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Khalid Warraich

December 07, 2018

Warraich Leads with Love of Learning

By Angela Ford

Khalid Warraich has 70 podcast episodes queued up on his phone, two-thirds of which are tech-related.

“Typically, I listen to podcasts at 1.5 to 1.8 times the normal speed,” Warraich said, smiling as he scrolls through his playlist. “I have a lot to get through. I need to be efficient.”

As the chief information officer (CIO) of Carnegie Mellon’s Qatar campus, Warraich is immersed in technology throughout his work day. Why then, does he spend his free time listening, reading and learning about tech?

“I don’t have a show hobby,” Warraich said. “I love my work, so it doesn’t feel like work to me. You could say my hobby is learning more about computing and how it affects people.”

Warraich joined Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar in 2013, taking the helm of an IT department that serves a campus of about 600 students, staff and faculty members. Warraich’s team of 16 manages CMU-Q’s computing needs, including instructional technology, communications and the IT infrastructure for all classrooms, offices and events.

“I think my biggest challenge as CIO is the wide availability of technology,” he said. “There are so many good choices, but as a department we have to offer a cohesive set of services.”

Warraich first heard about the CIO opportunity at CMU-Q while working at Texas A&M University in Qatar, which is located next door to CMU-Q in Doha’s Education City campus. During his years at Texas A&M Qatar, Warraich had become good friends with CMU-Q’s CIO, Steve Huth.

“I learned that Steve would be returning to the CMU main campus, so I called him up and asked him to talk,” he said. “I wanted to know what the computing environment at CMU-Q would be like. When I learned there were more Unix servers than Windows servers, I knew it would be the place for me.”

Leaving Texas A&M was a weighty decision for Warraich. Born in Pakistan, Warraich left his home country to pursue undergraduate studies at Texas A&M in College Station in the mid-1980s. He earned dual bachelor degrees in nuclear engineering and computer science, and then a master’s degree in nuclear engineering. After graduation, he took a position in Texas A&M’s high-performance computing facility where he worked for several years. In 2001, Warraich moved to Pakistan to teach computer science, but eventually returned to his Texas A&M roots to work at the Qatar campus.

“I spent 24 years of my life associated with Texas A&M, and I still have many dear friends there,” he said, “but CMU-Q provides such diverse and interesting challenges and opportunities that I made the move.”

Warraich’s latest project has been representing CMU-Q on a task force to make a Qatar-wide switch to an upgraded internet protocol, IPv6. For Warraich, the task force provided an opportunity to delve into the complexities of networking. Working with members of his team and his colleagues within Qatar, Warraich was instrumental in drafting the IPv6 adoption guidelines that will be released later this month.

The project was complex and challenging, but Warraich welcomes the chance to learn the intricacies of a new technological puzzle.

“If you love learning, there is nothing better than computing in this era,” Warraich said. “There is always something to learn about.”

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