Hiba Latifee

Peace and salutations, aka salaams, to all.

My name is Hiba Latifee and I’m very grateful to be a part of this year’s IEEE Entrepreneurship Steering Committee.

I am a Pakistani, currently pursuing Mechanical Engg. in South Korea, and in the process of harnessing the superpowers of artificial intelligence for passing it on to machines so that they too become learned, in order to ultimately ease the lazy mankind of utilizing their own cognitive capability in their day-to-day errands, at the infamous, BioRobotics Lab.

In addition to this, I read, I write, I draw. For the most part of my life so far, I’ve been a public speaker. Oh, and I love riding my bicycle. I recently got a headlight mounted on it and, I am in the midst of getting some cute tassels for it.

My IEEE journey started as the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) NEDUET Affinity Group’s chairperson. As an IEEE WIE volunteer, I have conducted numerous national and regional STEM outreach programs to motivate girls to pursue STEM as a career and to inspire them into becoming competent leaders of tomorrow.

In 2014, I was offered a lucrative grant to travel all the way to the US to attend the inaugural IEEE WIE International Leadership Conference. Also, I have been bestowed with the following accolades: IEEE WIE Pakistan’s Outstanding WIE Student Affinity Group Award 2013, IEEE WIE Pakistan’s Outstanding WIE Affinity Group Chair Award 2014, 2015 R10 WIE Volunteer Award (Student), IEEE WIE Global Committee Inspiring Student Member of the Year Award 2016.

As for my entrepreneurial journey, it started as a mere epiphany, when I was gobbling up my lunch one day, realizing how lovingly my mother prepares and packs my lunch for me every single day. I wanted her to feel more rewarded for her efforts that she was putting in out of pure love for her family. Also, I wanted other people too to get a taste of my mother’s culinary mastery. Hence, I started popularizing my mother’s lunches in my circle, calling our foodservice Simon says Eat! It wasn’t long before we had one of my seniors in college as one of our regular customers, courtesy of my mother’s talent. We catered our services for different student events and activities on campus, where we wanted the students to start eating fresh, homemade, mother-caressed food delights for lunchtime.

While we enjoyed our love for food through Simon says Eat!, one of my close friends and I founded CycleYaari. CycleYaari, local colloquial meaning bike friendship, started as a way for us to commute around our engineering school in Pakistan. How gasping to the classes, that too late and exhausted had us yearning for a means to get from one nook of the college to the other. How it then morphed into a bike-sharing service called CycleYaari for students to avail through our online service portal.

I am looking forward to having a fantastic volunteering experience as part of the IEEE Entrepreneurship Steering Committee!

Hiba Latifee is a past Vice-Chair, Awards & IEEE Entrepreneurship Stars Program (previously known as the IEEE N3XT Stars Program) for the 2018 IEEE Entrepreneurship Steering Committee.