Syed Faizan Hussain: Portrait of a GroundBreaker
GroundBreakers is delighted to feature Syed Faizan Hussain, the Founder of Perihelion Systems, on this week’s Portrait of a GroundBreaker Series.
Syed Faizan Hussain is the Founder of Perihelion Systems, a social enterprise and non-profit developing products that aim to address social challenges in Pakistan through technology. Perihelion Systems has launched products including One Health, a disease tracking and surveillance system, and Edu-Aid, a software translating sign language gestures. Faizan has been recognized with the Queen’s Young Leader Award in 2017 and was named in Forbes 30 under 30 list this year. On this week’s feature of GroundBreakers’ Portraits of a GroundBreaker Series, our discussion with Faizan ranged from the unwavering support of his sisters to his thoughts on the future of technology in Pakistan.
Read on to learn more about this GroundBreaker’s inspiring work!
What motivated you to start Perihelion Systems?
I started volunteering when I was 15 and at that age did my matriculation. After this examination there is a vacation and on that break I started volunteering and working at different healthcare organizations. I developed an interest in technology and began to hone my skills. I started to learn coding and programming and decided to use these skills to contribute to a better society.
My basic motivation was to do something to better my society. I am thankful to have grown up in a family that could afford my education as the majority of people in Pakistan cannot afford an education. I’ve felt a responsibility to do this work and help those who have less than I do. I’ve tried to put my skills and resources towards addressing the challenges in our society.
What advice would you give to young people who want to become social entrepreneurs?
My first piece of advice is not have a lot of expectations. Sometimes young people start with very ambitious goals like thinking they will find the cure for cancer. It is important to have these ideals but also think realistically at the same time.
There is a proverb that I like in my mother tongue that states that there are people who are like trees. When you go to a tree, it gives you shade and fruit and rest from the sun. But when you step into the sunlight, into the real world, the tree won’t come with you. The tree won’t be there to provide shade every step of the way. The tree will stay where it is. Many people who you encounter in life will be like trees. These people many help you one or two times, but may not share the vision that you might have because everyone has their own reality and circumstances that we must consider. So we can’t think that we are lost if someone is no longer supporting us. Sometimes you will find yourself alone and you need to be able to provide your own support and motivation. Do what you do the best you can and hope for the best. If you keep on working and trying, you will be successful. You might not find the cure or eradicate whatever problem you are working on, but you can make an important change in your social endeavors.
There’s not much we can truly say about the future of technology in medicine because a lot is unknown. We see that there are a lot of promising technological innovations coming forward and there is a lot of hype associated with them. For these technologies, it isn’t just about whether the innovation is practical or not but also whether the market is ready or not.
What challenges did you face in starting Perihelion Systems?
One of the greatest challenges is finding the right people to work with. I still face this challenge of finding like-minded people who have expertise in this field.
We are a nonprofit organization and so we are volunteering our time without a salary. The money that comes in goes towards improving the organization, for example in buying upgraded technology. This is one of the biggest challenges in recruiting data experts and those with expertise for the projects that we do since it is unpaid work. The team mostly consists of my close friends who are already working day jobs and give Perihelion Systems their time and energy for our social innovations.
How did you develop your application Edu-Aid?
With two other peers of mine, I worked to develop a sign language translator called Edu-Aid. The purpose was to bridge the gap between the people who use sign language and those who don’t understand it. In Pakistan we have a version of American Sign Language (ASL) that has additional gestures that are specific to the Pakistani communities and languages. Our app can be used on a cell phone or computer, and the software converts gestures into corresponding sentences. This information becomes audio so that another person is able to listen and respond to the content of the original ASL message. Their response is recorded and then appears on the screen so that it can be understood by the person who is hearing or speech impaired.
It was challenging to develop because I don’t know sign language. One of my friends has a brother who is hearing and speech impaired who helped us during the development of Edu-Aid. He was very helpful when we were coding the gestures into sentences. We were able to be competitive in developing this program because we already had experience in marketing and public speaking in addition to our technical, programming skills. These skills helped to make our idea into a reality.
“My older sister has also been very impactful on my life from an early age. She is four years older than me and taught me programming when she was learning it in school…Sometimes when I feel low and like I can’t do this work, my sister is always been there to support me and motivate me.”
What is the future of tech in medicine and what are the most promising innovations in your opinion?
There’s not much we can truly say about the future of technology in medicine because a lot is unknown. We see that there are a lot of promising technological innovations coming forward and there is a lot of hype associated with them. We see these innovations and it’s easy to think that they are the next big thing and will change the world. For example, there was a lot of hype around Google Glasses and these have not lived up to what everyone thought they would be. Everyone thought that these glasses would be as common as smart phones but Google Glasses have not been very successful.
For these technologies, it isn’t just about whether the innovation is practical or not but also whether the market is ready or not. It is also important that these innovations have a business value and market strategy. It’s a harsh reality that we have some fantastic technologies that are not going to be successful in the marketplace because they don’t have a good business plan. The technology has to be economically minded to make a bigger impact.
I think that Artificial Intelligence and machine learning have great potential in driving the future of technology. AI is growing quickly with increased investment and I think that AI will become a norm. Soon every programmer and coder will have to have expertise in AI.
The growth of AI is exciting but there are many associated challenges and difficulties such as loss of human jobs. This is especially true in the manufacturing field with the presence of robots. Millions of people in the production and manufacturing sectors are going to lose their jobs because of the rate of change in technology.
Who are some of the people who have inspired you in your work? Some of your mentors?
Building an NGO is a journey and there have been many people who have supported me. My teachers are some of my biggest influences and they have encouraged me to contribute to a change for the better in our society.
My older sister has also been very impactful on my life from an early age. She is four years older than me and taught me programming when she was learning it in school. In the early 2000s, when programming was very new, she was taught basic coding at school. We did not even have a computer back then. My father than bought a computer just so my older sister could code. I saw my sister working on basic programming projects as she was learning to code, and this made me want to learn how to code also. At that time my sister and the books that she had were my only source to learn about information technology because the Internet wasn’t available to me at the time. I then decided to pursue computer science as a career. Sometimes when I feel low and like I can’t do this work, my sister is always been there to support me and motivate me. She has had a major positive impact on my life.
