A little more about me

The kid by the computer.

One of my earliest memories is getting a computer. I’ve always wanted to know why things work the way they do. The questions have changed; the people who gave me room to ask them have stayed with me.

Tarique as a child standing beside a desktop computer with a CRT monitor. — Me, the computer, and the beginning of a lot of questions. Family photograph; later caption text digitally removed for this page.

01 / The beginning

They gave me access.

My parents were immigrants. They didn’t fully understand the internet, but they spent their hard-earned money to make sure I could explore it. The Pentium computer they bought gave me hours to tinker: slow downloads over a phone line, little websites, Flash games, and a lot of things that didn’t work the first time.

I was a kid finding my way in a new country. Making something on that computer felt like finding a small place of my own. My parents gave me the tools, then the room to see what I could do with them.

I told more of that story in From Pentium to Prompts ↗

02 / In between

More than one world can feel like home.

I think of myself as a third-culture kid. I’ve been part of different worlds and sometimes felt only partly at home in each. You can recognize a lot, move between people, and still wonder exactly where you fit.

I don’t want to make that a tidy explanation for my career. It’s a part of me, though. I pay attention to what people mean, what they assume, and what changes when you see a question from someone else’s side.

03 / The questions

Why does it work that way?

I like physics because it feels pure to me. You start with a question about the world, look closely at what happens, and try to understand why. Science gives you permission to be wrong, to test what you think you know, and to ask a better question.

That curiosity has never stayed in one subject. It led me from a computer and the early internet to making things, exploring AI, and eventually wondering how money moves. I fell into fintech along the way.

04 / The people

I didn’t get here on my own.

My parents gave me a beginning. The bosses I’ve had, colleagues I’ve worked beside, and people who took time to share what they knew have all shaped me too. It’s hard to tell a story about who I am without them in it.

Some conversations began through work and carried on after there was no project or event to plan. Those people became friends. FinTech North and Fintech Cadence are part of that story. I’ve met people through both, and some of those conversations have lasted well beyond the work.