Kashif Shaad

Kashif is running for the posts: President, Vice-President, Treasurer

****************KASHIF'S VISION IN WORDS*********************

Hi All,

Regarding my take on the way EAAA is and the improvements required, I begin by acknowledging that as an alumni association it is still quiet nascent with the student community although widely dispersed but still capable of being connected by personal contacts. This said however, we have now grown more than 100 strong and to ensure its effectiveness and functionality, I think the focus should shift to the following three points: 1. Communication 2.Upgrading 3. Visibility.

The first two are sort of ’Back to Basics' points – essential a stronger information infrastructure. It deals with the need to overhaul our communication and other basic info database. Ccing emails are perhaps not the best way to keep track with ppl. The forum also needs upgrading. Better ways to integrate it with inter Generation communication can be sought out. One of the major tasks could be restructuring the setup so it can handle increasing numbers in the following years.

The third point deals with organising professional events or at least setting the stage for them. We have now in some ways attained the critical mass to organise small scale seminars (Students who have been to Cottbus must be aware of the small scale seminars organised by ERM alumni).
Well, as I mentioned before, EAAA is an evolving body and over the course of next two years the priorities might change but hey, we have to start somewhr.
Cheers!!
K. Shaad
EuroAquae G4


***********************KASHIF'S CV***************************

Kashif's CV can be read by clicking here (opens PDF file)

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Hi everybody, please ask questions to Kashif by clicking on post reply at this topic. Please note the voting starts on the 18th of October 2009. The voting will be done through this forum.

Hi I thought of starting to ask the questions to the candidates.

1. After the graduation, the people tend to get busier and busier, therefore I wonder how good your time management skills are as they will have to be of a good quality in order to combine work/studies/research, EAAA involvement and personal life?

2. Good time management skills are not enough, it is important to work as a team. Therefore how do you see yourself working in a team of 6 people or more (see the question 4)?


3. During the last past two years, I saw that the willingness to be initiative plays a very important role. How initiative are you?

4. The number of the graduates of the EAAA is growing, and it is getting harder to manage the potential demands of the six generations (in two years there will be eight generations), therefore after a brief discussion among some of the members of the CB of EAAA, we decided that it would be good to create an Executive Committee which will comprise some 10 – 20 people, each of them having a certain responsibility such as updating a website, preparing the Star of the Month articles, checking and responding to the messages on the forum. The Constitution of the EAAA already has the provision of such an Executive Committee. The Constitution can be downloaded from here (opens a PDF file). What do you think of such an idea?

Thank you for your responses.

Kostya

Thank you Kostya for the questions.

Questions 1-3
These are focused more on my personal capacity for serving on the EAAA board. I will thus answer the question citing an example from my previous work that shows the same.
During my undergraduate degree in India, I was in-charge of a Students volunteer organization at Uni which used to undertake various community service tasks in the villages (like literacy camps, cleanliness drives, etc). The said organization was about 150 strong and involved just 1 university when I joined the team. By the time I left its numbers had crossed the 1000 mark and we were distributed over 3 universities. This was ofcourse achieved by good team work (we had a full team of about 20 students by the end of it), great communication and time management by all (the work load at Uni was considerably more then any point during EuroAqaue). And organizing activities with 1000 students in mind required a lot of initiative as well!!

Question 4
From this previous experience itself, I would say just having a big team does not mean a better quality of work. In my view, all EuroAquae students are eager to fly the EuroAquae flag high..the EAAA has to function as the primal point of contact and source of motivation. If this motivation can be achieved via an executive committee then thats fine as well.

Kashif,

Thank you for the answers.

You say that the student organization which you were involved in India increased in numbers. The EAAA has also increased in numbers as every year we have more and more graduates. Could you please let us know what was your personal involvement in the increase in the numbers and which effect the increase in numbers had on the organization as a whole?

On a different note...the EAAA has been running as an organization with no financial backing so far.

Most of the activities were sponsored by those who took part in them, with the exception of the participation in the Erasmus Mundus Alumni association's activities and my trip to Nice in March 2009, where the money was provided for taking part in the lecture Ethics in Engineering and not for the participation in the board meeting.

Actually such way in my opinion was better than introducing membership fees etc, however do you think it should stay like this? Which ways of funding of the association do you see?

Thank you in advance.

Hi kashif

How are you? Thanks for coming in Newcastle last semestre to share your experience with us.

Here are some questions:

1 Which qualites are neccesary or important for being a president of EAAA?
2 Which qualities do you have regarding question1?
3 What do you plan to do if you are the president pf EAAA?

Thank you in advance.

mi

Hi Kostya and Mi
Isn't it usually the norm to not campaign during voting??
Anyways...in brief to reply..
To Kostya's question abt the expansion at our uni grp in India, it was a culmination of several factors but it was largely due to the range of activities our team was able to introduce....so u can say we had a direct role.
Second abt finances...I think EAAA should remain free for the students...funds can be obtained by lookin for sponsorship (I think others hv already flagged this up)

Concerning Mi's questions, I dont feel its really important on what official position one is on the board (or even being on the board)...in the end its worth it if as a group its able to help solve some of the issues surrounding EuroAquae students and graduates. For example, the main issue that comes to my mind is the problems after graduation. The handling of documents by the involved administration can be described as 'sloppy' at best. hence, some guys who have already faced these problem (1 or 2 frm G4, G3 and G2..ie. from Vikram, Anne, Lan or myself in this case) along with taking aboard the currently enrolled G5 students (who seem to be very enthused by this election..and is quite nice to see) should/could make a balanced team.

Best wishes!
K

Kashif,

Thank you for your responses.

The campaign should not take place during voting, but we cannot get everybody to vote at the same time and also it took some time to gather information from all the candidates during the allocated campaign time, therefore the campaign time itself was very short, so we thought it would be good to give more time to enable people to ask questions and respond.

It is good to see lots of people using the forum and posting items!

Kostya