Failure Festival 1.

0,
Army Public School,
Nowshera, Cantt.

12th October, 2019

By
Shaikh Muhammad Ali P a g e 1 | 24
Introduction:
If you want to read, the background and the entire details of the Fail Fest as to how it
originated in the US and how we brought it here in Pakistan then you must read my
article on the Fail Fest 1.0 that was conducted at COMSATS University Wah on 21st
September, 2019. I will surely share the link at the end of this article too.
Briefly, four of us friends have started this initiative called the Happiness School
whereby we intend to spread happiness, peace, love and coexistence especially in the
minds of the younger generation. We feel that there is too much hate, intolerance and
injustice, which has seeped in our society and is affecting all of us, young and old
alike.

Through the Happiness School, we intend to deliver lectures on subjects like Personal
Development & Interpersonal skills, Artificial Intelligence and Re-wiring your mind.
We will train you on soft skills like Anger Management, Conflict Management &
Change Management and we will make your world go upside down.
The Failure Festival 1.0 series is another voluntary project of The Happiness School.
There are about thirteen young professionals who are assisting / helping us on this
venture. Through this particular project, we intend not just to invite motivational
speakers for the younger generation of Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi but
we intend to go to smaller cities too. We have already started to do that and travel to
do hand holding of the younger generation and try and bring them at par with their
more educated, better equipped, usually effluent counterparts; in the bigger cities.
So far, we have six Fail Fest events under our belts, Alhamdulillah. The first one took
place @ Chaye Khana in Peshawar on 2nd May 2019 whereby I was invited as a
speaker, by Dr. Khalid Khan who is a Director at Directorate of Science &
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Technology (DoST), the man behind the concept of introducing the 1st Fail Fest in
Peshawar, Pakistan.
The 2nd was planned by Wisal Khan & I who were joined by Kashif Khan & Waseem
Asrar and was conducted at TMUC auditorium, Islamabad on 15th June 2019.

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The 3rd one was planned and executed at the COMSATS University and hosted by
Dr. Syed Afzal Moshadi Shah, Asst. Prof. In charge Student Startup Business Center
(SSBC), Abbottabad on 4th August 2019 respectively.

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After having a successful event at the COMSATS University Abbottabad, I got in
touch with the Director of COMSATS Wah who was gracious enough to accept our
request and allowed his university for us to host the next event. The 4th Fail Fest was
thus announced and scheduled at COMSATS University in the beautiful city of Wah
on 21st September, 2019 respectively.

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The 5th event was organized at the Army Public School @ Nowshera in KP. One of
our speakers Ms. Jaweria Sajjad who attended our events at Abbottabad and Wah as a
Speaker, offered to host the event at her school and we jumped to the idea.

Since this is an entirely charity and voluntary based work, thus we usually look for
schools, colleges and universities to host us and provide their auditoriums, halls and
classrooms for us to conduct our events. We invite the speakers while our Core Team
works on the sponsors and the dynamics of hosting and conducting our events.
Usually, we invite around 12 motivational speakers for the Fail Fest 1.0 events but
generally around 6 – 7 attend either due to their busy schedules or due to logistics or
proximity issues but we generally pull up a good show, at the end of the day.
Alhamdulillah 
As usual, we had a Core Team meeting prior to the event at Nowshera at our favorite
spot, yes the Café Tea box @ H-8, Islamabad. A very few of us attended since it was a
weekday but we were able to discuss and finalize the finer details of the program.

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As soon as the event date was finalized, our Design Manager Faisal Shahzad and
Event Manager Rahil Aziz started churning out one digital advertisement after
another. Here are a few samples which were uploaded on our Face Book page in the
next 3 or so weeks.

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The seven speakers who we selected and finally attended were:
Fail Fest 1.0, APS, Nowshera – Speakers List

Young speakers:

1. Ms. Tayyaba Rehman, Health & Safety Manager, Nokia, Islamabad

2. Ms. Romila Hameed, Earthquake survivor from Bagh 2005

Intermediate speakers:

3. Mr. Hassan Tirmizi, CEO, HT Crew, Islamabad

4. Mr. Abid Iqbal Khari, CEO, Positive Pakistan, Islamabad
5. Mr. Naveed Mushtaq, CEO, Al Bakhsh Builders

Professional Speakers:

6. Ms. Jaweria Sajjad, Principal APS, Nowshera

7. Mr. Usman Gulzari, Motivational Speaker, Islamabad

As usual, I being the Master of ceremony; opened the program, welcomed the guests
and recited a verse from the Holy Quran. Having worked in the private sector in
Pakistan for 9 years, in the United States and the Far East for 4 years and a good 17
years for the Federal government, I am now trying to give back to the community by
conducting these Failure Festivals.

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The first speaker was Ms. Tayyaba Rehman, Health & Safety Manager, Nokia,
Islamabad. Ms. Rehman joined us as a speaker at our first Fail Fest 1.0 event in
Islamabad, TMUC and thus have spoken off and on at our events.

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The next speaker was Ms. Romila Hameed, CEO, Impact HR Pvt. Ltd and 2005
earthquake survivor from Bagh, AJK. Romila is a budding entrepreneur and despite
being on a wheel chair, is stronger than most of us when it comes to perseverance in
the cause that she fights for.

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Next, Mr. Kashif Khan, Director ‘The Happiness School’ was called in to throw
light on his failures, successes and his personal and professional journey. Kashif
speaks from the heart and always speaks extempore.

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Our next speaker was Mr. Hassan Tirmizi, CEO of HTCrew, Islamabad. Hassan is a
Management Consultant and has a very jovial and soft personality. He talked about
his failures & successes and ultimately as to where he has reached today in his
professional career.

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Next in line was Mr. Abid Iqbal Khari, CEO, Positive Pakistan. Mr. Khari is a
professional speaker and is famous for spreading positivity mostly in Punjab and the
Federal Capital. He is a public speaker and has been appearing on National Television
and spreads his positivity through his YouTube channel too.

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Our next speaker was Mr. Naveed Mushtaq, CEO, Al-Baksh Builders. Mr. Mushtaq is
a rather powerful speaker and automatically becomes the heartthrob of the crowd. He
is indeed a crowd puller and with his powerful oratory, he enthralled the audience.

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Next in line was Mr. Usman Gulzari, CEO, The Missing P. Mr. Gulzari is popular
with the younger generation and with his performance on the stage, he was able to
relate with the crowd. The young audience was mesmerized by his enactment.

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Last but not the least; our final speaker was Ms. Jaweria Sajjad, Principal APS,
Nowshera Campus. Ms. Sajjad was also invited as a speaker at our event at
COMSATS University, Abbottabad on 4th August 2019 and later at COMSATS
University Wah on 21st September 2019 and with her eloquence and clarity of
thought; she inspired the audience. She was the last speaker and thus her closing
speech was a delight.

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I finally thanked the speakers, the audience, the management and the support staff of
the Army Public School (APS), Nowshera Campus especially the principal Ms. Jaweria
Sajjad and the Deputy Commandant and the Commandant (in absentia) for hosting
such a wonderful event.
Group pictures were taken, plaques and mementos were shared with the speakers and
thus a wonderful event was brought to a close.
The heroes of the APS Nowshera Fail Fest 1.0 turned out to be Mr. Mohsin Iqbal and
Mr. Waqas Shafiq, our Core Team members; without whom the event would not have
been possible. They both were constantly running up and down and managing the
behind the scene activities and I am thus thoroughly grateful to them for their
wonderful efforts in making this particular event a success.

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Some clicks of the lighter moments can be appreciated here:

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Alhamdulillah, we have created enough hype about these Fail Fest 1.0 series events
and much to our surprise, 930 friends have already joined our Facebook group, which
is a good platform to do our marketing and spread the intended happiness.
Our Core Team member and Manager, Faisal Shahzad who is working on our
marketing campaign has also created a FB page for ‘The Happiness School’, which
can be appreciated here:
https://www.facebook.com/TheHappinessSchoolOfficial/
May I please advise you to keep visiting our Fail Fest Facebook page for latest
updates, comments and suggestions?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/630112397458157/
In addition, you may want to read about the previous Fail Fests in Peshawar,
Islamabad, Abbottabad and Wah here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/416050973/Failure-Festival-1-0-KP
https://www.scribd.com/document/416316603/Failure-Festival-1-0-Islamabad
https://www.scribd.com/document/422159633/Failure-Festival-1-0-Abbottabad
https://www.scribd.com/document/429766409/Failure-Festival-1-0-Wah

Till we meet again at SBBWU, Peshawar - Au Revoir 

Shaikh Muhammad Ali

‘The Wandering Dervish’
E-mail: dushkashaikh@gmail.com
Cell: +00-92-317-0003623
Thursday, 14 Jamadi us Sani, 1441 Hijri
th

9th February 2020, 10:49 p.m. (PST)

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