Alumni Spotlight - Ali Karaki

Ali Karaki was expecting to succeed in his studies here in Computer Science, but he wasn’t expecting to excel and go beyond everyone’s expectations.  Ali will be graduating with a B.Sc. (Hons.) – Computer Science with Software Engineering Co-op in October 2011.  In addition to the many School of Computer Science academic awards he received, Ali also remained on the President’s Honour Roll throughout his academic career, having held one of the highest GPA’s in Computer Science and carried a perfect 13.0 average for three years.  Ali credits his success to his professors, the university, this country and his hard work.  He enjoyed the cultural diversity of the University and the city, making new friends and learning about other cultures – the diversity added an international experience to the Canadian experience he gained.

At the end of his first year, Ali worked with a research group under the supervision of Dr. Richard Frost, along with Ph.D., Master’s and 4^th year Undergraduate Computer Science students.  The result of their work was a published research paper on the topic of Natural Language Processing and Speech Web applications. (http://cs.uwindsor.ca/news_1817).

Ali chose UWindsor’s Computer Science program because of the size of the University which offered one-to-one discussions with his professors whenever he needed them.  We also offered the exact program and Co-op option he wanted and he had heard good things about the School.  One of the biggest challenges was adapting to the culture of the people here, which Ali did very well.  He notes that the biggest reward was being able to achieve what he came here for and more.  He was given the opportunity to be the person he wanted to be and to dream big.  And dream big he did.

After a 16-month Co-op term with Research in Motion (RIM), Ali was offered a full-time position, one year before his graduation.  Ali has now returned to RIM as a Software Engineer.  He plans to work there while he pursues his Master’s degree in Software Engineering part-time at the University of Waterloo.  After gaining enough experience, he plans on moving onto higher management positions in the software field.  Good luck Ali, we know you can do anything you set your mind to.