​FAST Alumni Association, North America Chapter-FAANA recently conducted its elections for the year 2019-2020. This year the response had been overwhelming both from the candidates as well as the voters/participants. Election process was successfully completed with the help of one of the founding members of this organization and the final counting of votes was completed on January 18th, 2019. Out of eight nominations,. Five individual members with highest votes were elected to be part of FAANA board and to represent the organization. The elected board members are Ahmad Malik, Nauman Sheikh, Sheeba Malik, Jasim Qazi and Ahmad Uzair. Their brief background is listed at About us. 

The first board meeting for this year was held on January 27th, 2019 which was attended by all the new board members. There were a couple of subsequent board meetings to set the tone and direction for 2019. Some very exciting ideas were shared and discussed among the board members. 

The new board will be focused on the following areas for the upcoming year:

1. Digital engagement via webinars and participation in local campus exhibitions
2. ​Enhancing & maturing North American alumni network
3. Regular campus outreach activities
4. Updating and streamlining FAANA digital channels
5. Financial Planning

In 2018 the alumni generously donated about $36k which was 20% higher than $30k collected in 2017. All of the donation was used for financial aid of students in need. The financial target for the donation collection for the upcoming year is set to be approximately at $45k (increase of 25%).
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​In the coming days, FAANA would be initiating a membership drive to involve maximum alumni in order to create a greater community space. For this purpose, we are starting a monthly webinar series that would include FAST alumni (who are mainly based in North America) as speakers so they can impart their knowledge and experience among the current FAST students and upcoming graduates. The topic list would range from highly technical and industry trending topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Machine Learning, to some more personalized topic specifically focused in helping current student in pursuing higher studies in United States. This series would also cover the overall job market situation in US. This would be an excellent opportunity for the current and recent FAST graduates to come together and hear from industry veterans residing in US and learn from their experiences. There would also be an opportunity to get one-on-one mentorship and career guidance from the alumni.

FAANA’s mission is to support FAST-NU in its mission through its alumni and provide a platform to council and support graduates For the last several years we have been supporting deserving students via financial aid program. Going forward, we are expecting to invest more in to the areas of Research & Development and promoting innovations across various FAST campuses.
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This year, FAANA sponsored $1500 each for annual exhibitions at local campuses: SOFTEC (FAST - Lahore), NUTEC (FAST - Peshawar) , DAIRA (FAST Faisalabad-Chiniot) 2019 and NASCON (FAST – Islamabad). We are having discussion to setup an incubation center at FAST Karachi. As a part of sponsorship, alumni can judge the innovation competitions, attend opening and closing ceremonies, deliver talks on behalf of FAANA and represent the organization.

If you have any suggestion, please feel free to reach out to us via board@faana.org  or https://www.facebook.com/FastAlumniNA/  Please subscribe to one of our digital channels listed here http://www.faana.org/resources.html 
Please join our WhatsApp group here:  
​https://chat.whatsapp.com/9gZMdQQRaPVDHe6jtrq0YR

FAST-NU Alumni Association (FAANA) Webinar series: Session 01: An Entrepreneur's Journey

Please join us at the first FAANA webinar on Sunday March 31st at 12 pm Eastern Time (9 pm Pakistan Time). Our guest speaker is Fahad Aziz , a graduate of FAST Lahore, 97 batch.

Fahad is the co-Founder of a healthcare startup: CareMerge. It is named one of the 2018 Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in US and has raised over $20m in funding from major healthcare investors. Fahad mentors startups at UC Berkeley and is a guest lecturer at NYU on entrepreneurship.

In this webinar, Fahad will share his story of how he transitioned from corporate to entrepreneurship, with no experience in startups. He will also share key learnings from:
- Taking Ideas to MVP
- Selecting a co-founder and building the first team
- Raising funds (from angel investors to venture capitalists)
- Branding and Marketing
- Creating and leveraging your network

You will also learn about how to build network using platforms available in the US and Pakistan.
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