Ignite 7.0: “We were VIPs in Our Thinking “
Bewitching the crowd with his charm and charisma, Umair Jaliawala speaks at NUST
On Monday, Ignite 7.0 by NUST Debating Society arranged a session on “Believe, Act, Rise, and Inspire!” by the Director and Consultant of the School of Leadership (SoL), Umair Jaliawala.
Students from various departments of NUST, as well as other universities and high schools attended the event. By the time Mr. Jaliawala arrived half an hour later than scheduled, the NIT seminar hall was bustling with anticipation.
The event started with an introduction to The Innovation Challenge, and Jaliawala followed soon after, getting the crowd hyped up by playing national songs to celebrate Islamabad United’s victory in PSL, telling everyone to clap to the music, and make some noise.
With enough energy generated, Umair started his session with how he was not very confident in his youth. Describing the Young Leaders Conference (YLC) as his turning point, he soon got inspired and joined SoL in 2005.
“It’s been thirteen years, and there’s never been a day when I did not have work to do. Even if you wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me to give a talk after half an hour, I’d do it” he remarked, giving an idea of just how devoted he is to his job.
“We were VIPs in our thinking, but we would meet the badshahs and the fakeers. We wouldn’t let the badshahs feel superior to us, nor the fakeers feel less than us”.
After describing his own passions, Jaliawala turned to ask about the audience’s. “This life is yours alone. If you cannot please yourself, you cannot please others either” he remarked, adding that dragging oneself to pursue a degree for four long years out of someone else’s will can never produce desired results. He emphasized on paying attention to working in the right direction, and discovering the goals one could achieve.
“What do you have that your ancestors didn’t?” Umair asked, explaining that countless facilities are merely a click or tap away these days; so we can do much more than we think.
The ultimate question of the session was “what are you going to be in this world?” An emotional video of YLC 2016 was played, and everyone was encouraged to apply for this year’s conference to gain insight and exposure. The session was concluded with advice to read, travel, meet people, open up, read poetry, prose, and discover cultures; to broaden our horizons.
The audience parted with mixed views. Ayesha Tariq of SNS remarked that she liked the session, and that Jaliawala was an inspiration, but he should have talked more about satisfaction. “Some people do start liking what their parents choose for them. I felt like many people started feeling bad about their life decisions and that now it’s too late and there is no use for all they are studying,” she said, “people don’t really know yet that they were more discouraged than encouraged”.
On the other hand, students such as Ramlah Aziz of SEECS thought otherwise. “It was good. It started late, which was inconvenient, but his questions made us realize we don’t have a goal in university. She added that the lack of direction causes people to drift aimlessly from semester to semester.”
