WINNING IIT MANDI OR BEING A CEO? -BOTH!!!

This journey starts way back from a southern district of Bangladesh, Barisal. He was lost in finding his passion in Mechanical engineering or maybe in Computer engineering. He didn’t have a plan but now he stands strong as a Civil Engineer; a CEO of his own company. He is Mahmadul Hassan Walid.

We DYDF-India team got the opportunity to talk with him.

Even before becoming an engineer, he was unable to take the load of classes and assignments and there came the first big heart-break in his life. He went into depression; suffered a lot during that time. There he needed help; someone that could be by his side; he needed that bit of push to do something different in life. Let’s listen to the whole story.. Shall we?

He came from Barisal where he did his primary from R.M. Govt. Primary School, Barisal. Later on, he moved to Udayan Secondary High School and eventually finished school from Faridpur Police Lines High School. After10th standard when he was confused finding passion between two very inconsistent streams, his father admitthim in Civil Engineering for his diploma. He was demented about the fact what was the difference between Diploma and HSC. Nevertheless, he completed his diploma from National Polytechnic Institute, Faridpur and further moved to
Punjab. He finally accomplished a B.Tech degree from Lovely Professional University, Punjab.

Now coming to “winning IIT”; from childhood he tends to explore the unknown. So, being in university he gained larger scopes for doing that. He participated in one of the biggest competitions in India, Viaduct Bridge Building Competition.

The first thing during the interview that came to our mind is what exactly is Viaduct. He explained, “Actually, Viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers, or columns supporting a long-elevated railway or road. Typically, a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation allowing passage over a valley or road or even a river. If we talk about the difference between viaduct and bridge, we can say easily that the main difference between a bridge and a viaduct is their structure sizes, mainly their length.”

A viaduct should be longer than a bridge. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin ‘via’ for road and ‘ducere’ to lead. It is a nineteenth-century derivation from an analogy with ancient Roman aqueducts. Like the Roman aqueducts, many early viaducts comprised a series of arches of roughly equal length.

OK! Enough of all the technical knowledge let’s know more about the event. The competition is supported by IIT-Mandi, Himachal Pradesh. There were sixteen IIT students and more than five hundred other engineering college students from all over India. We can easily imagine how big and difficult the competition was! We eagerly wanted to know about his whole experience. He started with a wide smile, “I was in my final year and something I want to add I have taken two extra years for my degree, so I can say it was the first year of my final year. We had a talk with the high authorities of my University, where I forthrightly told our Dean about our exceeding amount of pressure in class which was preventing us from participating in any competition. I did not know that would change my life. After a few days, one of my mates came to me telling about IIT Mandi.”

Mandi is situated in Himachal Pradesh, India in a beautiful valley. It is surrounded by mountains and the view there is surreal. Only people from the Civil Engineering stream could participate which is one of the biggest competitions for them. He added, "I had a YouTube channel back then named Bingo TV where I did travel blogs and also personal blogs. I thought it was impossible to get prizes, I might just some content for YouTube."

“The main task there was to construct a bridge which could bear heavy loads with the materials provided by the organizer side. The time was 4 hours. We were one third through the competition; I saw people around me making masterpieces. I was devastated. Me and my teammate Mofazzal Hosain Imran literally thought we failed as our piers became very large and it had chances to break. What a moment! The competition ended at 1pm and we immediately had to leave the place as next day were our classes. We came back to the hostel and I received a text!”

"In 2018, Viduct Bridge Building Competition, IIT-Mandi."

"CONGRATULATIONS MR.WALID. YOU HAVE WON 1ST RANK IN VIADUCT BRIDGE BUILDING COMPETITION!"

Praises came along in the morning. The whole campus knew they won one of the biggest competitions in the whole of India and the most important thing came back to him; Self confidence. The self love and courage depression took away from him reappeared again. Later he went on to do more competitions like, Pro Expo Competition where he constructed a floating bridge and achieved the second position.

"Graduations Project Expo-2018, LPU"

He taught us that not having a plan in life is okay. “After graduation, I got many opportunities for jobs but chose not to. I always wanted something of my own. I didn't get much support on this idea of course. I was humiliated and ridiculed everywhere I went. I was slowly losing faith in me again.” Mahmud Hassan Walid is now the Founder and CEO of Zimafalt.com. Their tagline is “Your Complete Real Estate Partner”. It supports all facilities like buying or selling land or flats, constructing projects as per your choice and even interior designing. You can get everything from Zimaflat. The person travelled a long way from having 68 reappears in University and needed extra two years for completing his degree to owning his own business. Now that is an Inspiration.

Ongoing with the interview we wanted to know what kept him going in all these sufferings. He said, “I made my YouTube Channel for my own happiness. That kept me alive. I used to do personal daily vlogs and travel vlogs. I didn't go for views or subscribers, all I wanted is to have a small thing for me to keep me sane.” Now, he goes to the gym and works out for 1 and half hours four to five times in a week. He played Second Division League of Football.

He is a president of a social organization also which is mainly located in Faridpur District and name is Bangladesh Social Service Club. This organization voluntarily works for society like they manage and donate blood for serious patients, help poor people by providing food or cloths in many festivals. They also arrange some interesting events like kite festivals. Last year they arranged it and two lakh people came and participated in that festival.

“Never ever give up, no matter how difficult the path is; there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. Live the moment and don’t think too much about the future. If you are alone, I am saying it is going to be okay. If you want to do something of your own; 3 steps. Set your goal, plan and execute! Just focus on it and work hard, things will eventually fall in place.” exactly the things we want to hear.