Syed Mubashar Ali Shah Rizvi

For Mubashar, the love and value of education is something he gets from his mother. An aspiring doctor and an outstanding student, his mother could not fulfill her aspirations owing to her marriage at the tender age of eighteen. After her marriage, she made it her lifelong goal to provide the best education for her children within her limited resources.

Born to an officer in the Pakistan Army, Mubashar got the chance to live in several different cities of Pakistan, experiencing different educational systems along the way. While each experience added a fresh and unique layer of learning, it wasn’t until he moved out of Pakistan to enroll at Texas A&M University in Qatar that his mental horizons truly expanded. Studying in Qatar and interacting with its people also reinforced his long-held observations about the commercialization of education, especially quality education. It was then that he joined Possibilities Pakistan – a student-run organization that provided free college counseling to all Pakistani students who aspired to attend universities at home and abroad. He started as a guidance counselor, answering queries specific to branch campuses in Hamad bin Khalifa University, and was later appointed as a Recruitment Manager for Qatar, tasked with increasing the pool of guidance counselors in the region.

Mubashar cites the terrorist attack by the Taliban on the Army Public School in Peshawar as the most influential moment of his life. In the aftermath of the attacks that left over 130 students dead, Mubashar and his siblings founded Mustaqbil (Urdu for future). Mustaqbil’s primary aim is to facilitate the education of under privileged in Pakistan. At a time when exam preparation and tutoring services are a huge business in Pakistan, Mustaqbil also aims to provide free and high quality exam help to students appearing for the final exams. During its soft launch, Mustaqbil – harnessing the power of the Internet and social media – was able to help over fifty students who were appearing for the GCSEs in May 2015.

In the future, he plans on expanding Mustaqbil with the aim of helping improve the rate of literacy in Pakistan, as well as being able to establish a non-commercial model of education.