Microsoft’s youngest professional Arfa Karim Randhawa dies at 16LIKE THIS ARTICLE48JohnThomasBy JohnThomas DidymusJan 17, 2012 – 5 hours ago in Technology2 comments
+Lahore – Arfa Karim Randhawa, the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, died at the age of 16 from complications following an epileptic seizure and cardiac arrest. Karim, a Pakistani, became a Microsoft Certified Professional at the age of nine, in 2005.Condolences have been pouring in from all over the world for the girl’s family since she died. Daily Mail reports that Karim went into a coma on December 22, following an epileptic attack and cardiac arrest. She was admitted to the Combined Military Hospital in Lahore and placed on life support at the Intensive Care Unit. IB Times reports that Karim’s condition had been improving when she suffered a tracheotomy complication on Saturday evening and died.Karim was buried on Sunday in her native village Ram Dewali, Faisalabad, after a funeral prayer in Lahore. The funeral prayer was attended by a large crowd, including Pakistani Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, politicians and Karim’s colleagues.After Randhawa came to international attention in 2005, when she became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional at the age of nine, she was invited in 2006, at the age of 10, to visit Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, where she met chairman Bill Gates.After she was hospitalized, Gates offered to pay for her medical care and proposed moving her to the U.S. for better treatment. Doctors, however, thought that moving her was not in the interest of her health because she was on a ventilator and in a critical condition.Karim’s father Amjad Karim, thanked Gates for his concern and described his daughter as a “spark that got attention and love from everyone on the globe.” IB Times reports that her uncle said: “We are grieving her loss but she was a strong child. […] She was God’s gift to us and now she has returned to Him.”According to Express Tribune, Karim was certified a pilot by a flying club in Dubai. She is the youngest ever recipient of the Presidential Award for Pride of Performance. She also received the Fatima Jinnah Gold Medal in Science and Technology and the Salaam Pakistan Youth Award.Pakistan is renaming the IT Media City in Karachi after Karim.IB Times reports one of Karim’s top quotes: “If you want to do something big in your life, you must remember that shyness is only the mind. If you think shy, you act shy. If you think confident you act confident.”
