Managing the PAAIA Mentorship Program in its inaugural year has been an extraordinary ride for me. Sparks have been flying— right, left, and center! Here is one example; stay tuned for more!
Leila Bidad, Asst. Manager, PAAIA Youth Programs, 9/1/10

Avid Boustani, an MIT graduate in Mechanical Engineering, was torn between pursuing a PhD degree and a ‘leadership’ career track. So he applied to the PAAIA Mentorship Program. We matched him with Dr. Firouz Naderi, VC of PAAIA’s Board of Directors and founder of Nex/Gen. He is also Associate Director of Project Formulation and Strategy at NASA’s Jet Proportion Laboratory.
We leave it to you to discover what happened when the two met. Here is their e-mail exchange, verbatim.