Community Spotlight: Meet Kashif Abdul Razzaq from Pakistan

Welcome to our Community Spotlight series, where we bring to you real stories from members of the global Crowdsource community.

Today, we are excited to shine a spotlight on Kashif Abdul Razzaq (Kashif Misidia), a Crowdsource influencer and top contributor from Karachi, Pakistan. Kashif is an entrepreneur and in this post, he shares his personal story and experience with Crowdsource.

Kashif Abdul Razzaq, Crowdsource influencer from Pakistan

How did you hear about Crowdsource?

I got to know about Crowdsource and the Share Your World campaign through my friend Saqib from Pakistan in September 2019. That’s when I started contributing to Crowdsource, and in just 2 months, I contributed nearly 16K images to Crowdsource and I almost reached the top of the leaderboard on the Image Capture activity. I realized that I should have joined the Crowdsource community a long time ago and that I enjoyed contributing to Crowdsource.

What motivates you to contribute to Crowdsource?

Even though I don’t have any specific technical qualifications, I can be a teacher or professor to others as a Crowdsource influencer; this is what motivates me the most. Let me explain that a little bit. I can teach people, educate them on how to contribute to Crowdsource, and even teach Google products about Pakistan. It inspires me that through my contributions, I can transfer my learnings, opinions, unique background, experiences, and perspectives to Crowdsource, and create AI that can impact the experience of many others who use Google products. Although I cannot see my impact in real-time, I know that my contributions help make Google AI systems learn more about my language, culture, and make Google services work even better for users in Pakistan and around the world. This wonderful community has allowed me to explore my passion for teaching. For example, I have organized meetups along with my friend, Zhanna Burunina from Ukraine, where we shared our learnings with the global community to create awareness about Crowdsource. Zhanna is a professor and I learnt a lot from her while preparing for these meetups. Together, we were able to inspire many folks to contribute to Crowdsource, and even become top contributors during our meetups.

“We have a huge responsibility in this role we play as a ‘teacher’ to Google’s AI systems - we should contribute accurate and correct information to enable AI systems to obtain the right knowledge.”

What is the current situation of your community and what are your plans to build the community further in Pakistan?

Our community in Pakistan is still growing and it’s an exciting time for us. I believe that we can build amazing communities around the world, in every city, and every country, by sharing our knowledge with others. And hosting meetups is the best way to do this. I wish to continue leading global and local virtual meetups in the next few months to bring awareness about Crowdsource in Pakistan or to Pakistani users around the world. This is challenging and exciting at the same time as I usually prefer physical meetups, but due to the current situation surrounding COVID-19, I will focus on virtual meetups to grow the community. I hope to influence and inspire others to kickstart their contributions to Crowdsource through my meetups. Once they get started, if they are interested and passionate about contributing, they may even start building their local communities and that’s what I want to achieve.

What’s your favorite activity on Crowdsource?

I enjoy image capture and translation. I also contribute to the Image label verification activity to increase my points! Through my contributions, especially, on translation, I want to represent the Urdu language and help improve the experience for users of Urdu language on Google Translate.

What’s your favorite moment as a part of the Crowdsource community?

My favorite memory is my participation in the Share Your World campaign by Crowdsource last year. The campaign had me glued to my phone and I spent a lot of time clicking pictures of electronic goods and even items in the vegetable market. I enjoyed clicking images and sharing the world around me through images. I even reached rank #3 on the Image Capture leaderboard on Crowdsource. One other memory that I want to share is our Global Virtual Meetup to celebrate Crowdsource’s 4th Anniversary. I hosted this meetup along with my friends Zhanna Burunina and Isha Kulkarni. During this meetup, Crowdsource influencers from all around the world shared about their country and culture, we learnt a lot during this meetup and enjoyed the celebrations with cake that was baked by my daughter (who is an aspiring chef too!).

What are the top 3 things that you would like others to know about Pakistan?

Pakistan is a place that everyone must visit for an invigorating trip of their lifetime. It will be a trip that you will never forget - filled with fun and adventure.

• Pakistan is a paradise. We have some stunning mountain ranges, beautiful beaches, bustling markets, and even historic sites like Mohenjo Daro in Sindh province. We are famous for our hospitality and along your journey, you will meet kind, friendly, and loving people, who make magic happen. You will meet strangers who will try to help you out in the best way that they can, and will expect nothing in return.
• We have some of the most delicious and rich food here in Pakistan. The variety of food in our country is an ode to our ethnic and cultural diversity.
• Our rich diversity in culture and food makes us a great travel destination for everyone in the world.

Inspired to know more about the local communities built by our influencers? Visit our Facebook page or use #GoogleCrowdsource on social media to discover more about Google Crowdsource communities across the world.