Remembering child prodigy Arfa Karim

The eighth death anniversary of the youngest Pakistani computer prodigy Arfa Karim Randhawa is being observed today.

Arfa Karim earned laurels at the ripe young age of nine when she become the youngest Microsoft Certified Profession. She was invited by Bill Gates to visit Microsoft Headquarters in the United States.

Family Background

Arfa Karim was born on 2 February 1995 in Faisalabad. Her family belong to Ram Dewali village near Faisalabad. Her family, Abdul Karim Randhawa, was a retired army officer who admitted her to school at the age of three where she impressed her teachers.

Achievements

In 2004 at the age of nine, Arfa Karim became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). She had her name in Guinness Book of World Record and kept the title until 2008.

Arfa represented Pakistan on various international forums including the TechEd Developers Conference in the Spanish city of Barcelona in 2006.

Meeting with Bill Gates

In 2005, she was invited by Bill Gates to visit Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, Washington in the United States.

Sitting down for a personal meeting with Bill Gates, Arfa asked the Microsoft founder why the company doesn’t hire people her age. The question wasn’t so unreasonable Under the circumstances.

The tour included lab tours and a series of informal sessions with Microsoft executives and employees. She presented Bill Gates with a poem she wrote that celebrated his life story.

She also questioned him about what she perceived to be the relatively small proportion of women on the campus.

“It should be balanced — an equal amount of men and an equal amount of women,” she explained afterward.

Arfa described Gates as an “ideal personality,” explaining that he had been second only to Disneyland on her list of things she wanted to see in the United States.

Arfa said she would like to go to Harvard University or MIT, and then either go to work for Microsoft, in its developer division, or become a satellite engineer.

Awards and Recognition

Upon her return from the US, she became an icon in Pakistan. She was interviewed by various channels, was invited to various international conferences and summits and also received awards from the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan.

She also received the President’s Award for Pride of Performance in 2005, becoming the youngest person ever to receive the award.

On 2 August 2005 she was the youngest to receive a first flight certificate from Dubai Flying Club. She earned a pilot’s license at the age of ten.

She was presented the Fatimah Jinnah Gold Medal in the field of Science and Technology on the occasion of 113th birth anniversary of Fatima Jinnah. She received the Salaam Pakistan Youth Award in August 2005 from the President of Pakistan.

Landmarks named after her

A science park in Lahore, the Arfa Software Technology Park, was named after her. On 15 January 2012, the Chief Minister of Punjab Mian Shehbaz Sharif announced a name change of Software Technology Park to Arfa Software Technology Park.

Her native hometown was also renamed after her to pay tribute to the child prodigy. The village of Ram Dewali is now named after Arfa Karim.

Health and death

Arfa was studying at the Lahore Grammar School Paragon Campus in her second year of A-levels in 2011.

On 22 December 2011, she suffered a cardiac arrest after an epileptic seizure that damaged her brain and was admitted to Lahore’s Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in critical condition.

On 9 January 2012, Bill Gates contacted Arfa’s parents and directed her doctors to adopt “every kind of measure” for her treatment. Gates set up a special panel of international doctors who remained in contact with her local doctors.

The panel received details about her illness and provided assistance in diagnosis and treatment. Arfa’s family has lauded Bill Gates for offering to bear her treatment expenses.

On 13 January 2012, Arfa’s condition started to improve, and some parts of her brain showed signs of improvement. Arfa died at a hospital in Lahore on 14 January 2012, aged 16.