As I sit down to write this article at the DigiDent Solutions office in Islamabad, I recall the very early morning of a cold fall day in New Jersey in 2002. Walking into the Edison based headquarters of Fusion Technologies at 5am, I couldn’t help but to stop and gaze enviously at the Indian flag flying outside the building. Would I ever be able to fly my country’s flag on this ground one day? I asked myself? Moments later, the company CEO, Denis Lussier walked into the office and found me working with my remote team in Hyderabad, India.
Denis had Founded Fusion Technologies when he was only twenty nine and well understood the ideas of sacrifice and leading from the front. He asked me right after my meeting, “What can I do to make your job easier Shahzad?” and it was as if I had gotten my prayer answered and my wish granted. I replied immediately, “Let me do it in Pakistan!” Denis smiled, and agreed to both help me and to and push this idea. Of course, getting approval from the Fusion board of directors took another eighteen months, but the seed for the Islamabad office had been planted. Today, there are several tools, products, and projects’ being executed out of Islamabad and it has won accolades from both within and outside the country.
Flashback
I was fourteen years old when I took one of my tenth grade math exams to my father for his signature (It is customary in Pakistan schools to get your exams signed by your parents). I had received 25 out of 40. Expressionless, my father signed the exam and said something unforgettable, “Shahzad, if you do not do well in your board exams, I am not going to push you in to the top college through a back door; you will attend what you merit!” That day onwards, I knew if I was to be successful, I had to do it on my own, and for myself. After my matriculation exams, I took admission in a computer training school where I learned and developed interest for software development. After my second year in college, I left for the US to study Computer Information Systems at Stony Brook University in New York.
University was a tremendous learning experience. It was the first time I was away from family and had to quickly adjust to making decisions on my own. I realized early on that as I graduate in a few years, I would need to distinguish myself from the average student so I started to look for part-time jobs that were both exciting and relevant to my area of study. I worked as a librarian at the University Computer Science Library did technical support for both faculty and students at the University labs, interned at a software company, and was the Web Master for the Office of Student Affairs.
One of my favorite, and by far the most challenging job, was that of being an RA, or a Resident Assistant. RA’s were on-campus student leaders that helped the University administration run the residential halls. As an RA, I was directly responsible for the well being of my residents. Some of the key activities I performed in this role were social and educational programs including drug and alcohol abuse, health and safety programs, facilities maintenance, fire prevention, and training. Sometimes, the only way to grow beyond your fear is to throw yourself into a position that forces you to face it. Before I took up this RA job (and I did this for almost three years), I would wait for someone to call the building management if there was a problem in the building. Afterwards, I was the one being called upon; and then, it just became natural.
After graduation, I joined Fusion Technologies as a consultant.
Most of my initial years there were spent writing software for large enterprises where I got an opportunity to interact and work with several Fortune 500 organizations. As a software consultant, I was exposed to the large enterprise processes and project methodologies while working with cutting edge technology. Very soon, I was leading small teams and was promoted to being a project manager. Although I found this to be challenging in the beginning, I started to like delegation and technology management as I got more involved. Specifically, I enjoyed enabling people, and that is also what I wanted to do in Islamabad. A few months after my first conversation with the board of directors, I came to Pakistan and right away started working on building marketing materials.
Arif Khosa, then Director Domestic for Pakistan Software Export Board was instrumental in helping me shape these marketing materials. I was also provided with a digital artist by the PSEB, who helped me put together a website that I eventually presented to the board and won the Pakistan investment.
In essence, the Islamabad office allowed me to fulfill my entrepreneurial aspirations as well as help me realize my dream of contributing back to Pakistan. As I had stated earlier, the most challenging part of bringing investment here was that of addressing the geo political risks raised by the investors. It is important to note here that foreign media has done a fantastic job of demonizing our country by declaring it unfit for business.
Given these conditions, what you have to rely upon are your personal successes and relationships built on top of these successes. Initially, the trickling of money was slow but did start to happen as we produced enterprise quality software project after project. In particular, I can recall the last project we did as part of Fusion technologies for a Boston based Software Company. This customer was so pleased with our work that they awarded us with a multi-million dollar project as a result of this high quality work. Around the same time, Fusion was sold to a larger consulting company called Alliance Consulting. Alliance took over all US, European, and India offices of Fusion Technologies and the Islamabad office of the company was acquired by EnterpriseDB. Thus, our Islamabad office turned from being a project based office to a product based office. We received venture funding from top US venture capital firms including Fidelity.
EnterpriseDB produces a relational database management system based on PostgreSQL that is compatible with Oracle. Almost all of this Oracle compatibility has been developed in Islamabad. We have the honor and the distinction of being one of the few organizations that have developed infrastructure software outside the US. All aspects of a product lifecycle are catered to in Islamabad including development, testing and quality assurance, packaging, delivery, and technical support. We also did some sales and marketing work for the US market out of Islamabad. Attesting to the high quality of our product are several awards, the most prominent being the “Best Database Solution” award we have won at Linux World for three years in a row starting in 2005.
Today, the EnterpriseDB factory process is mature and complete and we are releasing major and minor revisions of the product at set, planned cycles. As the factory process comes to completion, so does the growth of the personnel in Islamabad. Since my primary objective for founding the Islamabad office was the creation of jobs in Pakistan, I started to look for new avenues in order to continue fulfilling this objective. Hence, in early 2007, DigiDent Solutions was born.
DigiDent is a leading provider of Business Technology Solutions with solutions focus in Identity and Access Management, Business Intelligence, Business Process Management, and Enterprise IT infrastructure. The key attribute of our success in Islamabad has been our people. In order to hire and retain the best talent of the country, we realize that we need to work with cutting edge technology and provide a work environment that is at par with large global enterprises. DigiDent has taken this tradition of my former companies and taken it another step forward. Already, we are engaged with Fortune 500 customers in all of our focus areas and are looking to grow beyond a hundred people in the year 2008. The biggest advantage I have this time around is that now, I am not alone. Having seen the success and the potential in Pakistan, and sharing my vision this time, is a friend and a very seasoned IT professional, Aamer Choudhary. Together, we feel that we can take this organization, and our country, to the next level by building the largest specialty services organization Pakistan has seen so far. God willing, we shall!
Shahzad Khokhar is the Founder & Chief Operating Officer of Digident Solutions
