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SEATTLE: Bill
Gates, the Chief Executive of Microsoft, has shown willingness
to visit Pakistan when an invitation was extended by the
world’s youngest MCP (Microsoft certified professional)
Arfa Karim, 10, here on Tuesday.
The 10-year-old
Pakistani, Arfa, is currently in the United States to visit
the Microsoft Headquarters which is being sponsored by
the cyber giant in recognition of her achievements in computer
literacy at such a young age.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman
Foundation was the first to acknowledge Arfa’s talent
and recently presented her with the ‘Shabash Award’.
Arfa, who
spent 10 minutes with Gates in his office, told The News: "I
am very glad that I met with Bill Gates. He is a great
guy; very simple, very friendly and very humble." She
also read out a poem to Gates. Arfa said when she extended
the invitation to Gates to visit Pakistan, he said he will
come to Pakistan in the near future.
Arfa even
asked him to stay at her residence rather than becoming
a state guest and he was quoted as saying as "Oh,
it would definitely be fun".
Somasegar,
the vice president of Microsoft developers, who was also
present in the meeting, told The News that it was a good
meeting and Arfa was very confident all that time and she
even asked all kinds of questions during that brief time
without any hesitation. She asked Bill Gates why kids are
not allowed to join Microsoft and Gates said "we do
offer internships to high school students but we want kids
to concentrate on their studies first".
Arfa told
The News that she asked Gates why we don’t see more
women in Microsoft and he replied because it was hard to
find women who were interested in technology.
Gates asked
questions about culture, Pakistani lifestyle and about
religion. He also asked at what age Muslim women start
wearing the "Hijab". Earlier, Arfa, accompanied
by her father Amjid Karim, an army officer currently serving
in Congo under the United Nations, and Jawwad Rehman, the
country head of Microsoft for Pakistan, paid visits to
a number of Microsoft facilities.
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