No Mountain Too High, Mirza Ali

Karachi, October 24, 2013: Renowned mountaineer Mirza Ali today delivered an impassioned talk entitled No Mountain Too High, at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), to an enrapt audience that had packed the auditorium of the Suleman Dawood School of Business. The talk was the inaugural lecture of EMPOWER – The Coca-Cola Lecture Series, an innovative programme launched by Coca-Cola to provide university level youth of the country extra-curricular learning through inspirational talks delivered by experts in various fields.

“EMPOWER is our latest CSR initiative that seeks to understand the issues our youth is facing, especially those relating to their personality development and career path, and provide the youth with expert guidance through a series of thought-provoking talks, by people who have overcome tough challenges to achieve heights in their respective fields,” stated Rizwan U. Khan, General Manager, The Coca-Cola Export Corporation, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The opening talk in the EMPOWER series by Mirza Ali was appropriately titled No Mountain Too High, indicating that in life each one of us has his or her own mountain to climb. The ascent is sometimes quite effortless, sometimes arduous, and sometimes seemingly impossible. Mirza Ali spoke passionately about his own life experiences and how he overpowered myriad challenges and the unexpected to achieve the goals he had set for himself. He ascended his first peak at the age of just 16 and then went on to climb some of the highest and toughest mountains in the northern areas of Pakistan.

Mirza Ali’s ultimate triumph came when as the mentor, friend and elder brother of Samina Baig, he succeeded in guiding her to become the first Pakistani woman to conquer Mount Everest in May this year. He accompanied her all the way on this historic journey, stopping just short of the final summit itself, to allow Samina climb on top of the world by herself, in a powerful message for women empowerment.

The opening talk of the Coca-Cola EMPOWER programme at LUMS by Mirza Ali will now be followed by regular talks at several other leading universities across the country, covering topics such as marketing, HR, CSR and self-discovery. The talks will be delivered both by senior executives of Coca-Cola and by external subject specialists, engaged by Coca-Cola for the programme.