Kamar Bakrin: Kamar arrived at school and on the first day broke a leg. Literally. A basketball fanatic, he twisted his ankle on the court on day one and then walked three blocks to school on crutches for the next two months in snow, sleet, and sub-zero temperatures. A chartered accountant (CPA equivalent from the British side of the planet) turned consultant, Kamar was probably the most driven friend in our batch. Ken, Arno, and I were content and easy-going. If we did well, we did well; and if we didn’t, it was okay—disappointing, but still okay.

Kamar had to make an impact, had to make a difference. He wasn’t hungry in the twentish sense of the word, nor ambitious. Kamar was angry. School was just one outlet where he could vent his anger and gain the respect we knew he deserved. We joked about his desire to turn down an offer from McKinsey since they had made the mistake of telling him he was not good enough for their domestic practice in his life prior to B-school. He went ahead and did just that before joining Boston Consulting Group in Boston. Five years later, he is now the Deputy Managing Director of a large telecom operator in Nigeria.

Arno Goboyan: Arno and I had really met the first time when he was dying for a smoke and I needed some fresh air. We had run into each other a number of times before, including at the exemption exam for corporate finance, but it took a drizzly evening by Uris Deli for the introductions to happen. I think if the French had Bond (“The name is Bond, James Bond”), he would probably look like Arno. That is the easiest way to describe him. Tall, dark, with a slight French accent and a touch of class, packaged very well together as a loyal friend. By the time we traveled our individual paths to business school, he was financially comfortable enough to be bored. He had made his killing and was looking for something different and exciting. Superficiality in ideas, ideals, and people irritated him and he liked his friends to be just as sophisticated as himself. Arno joined Credit Suisse First Boston in London immediately after school and now runs an M&A advisory firm in Paris.

Ken Bates: Ken was the most mature and stable member of our group. A father of four kids and a forestry major from the seventies, at 42 he was also the oldest member of the team. Tall and slim like Arno, Ken had a more weathered face blessed with deep smiling eyes. He enjoyed telling people that he was not related to Norman Bates of “Psycho” fame. As with Arno, we had run into each other a few times in class discussions. It took a moment in the printers’ room when I passed him a draft of my article for Bottom Line, our school newspaper, and he was hooked. Then followed numerous attempts to produce “Harvey,” the Mary Ellen Chase play about the six-foot invisible rabbit, which brought us even closer. Ken was a deeply religious man and to a great extent, our faith, strength or lack of it, brought and kept us together before, during, and after Avicena. Ken went back to rejoin Hudson River Inlay as its president before taking charge of a global young professionals’ organization sponsored and run by his church. As our first beta customer, we relied heavily on him as a second pair of well-grounded eyes. Over the last five years Ken has now turned into a Turnarounds specialist and is busy creating value as a CEO with a small business in Florida.

Syed Saboor: I have never known anyone who has actually met Jennifer Lopez besides Saboor. They shared the same gym a few streets away from Saboor’s office in lower Manhattan. Fawzia’s first cousin, Saboor Bhai (Urdu for “elder brother”), as we lovingly called him, picked us up and dropped us off at airports, chose our apartments, negotiated our leases, taught us how to cross the street, catch the subway, order take-out, shop, do our groceries, and walk and live in New York like a New Yorker. Saboor was one of the first investors in Avicena, the first outsider to see the business plan, and the most frequently used sounding board for product ideas, pitches, and strategy outside of our management team. He and Sadia, his wife, still run our favorite crashing spot outside of our home in Westchester County, New York.

Ralph Biggadike: I had heard good things about Ralph before I walked into my first TMP class (short for “Top Management Processes”). A group president from Becktin & Dickinson, the needle manufacturing firm, Ralph was a born teacher. We took Strategy and TMP with him. With anyone else, both would have been fluff subjects. With Ralph, they turned into power Tuesdays as he took a group of 30 students and taught them to think and act like general managers. Ralph was also one of the first professors to second the business plan, the only teacher who agreed to come on board as a faculty advisor. He went on to win the Distinguished Teaching Award the same year and received a standing ovation from his students during our commencement ceremony. He still inspires future general managers at the business school in New York.

Aleph Inc: A technology solutions company based in Santa Ana, California that acted as our incubator as well as Fawzia’s employer. Aleph provided office space in Santa Ana and Karachi, development and administrative talent in both offices, management expertise and customer introductions on the West Coast, and funding and financing support on an as- and when-needed basis. Without them there wouldn’t be an Avicena to look back at and write a book about. We also collaborated on a number of non-Avicena projects. The fall of Avicena, the technology meltdown, and the recession in California hit Aleph very hard and its team was downsized dramatically within six months of May 2001.

Denise Davies: VP Operations at Aleph Responsible for running the California offices, payroll, marketing, business development, and technology project management from her offices in Karachi and Santa Ana. Among her many talents, Denise made a mean morning shake, churned out proposals and contracts at an inhuman pace, was a great babysitter (for Amin, our son, as well as other pseudo-adults in the Avicena-Aleph team) and shared our passion for early-morning walks off the creek in Newport Beach. Denise recently fell off the map and disappeared completely from our lives except for occasional email exchanges with Fawzia.

Fahad & Appsys: Back-end development team in Karachi. Fahad, a former star student from my computer science teaching days, became an owner of a small specialized shop that built the Java engine behind Avicena’s front end. Fahad still owns Appsys and still operates it from the same premises he had during Avicena days.

Aleph Karachi: Front-end development team. Aleph Karachi took primary responsibility for getting our platform out. They did the front end, hosting, quality assurance, and technology integration with Fahad’s work.

Ashar Zaidi: Offshore Project Manager and my right-hand man in Pakistan. Just like Fahad, Ashar was also an ex student and colleague from consulting days. Combine the passion of a fire-breathing mullah, the tenacity of a pit bull, and the drive of a Pratt and Whitney engine and you would have the package that is Ashar. Point him in the right direction, light his fire, and let him go. I asked him to dump his permanent position and give the startup lifestyle a shot and he agreed. He now works as the channel sales manager for Intel in Pakistan.

Sharleen Ghauri: Content Editor. Ashar’s first hire brought in to take over content responsibilities. Sharleen took over course development and content work so that Ashar could move on to technology and execution responsibilities. Where Ashar was nitro for our team, Sharleen became the stabilizer. Two years after Avicena crashed and burned, Ashar and Sharleen got married and now live happily ever after in Lahore where Sharleen looks after Intel’s education initiative in Pakistan.

Dylan Steeg, Joe Rooney, Whiskey Ken, Carlos Desmaras, Ken Craddock: Friends, class, and group mates from Columbia Business School now working in New York, northern California, and Japan. Dylan came from an engineering background and went back to work for a VC firm back west. Joe came from operations and took up a not-for-profit role after school. Whiskey Ken came from Japan and actually went back to start his own show in Tokyo. We crossed roads during our presentation to Sakura and have stayed in touch. Ken is now the CFO for Lands’ End in Japan. Carlos came from investment banking and, like me, used the school to polish his business plan for his personal venture. He stayed with it for a year before joining a power company first in Louisiana and then New Jersey. He is now back with his pre-business-school employer in New York. Ken Craddock was John Whitney’s research assistant and a history major at Columbia. We clicked from the first day we met and Ken’s working space became the shelter I would drift to when I found myself at school long after graduation.

Cluster X: Class of 60 students with whom I started business school and who stayed together for the first two terms.

TMP Group: Classmates from Top Management Processes, the Ralph Biggadike course.

Pearson Contact: Business Development contact. Senior executive at a Pearson subsidiary we met when we wrote the Pearson Strategic Investment proposal.

Manufacturers Bank: Beta customer. A wholly owned subsidiary of Sakura Bank in Los Angeles that was initially pitched on the Bank Exchange idea by Aleph and later agreed to become a beta customer for Avicena.

Chescore Capital: VC firm operating out of Dubai and focusing on regional investment opportunities from UAE. Moez Muzaffari was the managing partner for Chescore and the key person with whom we dealt during the first half of 2001. He died of a heart attack around the same time he had promised we would get a decision out of Chescore. Chescore continues to run the offset6 fund out of Dubai.

Reema Faquih: My first cousin from Bombay, a chartered accountant7 with four years of business advisory and assurance experience with Andersen Worldwide in India. Reema joined when we were dying as a business and devoted triage-style effort and countless hours to save what we had created over two years. Without her support and help, I would have given up much sooner. With her, the last two months before we pulled the shutters down became the most productive time we spent in California. After Avicena she went back to India to work for a non-profit that educates street children. Reema just graduated from NYU’s Masters in Public Administration program.
Professors and courses ‘

John Whitney taught “In Search of a Perfect Prince,” a self-awareness course that used Shakespearian plays as a backdrop for analyzing leadership crisis. Bruce Greenwald taught the always in-demand “Economics of Strategic Behavior” that finally answered my question about why some businesses make money without really trying while others turn into financial black holes. Glenn Hubbard introduced “Entrepreneurial Finance,” a study of 12 business plans and new ventures that focused on funding, valuation, the investment term sheet, launches, and growth challenges. Don Sexton led “International Marketing” and “Advertising Strategy,” two courses that provided the mental soup, frameworks, inspiration, and assignments from which the original business plan for Avicena emerged. Laura Resnikoff taught ”Turnaround Management,” a course that walked through the essential skills required to save dying companies.