan since 2015, and parents and organizations are now collaborating online through video conferences. So, the question was if there a way to build entrepreneur skills through curriculum changes? Not directly. I don’t think so. I saw the support for Entrepreneurship extensively in Boston and Cambridge at the MIT, whose alumni have gone on to co-found startups worth billions of dollars. I met many CEOS of companies at public talks there when I was studying at the MIT Media Lab. The way MIT supports entrepreneurship among students is an extensive strategy that looks at the entire educational system and the lifespan of the student. It targets not only its existing students but also their own professors, researchers, employees, the community of people who live close by, their extensive alumni, students from nearby universities, foreign investors, executive education, lifelong learners, people who take their free online courses on EDx and other online platforms and even venture capitalists in the greater boston tech ecosystem, and especially the fortune 100 companies who hold regular events on campus to train, mentor or hire students. The single most captivating thing that I saw there during my time as a student there, were the weekend Hackathon events. These events are always focused on one major industry (eg health, transport, water, energy, food etc) with all its major problems, opportunities and potentials discussed, with existing students as well as alumni and the greater boston community residents participating over the weekend, working on likeminded problems. I will be honest here, initially I was attracted by all the free food and free merchandise (shirts, pens, caps, and discount coupons) as Boston is an expensive city to live in, but soon, I was attending the hackathons as I needed feedback for my own thesis research and I wanted to connect with people and increase my network. The greatest thing I took away from these hackathons was not the winning (even though my group did win a few times, beating teams from across the university), but the process of collaboration, working together for a greater purpose, and the excellent post event support by the MIT network to connect us with further opportunities, reward us with support like incubation, prize money, venture capitalists and companies that could have hired me after I graduated. It is not the curriculum that needs to change at all to support entrepreneurship, a parallel system needs to be created at all levels to support and encourage entrepreneurship at all levels, it’s a mindset problem. The only way mindsets are changed is through a supportive, encouraging environment. I did not have to worry about food at the hackathons, I could leave late when I wanted, there was no pressure (no marks), I was there because I wanted to be there. I knew that no matter what, just being there with others that shared my ideas would result in a win-win situation not only for me but for the other people there, who would also learn from my experiences. To support entrepreneurship at the higher education level, the support needs to come from right at the top of the command chain, from the President of the university, and be made into one of the KPIs of the university, supported by lawyers when needed (Intellectual property protection) as well as available funds to support student level ventures, which need to be awarded liberally, as seed funding, along with an network of experts and volunteers to help in the incubation process. Most startups that I saw emerge during my time there were either physical products or apps, not services, but I may have been biased, as I was indeed at an engineering university which would be pre-disposed to these trends.

 Q5. What is your advice to upcoming entrepreneurs?

A5. Entrepreneurship requires validation of the need for a product in the market. Systems such as lean startup methodologies, prototyping, pretotyping, paper prototyping and of course design thinking and all vetted and practiced methods used all over the world to determine the need of a product or service. There is a saying, “when the student is ready, the teacher is waiting”. Entrepreneurship cannot happen without the advice of someone with more experience, someone who has failed many times and then succeeded and is now giving back to the community by passing on their experiences. Entrepreneurship cannot happen without venture capital and investment. My advice to you is very clear and very simple, don’t ask, and just start. There will never be a perfect time. There will never be a perfect environment. Take some small amount of money, make a minimum viable prototype, get feedback from your potential customers, validate your idea, then make a business plan and pitch it at a business plan competition or apply for free incubation. There are organizations around you, especially at universities, that are holding these pro-entrepreneurship events, just attend and observe to learn and then plan to apply the next year. A time may come when you feel your own city or country and ecosystem is not supporting you, but if you have a validated product and enough evidence of satisfied customers, the world is a very big place. Start pitching abroad. See the US Embassy website in your own country for US State Department events throughout the year such as grants and competitions for US State department alumni (those who went on international student exchanges and scholarships to the USA), you can easily partner with such people around you, and use their connection to the US and make them your co-founder. There are many opportunities, ask around, talk to people around you, and if you don’t have people near you who are sharing good tips or advice about entrepreneurship, then reach out to family members or friends who are entrepreneurs. No man is an island. It makes no difference if you are neurodiverse or not, a business is a business. If you can prove that you have a working business model, you will get support from others and maybe someday, get funding to validate your startup or scale it up, in your country or another one. Today is the first day of the next of your life, take a stand, take a risk today so that your tomorrows are secure. Entrepreneurship is not a thing you do, it is a way of thinking and for many, a way of life. 

Here is a link to one of his videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-82r-A8Psw