Ask Mubina Chunara how to solve a high school algebra equation and chances are she will come up with the solution lickety-split.

But ask the 15-year-old Brampton student about the range of career choices she might have as a math major and the answers haven’t always come as easily.

It wasn’t until Mubina spent a girls-only weekend at University of Waterloo, hosted by a team of enthusiastic female math graduates, that the possibilities multiplied.

Math degree is the ticket

Where can a math degree lead? There are too many permutations and combinations to list, says Fiona Dunbar of University of Waterloo.

Dunbar, director of the annual Think About Math conference for Grade 9 girls, recently surveyed female alumni from the university’s math programs and found they were applying their problem-solving and analytical and numerical skills at companies ranging from communications (Google, RIM and Rogers) to science (European Space Agency) and health care (Canadian Blood Services and Cancer Care Ontario).

Past grads included a planning manager for a clothing store, a food and beverage analyst for an international hotel company and a consultant in the renewable energy industry.

“What we have seen is that you can work in almost any sector or company with a math degree,” Dunbar says. “There is virtually no repetition of the same job title and sector on my list of 900 graduates.”

Girls who want to mix fashion and math might end up at a cosmetics company in web development, data analysis, sales forecasting or marketing.

Here are some other examples of job titles held by female math grads:

- Investment banker

- Software developer for social networking company

- Program manager for a cellphone company

- Actuarial analyst

- Health care consultant

- Information technology consultant

- Statistician

- Professor

Andrea Gordon

“Before I went, math was something I was good at but wouldn’t necessarily look at as a career,” says Mubina, who attended the first Think About Math conference last spring. “But it opened my eyes. I will definitely stick at it.”

Mubina and 39 other girls had discussions with women in a range of math-related careers. They learned they could use math skills to develop online social networks like Facebook, build fashion businesses or help the environment.

In small groups, they pooled their problem-solving skills to navigate a race around campus, analyze results from a survey of female alumni and choose the most economical cellphone plan.

Mubina had never heard of an actuary. Now, she just might become one.

That’s just what Fiona Dunbar likes to hear. She’s a math lecturer at the university and the director of the conference, which will hold two weekend sessions this spring, starting April 29 and May 27, for 80 girls. Online registration closes March 12.

The three-day event is for Grade 9 girls who like math and have a mark of 70 per cent or more. It’s to encourage them to stick with the subject through high school and university and to consider pursuing a math-related career.

“We know from all the studies that girls are just as capable as boys,” says Dunbar, 32, who started as a music major at Waterloo but loved her calculus and linear algebra courses so much that she switched to math, then earned a master’s degree.

She fears that girls are still discouraged by lingering gender stereotypes and modern pop culture messages that focus on looks, weight and bad-girl celebrities. While girls score just as high as boys in standardized tests, women are under-represented in fields like engineering and computer science. In Canada, females account for 17 per cent of engineering undergraduates and a similar gender gap exists in computer science.

International research has shown that teachers and female role models in math-based fields are critical to attracting girls. A recent paper in the bulletin of the American Psychological Association also suggested that girls won’t pursue high-level math if they don’t believe it will lead to appealing career opportunities.

Dunbar, head of the Women in Math Committee at Waterloo and founder of the Canadian Women in Math Association, is doing her best to change the message track.

And she has lots of support.

Last year, she surveyed female alumni from Waterloo’s math programs to trace their career paths and find out what influenced them. She emailed 4,500 questionnaires, hoping to get 50 responses. She received almost 900.

“”It really hit a nerve,” she says. “People really wanted to help and encourage girls to follow in their footsteps.”

Many jumped at the chance to play a role at Think About Math, which includes Q and A sessions with a career panel, hands-on workshops in fields like investment banking and engineering, and a lot of socializing.

Grade 9 girls are targeted because they’re on the cusp of choosing high school courses that will affect their career goals. The idea is to attract those interested in math and who enjoy it, not just students at the top of the class.

The event is sponsored by the university’s Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing and funded through the $12.5 million donation it received from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2007 for youth outreach. Participants pay a $75 registration fee and are responsible for transportation. Meals, accommodation and activities are provided by the university.

“It’s really important for girls to have role models and see women in positions they may not have considered,” says Daphne Lucas, a career panel member who works in information security at the consulting firm Deloitte in Toronto.

Lucas, 30, has always loved math and assumed early on that turning that love into a career meant becoming a teacher. But earning her master’s degree in cryptography led her into a field she’d never considered. Today, she helps companies safeguard electronic records and data against security breaches.

In a study last year, Cornell University researchers found many girls who excel at math are also strong in verbal skills and have other talents, so it’s one of several options.

Toronto software consultant Deanne Farrar recalls girls at the conference asked about the possibilities of combining math with fashion, art and other creative pursuits.

“They wanted to know ‘How to I bring those together?’” says Farrar, 44. She’s quick to note that Daniel Lalonde, chief executive officer of luxury products company Louis Vuitton N.A., earned his bachelor’s degree in math at Waterloo.

For Mubina, a Grade 10 student at Turner Fenton Secondary School, the chance to explore math in an all-girl environment and engage in female networking was refreshing.

“It was a real confidence booster, especially being around people that like math as much as you do,” she says. “They were people who really made you feel good about yourself.”

Source: Toronto Star

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  Posted in         Ismaili News

Fixing potholes isn’t the sexiest way out of the recession.

But for Aziz Tejpar, an entrepreneur who runs a company that destroys drain grease in restaurants and hospitals by using live bacteria, pothole repair might just prove to be the best way.

“America is built on strip malls,” says Tejpar. “And strip malls have a lot of potholes.”

So Tejpar, president of Bradenton-based Environmental Biotech, has created a new franchise-model business to harness a technology he says will turn the staid industry of filling potholes into something efficient and entrepreneurial. Even better, says Tejpar, this system has no need for jackhammers and is environmentally friendly.

Tejpar calls the system, and the new company behind it, B Pothole Free. The technology revolves around a patented, infrared asphalt heater that is placed over a pothole.

Then, using short, medium and long wave thermal induction, the temperature is raised to 200 degrees Celsius, so heat permeates the entire pothole. The heater is removed after about 10 minutes and a two-man crew reshapes the area with the new road material.

The area is then compacted down and smoothed over while still hot. The entire process takes about 20 minutes.

B Pothole Free charges $99 for each standard size repair, which covers a pothole as big as 3 feet by 3 feet. It costs a county or municipal government about $250 to replace a pothole using traditional methods, says Tejpar, for a job that takes at least twice as long and usually requires twice as much manpower.

Tejpar discovered the pothole repair system in England, his native country, on a business trip last year. Tejpar bought the technology and imported it to Bradenton, where he and a team of researchers spent the past six months refining it.

“[This] is a project we’ve dedicated ourselves to for a long time because we believe in its many benefits,” says Tejpar. “It’s a safer, cleaner and quieter process than current pothole repair methods.”

Tejpar has already begun deploying the system. Clients include a mall in Bradenton and about 45 Starbucks stores in the Jacksonville area, for which Tejpar sent out two-man crews to fix potholes in the store’s parking lots.

Company executives are also targeting Wal-Marts in Florida, thinking that well-traveled lots are in greater need of this kind of service.

But Tejpar believes the future of the business lies in a franchise model. He is planning to lease a full B Pothole Free operation for $35,000, as well as charge a royalty fee on revenues. The operation includes the asphalt heater and related equipment, which is packaged into a hitch-ready cart that includes company signage. Tejpar’s crew from Environmental Biotech will train the franchisees.

B Pothole Free is also partnering with Sarasota-based Insignia Bank on equipment leasing, as Tejpar says he realizes a lack of financing is a steep hurdle for entrepreneurs to get into a new business these days.

Tejpar projects that an ambitious, fully trained B Pothole Free operator, working with commercial landlords, can be filling 30 potholes a day. That can translate to $3,000 a day in sales.

Source: http://www.review.net/section/detail/smooth-move/

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  Tags:              fixing potholes, ismaili muslim, ismaili success story  

  Posted in         General

As the 2010 Winter Olympic Games got underway in Vancouver, hundreds of Ismaili volunteers from across Canada officially became ambassadors to the world. Donning green-coloured jackets emblazoned with “Ismaili Volunteers” on the front, these Olympic Ambassadors have been welcoming tourists and athletes to the city since the beginning of February, providing information and directions, and managing queues and crowds in Vancouver City Centre.

“It is an amazing feeling to volunteer alongside other members of the Jamat at the largest event Vancouver has ever hosted,” said Kahir Lalji, an Ismaili volunteer.

Through CIVIC — Challenging Ismaili Volunteers in Communities — a youth based programme that focuses the energy of young Ismailis towards improving the wellbeing of the communities in which they live, younger members of the Jamat were also invited to help welcome the world. Volunteers aged 18-25 responded enthusiastically, signing up rapidly to take on the role of youth ambassadors.

“We were given the opportunity to volunteer at one of the busiest downtown locations,” said Adam Samji, a youth volunteer. “It was a great feeling to represent the Ismaili community in our special green jackets and to showcase our spirit of volunteerism.”

Ismaili volunteers benefit from the recent experience of organising large events that commemorated Mawlana Hazar Imam’s Golden Jubilee, as well as the Jamat’s Khushiali celebrations that take place every year. Their performance has garnered applause from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), who requested their organisation and management expertise to streamline other volunteer host locations.

“We are fortunate to have attracted a large and diverse application pool of people from around the world who are willing to volunteer for the Games,” said Allen Vansen, who is responsible for workforce operations at VANOC. According to the organisation, more than 77,000 people applied to donate their time and talent to contribute to the success of the Games.

In addition to taking part as Olympic Ambassadors, the community has also partnered with VANOC in other ways. Some Ismaili volunteers received specialised training from the Olympic Organizing Committee to chauffeur senior government officials and ministers to Olympics Special VIP Events. VANOC also engaged the community’s assistance in managing Olympics-related events.

On 11 February, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, hosted the 2010 Olympic Truce Youth Dialogue at the Vancouver Public Library, which was attended by over 500 youth from across Canada. Following a similar successful event held at the Ismaili Centre, Burnaby in September, VANOC asked the community to co-manage and provide human resources.

After the dialogue, the Governor General met with the Ismaili volunteers and expressed her appreciation for their contributions towards the success of the event, recalling the earlier Truce Dialogue at the Ismaili Centre.

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  Tags:              ismaili olympics, ismaili volunteer, ismaili volunteer vancouver, vancouver olympics  

  Posted in         General