I’m Maaz. I work in infrastructure consulting, with a background in engineering and urban planning. I’m fascinated by many things. But a few major ones are:

• Fascination 1: Infrastructure. There’s something beautiful about humans improving their lives through the built environment. Also, transit. You could say this is part of infrastructure, but it’s a very special part of it. Infrastructure in general, and transport and transit in particular, is gold dust for human productivity and poverty alleviation. Aspects of these include musings about transit ridership levels, transit-oriented development, risk, levels of service, megaprojects, project management, infrastructure decision-making, bike shares, multi-modal transportation, and accessibility.
• Fascination 2: Languages. It’s just a ton of fun learning a new language. English and Urdu are my main languages (I suppose you could add Hindi, as another register of Hindustani, to that list). I learnt French in Canada and Spanish in Canada and Colombia to a B2/C1 level. Currently learning Chinese in Canada. Just started Arabic. I’d also like to learn Sindhi, Punjabi, and Persian at some point after I get to B2/C1 in Chinese and Arabic. I’m also interested in other aspects beyond just learning to read, write, speak, and understand a language – including digitalization, script policies and politics, impacts of language policies on national politics, and modernization.
• Fascination 3: China. China is doing some amazing things. High speed rail, crazy digital penetration, incredible infrastructure. Also, they do such amazing socio-political experiments – regulating the gaming and for-profit tuition industries, lifting 100s of millions out of poverty, keeping the tech industry under control… I think China is on the forefront of some of the most exciting things happening in the world, and we should pay attention (and learn from their experiences – successes and failures both).
• Other fascinations: International politics (grew up wanting to be a diplomat), physio (I think physiotherapy is incredible, plus I tend to need it a fair bit), sports (squash, soccer, some cricket), architecture (I like pretty buildings), and reading (mostly urban and high fantasy but soft spot for mysteries and detective thrillers).

I’m an acerbic optimist. For example, I think we can meet the climate challenges of our century through better infrastructure decisions, but I also think our infrastructure decision-making can be incredibly short-sighted. Another example is that I fervently believe everyone can learn (multiple) foreign languages, but I also think the way most people go about learning languages is both self-defeating and self-aggrandizing. On the whole, though, I'm excited about the future!

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