Then in walked 17 year old Zayd Enam …

Just as we thought we had seen the best of the pitches at the P@SHA Tech Crunch Gong Awards that morning, in walked 17 year old Zayd Enam looking cool, collected and absolutely sure of himself.

Although the pain his project addressed was a real one, it wasn’t so much the idea that had everyone bowled. It was more the passion, the presentation style, the confidence that oozed from him and the complete belief that he was doing something that would help and protect a large number of Pakistanis from the wrong kind of medical treatment. It centred around making sure that there was a certified doctors refferal list online that could prevent people from being exposed to quacks. He is also putting up information regarding sources of epidemics that are specific to certain localities and pushing out preventive and curative strategies to people in those areas in multiple languages.

What Zayd did was to raise our hopes, to show us that there were a lot of young people – even those his age – with talent, passion and commitment who were ready, willing and able to find technology solutions for what ailed our society.

He spoke at the speed of light because he wanted nothing left unsaid. He answered the judges’ questions without a hitch and had the roomfull of people standing up to applaud him as Rabia’s gong put an end to his pitch.

Zayd told us that he was a high school dropout who had decided to take a year off before he proceeded with his education. “There are important things to be done,” he said “and I aim to launch MediConnect, as a complete solution, before I move ahead and pursue my education.”

If rumours are to be believed, he will only be applying to Berkeley and Stanford. He doesn’t want to go to any other university. Very focused young man. Knows exactly what he wants and how to go after it.

All of us saw in him the bright future of this nation of young people. It is kids like Zayd who give us hope and a reason to smile. Thank you Zayd for renewing our faith.