Adil A. Khan

My Journey Through Life

About Me -  A Short Biography

My name is Adil Khan. I am a doctorate student at the University of North Texas in the Learning Technology Department, College of Information.  Sometimes I wonder who am I and what am I doing at this stage of life? To know a little about Adil Khan, please read through my short biography, my inspirations, my reason to live, and what I have become in the hands of life.

Goals, dreams, and aspirations; these are the things my life has always revolved around.  My question: What does one do with all the opportunities that life has presented?  From selling life insurance to be a mechanical engineer and working as a software engineer, I had always wondered what my ideal purpose in life would be?

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Growing up in Pakistan in a poor and disadvantaged family, I struggled hard to earn a living right from the age of thirteen. Sometimes not affording the basic livelihood, education, and healthcare, I wanted to become a doctor to ease the sufferings of people like me, but the high expense of medical school was a significant hindrance to my dream career.

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While in Pakistan, life paved the path to becoming a mechanical engineer to support my mother and younger siblings, as I could work and go to school simultaneously while earning my bachelor's degree.  I worked as a facilities development engineer for the national airline, a production planning and development engineer for Nissan Diesel, and a design engineer for an industrial group. Few of my projects like the development of a Municipal Solid Waste to Energy plant, Solar Gas Turbine, and chemical manufacturing plants, are examples of my excellence in the field of engineering.

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Immigrating to America, I worked hard to make a living in the new environment. I succeeded quite well by getting high positions, like Enterprise Engineer in Microsoft Corporation. However, all along, the desire to serve as a Medical Doctor laid seismic within me. When I traveled to countries in Africa and observed underprivileged people's poor condition, there was an impulsion to achieve my goal again. On my return from that trip, I developed lymphatic cancer and could not return to my job in the required period. I was laid off from Microsoft's policy. That termination and the trauma of being hospitalized, interacting with the noble doctors, and the providence gave me the ultimate wake up call. I promised myself that if I survive, I will study again to become a doctor.

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I cannot deny that the decision to pursue a career as a physician was a highly challenging process. Still, I was confident in myself and faith in God.  I already had a bachelor's degree. To apply to the medical school, all I needed to do was my pre-med prerequisites. I joined the local college and was successful in achieving a 3.95 GPA in the required courses. I got admitted into two medical schools, but what luck I was bestowed with. My young daughter developed cancer right after she graduated from university. Her soul departed within three months of her sickness. She was only 20 then.

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My life turned upside down, and I lost my heart, motivation, mentor, and best friend. While in high school, she made a foundation in her name, "ZKAAP Foundation – Zahra Khan Adopt a Patient Foundation." She used to adopt cancer patients and be with them, encourage them, motivate them, and be there as their family, but who knew that she would become one of them one day. After her passage from this world, my wife and I continued her legacy. We rejuvenated our daughter's foundation and are now doing the same tasks she used to do. We adopt terminally sick patients and their families and help them in whatever needs they have, financial, medical, moral, and everything else. My wife is working full time in this endeavor.

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Besides the ZKAAP Foundation, my daughter used to tutor underprivileged and mentally challenged students. Out of her bequest, I took that venture to educate the third world's disadvantaged and needy students. I created a sister organization named Afro-American Services under my Zahra Khan Foundation and am presently helping students from Africa and other parts of the world come to the United States for better education.

Unfortunately, very few of the poor students can take advantage of my services due to the higher costs of attending the USA. So, when I realized that if they could not afford to come to the U.S., I decided to go to them. This enormous task could only be achieved by offering education online with the assimilation of Artificial Intelligence. Therefore, I am in the process of creating an accredited online institution. This grand endeavor requires training in the field of learning technology. This Doctoral program at the University of North Texas encouraged me to apply and get trained in the area I want to pursue for the rest of my life.

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I have always believed that my commitment to serve humankind will take me there to improve people's lives. Because of all the difficulties I have encountered and the opportunities I have been given, educating the deprived became my obvious choice. The traumatizing, life-changing incidents that I have come across have led me to follow my goal no matter what stage of life I am in. I want to be a messiah to prevent things that I went through from happening to others; I should be a compassionate person to be involved in changing the lives of people in need; I must become a world-class educator because I care, and I will be the beacon of light in the darkness of illiteracy. My efforts are changing the lives of people. A state-of-the-art, high-quality United States K-12 school is starting in rural Punjab, Pakistan, an online K-12 school is in the development stage, and many underprivileged but deserving students from Africa are already getting higher education in the U.S. colleges with my help. I am developing an AI-based Digital Tutor to reach the students in remote areas of the world, where schools are scarce but yearning for education.

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I am fueled by my desire to take hold of this great opportunity that the University of North Texas offers in their Distributed Ph.D. in Learning Technology program and use it effectively to serve the most deserving. My desire to go back to learning once again after a break of decades, a perfect 4.0 GPA in my classes is a mere reflection of my aspirations. My diverse background with interests and activities from sales to engineering, programming, and multiple years of volunteering combined with my yearning to help the needy and contributions to the field of education can bring a new but very committed perspective to this profession. I am inspired by Goethe and his words are always echoing me: "Whatever you can do or dream that you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."  

 
My journey has just begun.