European Knight
05-31-2015, 09:23 AM
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/b110ec2e-04b0-11e5-95ad-00144feabdc0.html
Iranian youth — curious, wired and desperate for normality — are forcing change that horrifies their rulers
It’s a warm spring morning in Tehran and I’m in the leafy grounds of the Shahid Beheshti University looking for Iran’s future entrepreneurs.
Every year, young men and women from all over the country congregate at the ideas fair here to promote their discoveries.
Across a hall of exhibition stands, I spot a young man in light jeans and a blue-and-green shirt fiddling with his laptop, computer boards and paintings hanging crookedly on the wall behind him.
Mehrdad Naji has made his way to the fair from the city of Isfahan, where he’s been working on a little invention: an electronic circuit-board tester for factories.
“Testers usually give one set of data; this one is more advanced, it gives the details of the problem,” he says, and shows me a video of how his creation works.
I’m no expert on electronic circuit-board testers, and I’d be surprised if this were a huge breakthrough. But as I speak to Mehrdad through a translator, I find this reserved 24-year-old’s pride and ambition inspiring.
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/23d0c56a-17a5-4dfd-9b35-0484f717a8e8.img
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/4379390a-04e7-11e5-adaf-00144feabdc0.img
Iranian youth — curious, wired and desperate for normality — are forcing change that horrifies their rulers
It’s a warm spring morning in Tehran and I’m in the leafy grounds of the Shahid Beheshti University looking for Iran’s future entrepreneurs.
Every year, young men and women from all over the country congregate at the ideas fair here to promote their discoveries.
Across a hall of exhibition stands, I spot a young man in light jeans and a blue-and-green shirt fiddling with his laptop, computer boards and paintings hanging crookedly on the wall behind him.
Mehrdad Naji has made his way to the fair from the city of Isfahan, where he’s been working on a little invention: an electronic circuit-board tester for factories.
“Testers usually give one set of data; this one is more advanced, it gives the details of the problem,” he says, and shows me a video of how his creation works.
I’m no expert on electronic circuit-board testers, and I’d be surprised if this were a huge breakthrough. But as I speak to Mehrdad through a translator, I find this reserved 24-year-old’s pride and ambition inspiring.
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/23d0c56a-17a5-4dfd-9b35-0484f717a8e8.img
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/4379390a-04e7-11e5-adaf-00144feabdc0.img