Inspirational journeys of Pakistan’s engineering leaders
Engineer-turned-telecom trail-blazer who strung Pakistan together with fibre
Born in Rawalpindi with a BSc from UET Lahore and a Master’s from Melbourne, Wahaj spent 15 years in government telecom projects before venturing into entrepreneurship.
In 2002 he co-founded Micronet Broadband (Pakistan’s first nationwide DSL) and in 2006 rolled out Nayatel’s FTTH network in Islamabad-Rawalpindi. His customer-first, engineering-grade ethos grew it into a 2,300-person company powering 90% of the capital’s premises.
Engineer-turned-entrepreneur behind Arbisoft’s rise
Bashir graduated from LUMS’s inaugural BSc Computer Science cohort and earned a postgraduate engineering degree at Stanford. In Silicon Valley he co-invented 3-D CAD and digital-manufacturing software for OrthoClear, appearing on U.S. patents for dental-aligner fabrication.
Returning to Pakistan in 2007, he co-founded Arbisoft; today the company employs 900+ specialists serving edX, KAYAK, Amazon and Microsoft across ed-tech, travel-tech, healthcare and AI. Bashir still codes, mentors R&D teams and sponsors open-source projects.
CEO & Co-founder, Aero Engine Craft — inventor of the world’s first contrail-free jet engine
Born in Islamabad, Sarah Quraishi earned a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from NUST and completed an MSc in Aerospace Dynamics and a PhD in Propulsion at Cranfield University, where her research pioneered methods to eliminate turbofan contrails.
In 2018, she and her physicist father spun that work into Aero Engine Craft (Pvt) Ltd. Their patented “water-expeller” module condenses exhaust vapour inside the engine—eliminating ice-cloud contrails and recovering water for rain. Shortlisted by MIT Solve with two international patents.