Young genius wins IBM Master Inventor Award
By Shauna Jemmott

Nizam Ishmael Jr.

Nizam Ishmael Jr. just 30, is a computer enthusiast, who spends most of his days searching his mind, and conceiving impressive new ideas for the technological world.

He has submitted about 50 patents to the United States Government, starting since 1998. So far, ten have been approved. For him, that is a great accomplishment, since it takes quite some time - two to four years - for ideas submitted by anyone to be approved. He surmises that rest of his patents will be approved in the next few years.

The ten patents that he has so far issued include an all-in-one network communication cable and security cable apparatus for securing computing devices; method, apparatus, and computer programme product for generating, from first information for a first image, second information for a second image corresponding to a portion of the first image; docking station for a laptop computer; localised voice mail system; interactive tactile display for computer screen; method and apparatus for multi-threaded based search of documents; method and system for storing digital audio data and emulating multiple CD-changer units; method and system for automated administrative assistance for associated intelligent fax processing; system and method for pausing and resuming move/copy operations; and search parameters for searching files located in a computer system.

The Sunday Chronicle recently caught up with Ishmael online a few weeks after he received the award. We talked about his life, his career and his intentions.

Although this young genius received most of his schooling in North America, he was born in Guyana, in 1975.

Ishmael’s family left Guyana when he was just five. He was a pupil at a kindergarten school in the rural Corentyne Coast, at Fyrish Village, where he lived.

After migrating with his mother and sister to Queens, New York, Ishmael continued his kindergarten education and went through third grade in that community. His performance in school was always excellent. Grades four and five were spent at another school in Pasadena, Texas, after his family moved there, and grades six through 12 were completed in Lufkin, another part of Texas.

Attending school was like an adventure to him and he enjoyed it all. He was especially interested in science subjects, particularly Biology, but switched in career choice after attending just one class in the Biology programme at college.

"I started my college career actually doing a Biology Pre-Med programme. My interest in biology stemmed from the fact that I am fascinated by, and like learning about the human body. The classes were really interesting. But then I took my first programming class and my focus completely changed from there...," he recalled.

Although Ishmael was in for an exciting new programme of studies, he knew he had to be dedicated to his studies, while pushing a few jobs to take him through.

For five years, Ishmael worked while attending university, just to get a little bit of extra spending money.

"I have had a job since I was 16... I only worked and went to school when I was at University from 94 to 99... So it is just something that you get used to doing. I had loans/scholarships that paid for all of tuition and most of my housing. My parents helped and paid my car insurance. I (just) wanted spending money to go out and party with my friends."

His first job was with the popular American burger house, McDonalds. Then he switched to a forestry museum in East Texas as a tour guide. Ishmael then became a manager at the Dairy Queen ice-cream and fast food establishment, and was a security guard for a Sorority House right at his college. He then worked as a waiter in a Middle Eastern restaurant, before securing his internship at IBM.

His impressive skills ensure that he only had to conquer two stages to get where he is today.

"I had a buddy that worked at IBM and introduced me to a hiring manager. I gave him my resume, we talked and he hired me. My first IBM job was an internship," Ishmael told the Sunday Chronicle.

As an intern, he worked in the capacity of Assistant to the Assistant Network Administrator. His duties included setting up machines, maintenance and troubleshooting, OS2, and working with Windows and AIX computers. Ishmael said he also carried additional duties writing test scripts for a high bandwidth video streaming software that the developers were writing. He is adept at troubleshooting hardware.

"The next position was still as an intern, but I was writing Java code for applications running on AIX on pSeries machines... Then the next position is the one that I have right now. I was an intern that wrote Whitepapers on how to integrate different IBM applications together and then IBM offered me a full-time position when I finished with University," he said.

He now works as an Application Integration Architect.

"Most people in my position have five years customer experience. But the management wanted to try out some new hires with no experience. It worked!

IBM appeal
After graduating with his Computer Sciences degree, Ishmael was offered several attractive posts. He had his reasons for refusing those offers.

"Their ideas and business plans did not appeal to me as much. IBM definitely offered the best work/life environment/benefits... IBM is great because of all the opportunities it offers. If I ever decide to try something else, like say marketing, for example, I can take IBM classes or externally learn how to do that. And then I don't have to leave IBM to get a job in marketing. At IBM, if you don't like what you do, you don't have to change companies to work for someone else doing the ‘same’ thing."

IBM also has the best patent programme of any company, the young man declared, adding: "The company is huge, so it’s filled with resources".

Working with IBM "is like any technical job: some days are easy, some days are hard, some days are long."

But Ishmael has had the most fun during his last internship, when his best friend was his office mate, and two other good friends (all interns from the same university) worked right across the hall.

"We would have nerf war in the evenings in the hallways and since we had fast computers and a fast network, we would spend hours playing Alien VS Predator, Unreal Tournament, and Half Life. All the gaming was in the name of ‘testing’ the performance of the network and performance of the computers."

His job, which he finds "very exciting", includes giving presentations to CEOs, CTOs, other consultants, lead developers and developers on IBM Software. He leads detailed 90-minute briefings on specified technologies.

Autonomic Computing, grid, IBM DB2, IBM WebSphere Portal Server, IBM WebSphere Application Server, IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer, IBM Lotus Workplace and Lotus Instant Messaging, Web Conferencing, IBM WebSphere Translation Server, Host Access Transformation Server (HATS), IBM WebSphere Business Integration, IBM WebSphere Business Integration Express, Pervasive Technology, and Linux are some of the software and technologies he works with. But these change annually, depending on his interests coupled with that of customers.

Ishmael finds it “cool” doing architectural assessments for companies because of the mere fact that he can see the inner workings of a company's Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and suggest changes.

"I then tell them (or) show them how they can take advantage of IBM software in their architecture... I also educate people on using different pieces of software," he said.

Last year alone, he conducted classes on WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere Studio Application Developers, WebSphere Portal Express, WebSphere Portal Enable, WebSphere Portal Advanced, Lotus Workplace, Autonomic Computing, Grid Workshop, WebSphere Business Integration Express, WebServices.

Challenging duties
The classes are taught internationally as well, which makes it a bit more challenging. His job requires 50 to 70 per cent travel.

Last year alone, Ishmael visited Sydney, Australia (three times); Bangalore, India; Seoul, Korea; Bangkok, Thailand; Singapore; Shanghai, China; London, England, and various parts of the U.S.A., lecturing to thousands of professionals and students alike. In his five years working with IBM, he has also travelled to Mexico, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, and Canada.

He said he also works one-on-one with certain companies that are interested in adopting IBM software.

"I provide classes and work with them in a one-to-one hands-on environment to show them how to implement the software," he added.

Customer engagements usually have a maximum of six customer attendees, each class about 10 to 30 students, and conference briefings can have from about 50 to 400 persons.

On a yearly basis, he deals with an average of 30 customer engagements, and manages about 20 classes/briefings. Since July 1999, when he was appointed to the job, Ishmael has had dealings with several thousands of customers and students.

Of these, many appear to be older than he is, but his knowledge has earned him much respect wherever he goes, contributing to his high self-esteem.

"With a room of 30 students, I would say by guessing that two to four would be younger or my age. With any person that is teaching, the students are apprehensive until they see that you know what you are talking about. This has impacted my life by giving me more confidence in talking to people," Ishmael said.

However, he acknowledged that carrying out his duties could be quite a challenge sometimes.

"It can be very difficult sometimes... Every company is different and they all use different software technologies. Many companies also have homegrown software applications that they wrote. So sometimes I have to respond to very specific, technical questions that only apply to a specific architecture. In some cases, this means teaming with the IBM software developers to come up with some collaborative solutions."

Each day is never the same for this man, as his working hours fluctuate from five some days to ten on others.

"I am not a morning person, so if I don't have a customer call in the morning. I am not in the office. I try to get to work between 10 or 11 am. Then it is checking e-mail, learning new versions of software, doing customer calls, playing some ping pong".

On the road, classes are from 9 am through 5 pm, but many students linger until 6 pm or 7 pm.

"I then… answer e-mails in the evening. After dinner, I prepare for the next day. There's not much play time when I'm on the road."

Still, he manages the infrastructure in his group, recommends new machines for consultants to use, and suggests new procedures for doing things around the office.

"I work with all of IBM software, which is challenging, but my main focus is WebSphere Business Integration. I specialise in showing companies how to integrate different technologies," he said.

Gadgetry
He says he is always attracted to the latest gadgets, as his job exposes him to a variety of new technologies.

Added to all that, he also manages their network, security and maintains a Linux-based file server for his group.

Asked how he does it all, Ishmael responded: "I don't know how I manage. I just know what needs to be done." He added that a big plus on his cards is that he does a lot of remote administrative duties and learning, away from his office, even right at home sometimes.

"We have a nice lake nearby in Austin, so I spend some time working at a coffee shop on the lake that has wireless internet access."

His work inventing software for computers and related gadgets is what earned him his recent award as Master Inventor, and this master's dedication and thirst for success stand as testimony to the fact that IBM is one of the leading branches on the information technology tree.

"I see all the work that goes into building and testing software. They put some time into making sure it is robust software. A smaller company just would not have the resources to do the stuff IBM does. I don't know about the development of hardware, but all the hardware we use in-house in my group is IBM hardware. We put the stuff through the ringer and it holds up," he said proudly.

"IBM has an Academic Initiative as of last year. It would be a way to get this information to the students. My group works closely with one of the groups that leads this initiative... and has done some work in briefing Universities."

Playing hard
With such an extraordinary resume, Ishmael seems quite humble about his achievements. He describes himself as “just a regular guy” with another side to him.

Other than his job, his interests lie in playing video games, working out, amateur road racing and watching action movies (and he's most excited about the new Star Wars series. With what he describes as "a fair amount of spare time", Ishmael also finds time to play tennis and racquetball, fix things and is currently installing a computer in his car.

"I like racing video games ... and fighting video games. I play some of the role playing games as well, but I cannot finish them, they take too long, I get bored... We have a ping pong table at work and have some heated games. I also like taking things apart and making them better. So my xbox is hacked so it can run GentooX Linux and be used as a media centre," he said.

"When I work, I work hard. After my work is done, I focus on playing,” he said.

Ishmael assured that although his personality tends to be more reserved, he really enjoys socialising and partying with friends on weekends.

Still calling himself "Guyanese", Ishmael said Guyana is "high" on his list of places to visit, and he would love to share his skills and knowledge with youths here.

He loves Guyanese food, chicken curry and potato with roti being his favourite, but his memories of home are only of his family's house at Fyrish Road, No. 19 Village, Corentyne, Berbice.

Most of his family left these shores in the mid 1970s, and are scattered the world over. He returned for a short holiday in 1986, and his mom, Natasha Jairam Melton, fondly called 'Gita', constantly keeps in touch with what is going on at home. She too lives in Austin, Texas.

Ishmael's father is Nizamudeen Ishmael Sr. but he was raised by mom and stepdad, Dr. Kenneth Melton. He has a teenage brother, and 28-year-old sister Natalie Weimer.

While in Guyana, he was very close to, and lived with, his grandmother Parbatie Jairam and uncle Ranjit Singh Jairam.

Ishmael is single, and plans to have a family some day.

In terms of his work, he sees himself managing a group of developers or consultants in the near future.

Within the next five years he would love to pursue his passion for racing cars, making it a profession.

“At the end of the road, I just want to be happy. I don't care where I am in life, how much money I have... If I am happy then I have succeeded. Right now I am happy,” Ishmael said.

Sunday 05-22-2005