Dear Friends:

Grand NED Alumni Convention in Hartford, CT at the Marriott Hotel is scheduled for Nov 1. Our NED Alumni Association of New England has moved into high gear and are extremely busy finalizing all the details of the Convention. I want to assure you that this will be a great Convention with both day time and evening activities to keep us all fully engaged and entertained. Let me share with you some of the high lights of the Program.

The day program is focused towards addressing technical and educational issues relating to our NED Alma Mater and Pakistan in general. There will be two sessions of panel discussions and prominent NEDians from across the country will be participating in this heated but professional debate. Here is a list of topics and speakers:

Panel 1: Declining academic standards of NED resulting in Higher Education Commission downgrading NED's rating to 10th position amongst other institutions of Pakistan.

Expected Panelists:

Dean CE Prof. Sahibzada Farooq, Pro. VC Dr. Shamsul Haq, Zehra Karim, Arshad Rizvi, Nadeem Hussain, Javed Saeedi, Riaz Haq, Muhammad Ammad
Moderator: Rashid Ali Baig

Panel 2: The state of engineering, technical and scientific education in Pakistan in the context of potentially emerging economies in the region. A question of quality vs. quantity or both?

Expected Panelists:

Prof. S. H. Lodhi, Rashid Yousuf, Akbar Ansari, Farooq Ansari, Arif Mansoori.

Moderator: Abul Islam

The Keynote for the Day Program is Dr Faisal Arain of Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Calgary

The Evening Program is a family affair with grand reception, children's program, networking session, Keynote speech by Ambassador Haqanni, awards, dinner, Fashion Show by Ghazala Asam, Comedy by Ayaz Khan & music program by Janice Miller

As time is running out I urge you all to not miss this unique opportunity. Please visit this website to register. http://nednec.org

The website has all the info you need but I will summarize below for convenience:

Date of Convention: Saturday Nov 1, 2008

Location: Farmington Marriott Hotel, Harford, CT
Phone: 860-678-1000

Discounted Room Rate at the Marriott: $89/ night if booked before Oct 24, 2008

Tickets: $30/ per person and $50/ per family of four.

Mail Checks to NED Alumni Association of New England
919 Middle Street, Middletown, CT 06457

Last day to mail checks: October 25, 2008

You can also register online at the Website: www.nednec.org

Other Program Details and updates at the above website.

This Convention would be a great opportunity for all alumni in USA and Canada to meet each other and catch up with old friends and renew old friendships. Representatives from NEDUET will be present to update us on current state of affairs at our Alma Mater. And from our Panel Discussion you will learn fresh ideas on how NEDUET should be managed to make it competitive with Western Universities. I urge you all to participate in this important event with full enthusiasm and fervor.

I am looking forward to seeing you all with your families and friends at this gala event which is being hosted by our NED Alumni Association of New England.

Moin Ahmed, VP
NED Alumni Association