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Dr. Nazeer Ahmed is a Director of the World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC. He is the founder President of the American Institute of Islamic History and Culture in California and the Chairman of RankStudent Education Trust, Bangalore. He is currently a member of the Karnataka State Knowledge Commission, India and the Chief Mentor for the HMS Institute of Technology, Tumkur, India. He serves on the steering committee of Elijah Institute, Jerusalem.

Early Life
Nazeer Ahmed was born in 1939 to Bibi Jan and Abdul Azeem in Tumkur, India. His father was a scholar of the Qadariya order and a specialist in traditional medicine. His maternal grandfather Mohammed Usman was a respected Imam and a Mufassir e Qur’an. Ahmed attended the neighborhood Urdu Middle School and Government High School. Despite the scarcities of the Second World War and the convulsions of partition, Ahmed received an excellent education from dedicated teachers. Early influencers were Abdul Qayyum (history), H.L. Manjiah (mathematics), S. Subba Rao (English), Molvi Abdul Quddus (Urdu and Arabic), and Abdel Qader (literature). Qayyum had fought in the China-Burma-India sector during WWII with the British-American-Chinese forces and instilled in Ahmed an abiding interest in historical events and a deep respect for distant cultures.

Education
Ahmed secured the first rank in the statewide public examination of 1952 and won the Maharaja of Mysore gold medal. Maintaining his rank status throughout his academic career, he received a fellowship as Institute Scholar at the California Institute of Technology in 1961 and proceeded to the United States as a Tata scholar. He earned an MS degree in Aeronautics from Caltech in1962, an AeE (Aeronautical Engineer) degree in 1965 also from Caltech and a PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in 1967 from Cornell University. His PhD thesis was on the vibrations of cylindrical and conical shells based upon his work on the NASA Saturn and Apollo missions in Huntsville, Ala. In 1975 he earned an MBA in International Economics from Rider University.

Career
Dr. Ahmed was a Senior Staff Project Manager on the NASA Hubble Space Telescope at Perkin Elmer Corporation (1979-82). He was responsible for the conception, design, manufacture, assembly and testing of the Secondary Mirror Assembly and the Zero Gravity Mount. He delivered diffraction limited performance of SMA at 1/700 of a wavelength of red light. His contributions to the secondary mirror mount, advanced composites metering truss, figure control actuators and light shield were important in meeting the technical requirements of the Hubble Optical Telescope Assembly.

Dr. Ahmed was project manager on the Airborne Optical Adjunct (AOA) and Space Based Surveillance Sensor (SBSS) LWIR sensors (1983-88). These were two of the major Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) projects during the Reagan era. He was a team leader in the analysis of the Apollo spacecraft and its vibration modes (1964-65) at Huntsville, Ala. His team provided preliminary designs for the Lunar Land Rover at Wyle Laboratories, a contractor for NASA Marshall Space Center.

At Western Electric, his work in Solid State Physics and Optical Communications led to the later development of miniature IC circuits and hardened fiber optics. He was a pioneer in the development of advanced composites and holds several patents in composite manufacture (US Patent 4096721). He had an abiding interest in this field which he applied in later years in the structural design of the Hubble Space Telescope and pilot ejection systems.

Author
Dr. Nazeer Ahmed In addition, he is the author of three books on history and culture. has written scores of scientific articles in Journal of Applied Physics, Journal of Applied Mechanics, Journal of Basic Engineering, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and other journals. He holds 12 US Patents. His articles on public affairs have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and US based international newspapers.

Encyclopedia of Islamic History
In 1993, Dr. Ahmed started his work on a comprehensive history of Islam from the death of Prophet Muhammed until the First World War. The distinguished philosopher Seyyed Hossain Nasr calls this work “a clear and detailed history of the Islamic world from the advent of Islam to the modern period”. The work moves Islamic studies from an exclusive focus on the Arabic speaking world to include the India-Pakistan subcontinent, the far eastern Archipelago as well as Africa and Europe. It is noteworthy for its advancement of a theory of renewal of civilizations from within.

Translation of the Qur’an
In 2000, Dr. Nazeer Ahmed met the venerable Shaikh Nazim al Haqqani al Qabrusi of Cyprus of the Naqshbandi Sufi order and traveled with him to Turkey, South Africa and Uzbekistan. His deep insights into the spiritual aspects of human existence kindled in Ahmed a passion for integrating the rational and spiritual sciences.

Subsequent to this association, Dr. Ahmed has published scores of articles on the spirituality of Islam.

Under the inspiration of Shaikh Nazim, Dr. Ahmed completed a translation of the Qur’an in easy to ready American English. This translation has been read by over 1.4 million people around the world and has been a valuable tool in combating extremist ideas.

Initiative for Digital Education
In 2011, Dr. Ahmed started a major initiative to teach science and mathematics to millions of children in India using digital technology (www.rankstudent.com). Under the RankStudent Charities Trust, this initiative has benefited tens of thousands of children in the rural areas of India who do not have access to good teachers.

Public Life
Dr. Ahmed was an elected member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly (1978-79) representing the 57th constituency. He was an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention, Atlanta in 1988 from the 92nd Congressional District of California, representing Jesse Jackson.

In 2013, Dr. Ahmed was appointed by the Government of Karnataka as a member of the State Knowledge Commission whose mandate is to transform that state into a knowledge based society. In this capacity he has undertaken several initiatives to upgrade the skills of artisans in the wood working industry and for digital education of primary school children.

Dr. Ahmed serves as a Director of the World Organization for Resource Development and Education, a think tank based in Washington, DC that works with government organizations on issues relating to public safety and civic affairs.

Community Service
Dr. Ahmed is founder and chairman of RankStudent Trust in India which provides digital education in science and technology to primary and secondary school children. He has built a unique Eidgah (outdoor prayer complex) in Tumkur, India, which combines traditional Sufi themes with space age geometry. It accommodates 12000 worshippers and attracts visitors from across the state. He built a school complex in Nazarabad, Tumkur, India cooperation with the Peace Corps of the United States (1967). Under his charities trust, he has given scholarships to thousands of poor students of all faiths.

Television
Dr. Ahmed has been interviewed several times by Doordarshan, India’s national news channel.