SPOTLIGHT: Hafiz Awais Afzal

I Dream to Build an Ed Research Lab at Home

Hafiz Awais Afzal is an M.S. IDD&E student from Pakistan. He is an aspiring young leader, entrepreneur, and full-stack developer with the desire to help people bring change in the education system of Pakistan.

I started with the belief that everyone has exceptional skills—they just need a true leader who can guide them towards the right direction. I decided to cover the gaps I faced during my educational journey by co-founding a society named Inspire to provide free entry test coaching and admission consultancies in my city of Okara, Pakistan. After one year, Inspire raised 3 million rupees ($40,000) and converted into a social venture named Aspire Education Solutions. Soon Aspire was a famous entity in Okara and impacted the lives of 300 deserving students. When I started my journey, I was a freshman at university, and the load of professional responsibility led to my academics being compromised. Consequently, I had to resign from Aspire.

I then took another chance in 2015 and co-founded Ment-Hub as a CTO. Ment-Hub was designed to provide virtual mentorship to young startups. I won the Startup Weekend Lahore. In 2016, I came to the U.S. through the Global UGRAD exchange program and, again, had to resign from the position in the startup. I co-authored the report “Beyond the buzz: A deep dive into startup ecosystem” in Pakistan as a community manager at Social Innovation Lab in Lahore, Pakistan.

After two failed attempts to launch the startups, I founded Rahnumai in 2016. Rahnumai aims to provide a one-window solution to students and universities for their problems. I won many national and international recognitions for this work. I became an Acumen Fellow as an impact leader in 2019. I won Recognized Leader in Higher Education Enrolment & Counselling—Pakistan Award by Corporate Vision Magazine in the U.K. in 2020. I was awarded with Excellence in Education Award by Global Forum for Education and Learning in the U.S. in 2021.

As COVID-19 badly affected the education arena, being an educational management player, I had to pause all on-ground activities. My 10-year journey has helped me understand the local educational infrastructure, its problems, opportunities, and gaps. I believe now is the right time to get the theoretical knowledge about my desired fields according to a global perspective. I completed my whole education on zero fee under different prestigious scholarships. So, I decided to apply for Fulbright.

Fulbright has given me an option to join the M.S. IDD&E program at Syracuse University (SU). It was the first time when I heard the name of this degree. Initially I thought it was not relevant to my goal to build a state-of-the-art educational research lab in Pakistan. When I explored the courses, I realized it would directly impact my current and future work. My journey has all been about instruction—designing a course, providing counseling, developing a universal application portal, or being a trainer. The degree is covering the diverse skillset that is required for an EdTech or educational research person.

My first interaction with professors, management, and my peers proved my decision right. I have never felt I am running behind. I was always following the concept of learning, teaching methodologies, professors’ accommodating behavior, inside or outside class. Professors focused on our content instead of the perfect structure of English. I was not used to this behavior at the graduate level. As an educationist and student counselor, I have always believed a degree is all about community experience inside or outside classrooms. You can get the technical knowledge from the Internet in this age. This is what exited me the most about my life at SU.

I was technically and practically strong in many domains. IDD&E has empowered me with logic and theory behind these processes. Even after one semester, it made me capable enough and I started critically analyzing my previous work, the courses I had designed, the flaws in the current educational structure in Pakistan. I learned different tools and methodologies that I had never seen before. I believe, once my degree is completed, I will get most of the necessary skills that are required to fulfill my dream of an educational research lab. The purpose of this lab will be to utilize the data of our one-window solution and design technologies, recommendations, and policies for the government and education sectors.

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