Sada-e-Watan
Sydney ™
sadaewatan@gmail.com
Overseas Pakistani bringing Pride for Pakistan – Dr. Khurram Kayani completed his Doctorate from Leading Macquarie University.
At the peak of his career
as CEO, Nicon Group of Companies, President All Pakistan IT Institutions
Association and Joint Secretary Marketing Association of Pakistan Dr. Kayani
decided to move his family to Australia. Nicon then was the largest IT Company
in Pakistan with over 400 full-time staff members and fourteen campuses, etc. It
was a strange and tough decision for an extremely successful and well-settled
person, but there was a clear motive to make everyone feel proud of his decision
and family achievements later in life.
After passing settling phase, then came the time to fulfill his lifetime desire
to achieve a Doctorate from the top business University in Australia. Macquarie
University holds the distinction of the leading business University in Australia
so he planned to join it. On enquiring he was told that to do a research
Doctorate he needed to take Course 952 and wrote a thesis of 18,000 words, only
a distinction would land him in an MPhil and later Doctorate in the desired
field. Another option was to compromise on the ranking of University but he
refused to accept that solution. That sounded like a six years tough journey
with lots of commitment and passion. But he accepted the challenge and finished
Course 952 (as a pre-requisite) successfully and got admitted to Master’s by
Research with 22 other top academics and professionals at Macquarie University.
It was an extremely tough
journey, where each and every candidate has to take four courses and achieve
distinction in each one of them. Fortunately, Dr. Kayani got two best
supervisors; Prof Michael McGrath and Prof. Carmel Herrington, who have a great
name in the field of Good Governance, Tourism and Information Technology. A
great support came from Dr. Asad Kayani as his Mentor who kept him motivated all
the way through. Fighting all challenges and meeting tough university
requirements he with two other students made to the stage of ‘thesis writing’ to
achieve Doctorate. There came the ultimate challenge of balancing work and
study. He never witnessed that during his two Masters before. During thesis
writing he kept working for Seek Ltd and later BHP Billiton in the day and then
study and write during nights. So many times he slept after Fajar prayer. His
biggest motivation came through his wife Dr. Humaira, who always told him that
he could achieve that pinnacle moment in life.. and asked him to look at the
bigger picture, i.e., the day he would be holding his degree from the top
university.
Since 2012, as an Australian Government requirement, each and every doctorate
thesis has to be digitally published on the University website so people could
download and take benefit from it. It is a matter of pride and much larger
responsibility for a University to ensure quality and standard of every thesis
that goes on their website and should also meet international Doctorate
guidelines in all respects. Before that, once completed, a student needs to
present the thesis to the internal committee and successfully defend it. As a
standard practice upon successful defense, Macquarie University sends the thesis
to two external senior professors from the same field of expertise to evaluate
and give their final comments and approval. Fortunately, they both not only
passed Dr. Kayani’s thesis but wrote special comments like, “one seldom honors
to review a thesis of this quality and depth…”, “amazing level of research being
done by the candidate”.
Finally, on 18th Sept, 2015.. Out of 22, Dr. Khurram Kayani from Pakistan was
the only one out of 22 students who was awarded with Doctorate in Business
Administration degree with focus on ‘Good Governance, Tourism and IT
implications on companies’ and also joined the club of University’s most
Outstanding Alumni. His biggest dream of receiving it with his mother also
fulfilled too as his mother specially flew from Pakistan to attend the ceremony.
He is extremely thankful to his friends
Bashir Malik,Mobeen
Butt, Adnan E Tabani, Waqar Abbasi, Syed Gazanfer Ali, Kh. Bilal Ahmad, Ahmed
Ashraf, Greenwich students group and brothers Najm, Akhlaq, Asad, Taimoor, Murad
and Salman. Now, working for Commonwealth Bank Australia, in future he intends
to take a senior portfolio to further bring better name to his beloved
motherland Pakistan.
Khurram Kayani with his Mother and wife Dr. Humaira
