Afghan student flies flag high in India

Yasin Ahmady, a final year mechanical engineering student at NIT Durgapur, along with his teammates Junaid Petkar from Zimbabwe, and Michael Nauta from Namibia, secured the second spot among 80 teams in a national Aero modelling Competition at IIT Kharagpur and won a magnificent prize.

The competition was organized by BOEING,The world’s largest aerospace company, in affiliation with India’s premier engineering Institutes, namely IIT-Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Madras and Kharagpur.

“I have been busy designing, fabricating and flying a number of radio controlled aircrafts models since my second year of B.Tech engineering course at NIT Durgapur. In my next project, I would like to design and fabricate a Quad copter that has the ability to operate in dangerous locations while keeping their human operators at a safe distance. It can provide a reliable long duration and cost effective platform for reconnaissance to become an indispensable tool for Afghan security forces. It can serve more tactical operations such as searching a village or a building for enemy positions. Quad copter design includes a camera and telemetry that will allow us to watch live video from the Quad copter on a laptop that is located more than 1 km away,” Ahmady said.

During the competition, they were introduced to the President of BOEING India, Pratyush Kumar and also to the rest of his top level executive team from their Indian office.

Mr. Pratyush Kumar, president of BOEING India said,” we have a partnership with IITs. We were cerebrating as how to capture the hearts and minds of young talent on aerospace engineering and manufacturing.”

“It should not be left unsaid that it was my great ambition from childhood to become a pilot.As I grew up, my dreams got bigger and fortunately after graduating from Habibia high school, I got a scholarship from theIndian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) to pursue my bachelor degree in mechanical engineering in India.I wish to afterwards pursue my M.Tech in aerospace engineering and be a fruitful servant to my beloved homeland in the future,” Yasin added.

He further emphasized hope and expectations for similar competitions to be held in Afghanistan, to further acquaint the youth of his country with various technological advancements and exposure to the various fields of Engineering, which he believes are instrumental to the growth of the aerospace and aviation industries within the country.

Yasin Ahmady advices his fellow friends and Afghan students to study in Science fields, to make use of their time and try to learn practical knowledge beside their theoretical subjects taught in their schools and universities.