Asif Zamir's Featured Consulting Projects
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Fashion
These socks are designed to bring a combination of vivid colours and unexpected patterns, stepping away from the traditional stripes and polka dots, the classic navy blue and the ‘always safe’ black. Inspiration comes from Africa for this product.
Logan, Utah
Fashion
This is this clothing designer’s first full line of designs, which include dresses that have a great clean cut and are made to flatter women in just the right spots, skirts that are bright and cheerful, and new blouses that are whimsical.
Columbia, Missouri
Comics
This 22-page story has been in development for about 4 years and is the adventures of Sam Steele of the North-West Mounted Police. This action / horror comic book weaves the rich history and folklore of the Canadian frontier with the action of early pulp fiction.
The bible says that we shouldn’t give pearls to pigs, because that won’t change them into great men, it simply dresses them up and wastes our resources.
This is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way several times over. One of my biggest frustrations is giving my time and resources to people who piss it away.
Okay, to be fair, most people in my circles don’t do that, but the few that do are all the same. A few months or even years they come back hoping for more pearls.
Walthamstow, United Kingdom
Illustration
This illustration company is teaming up with a comedy football writer to produce two original books; ‘Fly On The Ball: World Cup Edition’ and ‘A-Z: Dr Johnny Drain’s Football Alphabet’. The goal is to utilize the form of risograph printing, an economically friendly way of producing beautiful works of art.
You’ve all heard the “glass half full or half empty” saying. Today I talked to one of my clients in Calgary Alberta who’s business I’ve been consulting for only a few months. In this short time he’s managed to radically improve his client base, customer satisfaction and just as importantly, his financial strength.
I just got off the phone with my client and afterwards realized that much of my work involves presenting a full picture, and pointing out the good and bad. Whatever the client seems fixated on, is what I gear up to fix. I love hearing good things from my clients, so this was a good day for me.
A problem might take a lifetime to solve, but a perspective can be changed in seconds. – Asif Zamir
You don’t want to name your child Asif. It’s a silly name, even though it’s a take on the biblical name Asaph who was a major part of King David’s team.
But naming a cow Asif Zamir? Yup, a cow in Rwanda has been named Asif Zamir in my honor.
Why? Becuase I donated money to a theater company in Rwanda, so that women can perform their stories at the largest art festival in Africa. Yup, the largest art festival in Africa!
Five women, including a poet, a few actresses, a couple Americans, a pop star, a singer, a radio personality, several dancers, three Rwandans all raised in different countries, and even a puppeteer. Using movement, dance, poetry, puppets, personal testimony, and their wits, they’ve written a new theater piece. They explore questions of nations, bodies and borders, of what it means to be local in this messy, globalized world.
Travel within Africa isn’t cheap (go ahead, look up travel costs TO and IN Africa right now, I dare you…you probably won’t do it, because your a lazy bum), and the festival is unable to provide housing for so many artists. Anyway this whole thing cost around $4,300 and 71 donors including me covered the cost. This is not a business project, just a straight giving project to make a LOT of African women smile.
In terms of Rwanda, I’ve participated in building several orphanages and several long term child-care programs. For those of you who don’t know, 1 million people in Rwanda were murdered in 100 days back in the 90’s.
I have good friends who survived the ordeal and now live in Canada, and I’ve had dinner with people who still live in Rwanda today, rebuilding the nation. – Asif Zamir
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Food
This company grows culinary mushrooms, while recycling waste by-products, and is planning to install a retort, a large pressure cooker that uses steam to sterilize substrate materials in bulk. The outcome is a dramatic increase in production by improving batch size and room sterility.
Asif Zamir Bike Lock Project
I grew up in Malton, so I’ve had my bike stolen many times — probably 6 that I can remember.
It didn’t matter if I used no lock, a cheap dollar store lock, an expensive lock, they’d get the bike or at least parts of it no matter what. You live in Malton, just learn to walk because your car or bike will get stolen. Gosh, people’s shoes have been stolen in Malton, right off their feet.
Actually, quick story: In the mid 90s I purchased a bike for myself at Canadian Tire (I always get the cheapest one because I know it will get stolen). Anyway, I put it against my front door for about 5 minutes while using the bathroom, and when I came out, it was gone. I was too poor to buy a new one right away, so for 2 years I rode my sisters bike which was a child’s pink and white girl’s bike. People from school would laugh their butt off when they saw me, but it got me from point A to point B.
2 years later I had moved near the Westwood Mall. One morning around 10am I was at the mall doing errands when I saw my bike in the Price Chopper lobby. You won’t believe this – it still had my chain lock wrapped under the seat. The person who had stolen it took my bike, added a rear cargo hold, broke my gears so they were stuck on the hardest, and didn’t bother to lift the seat to slip off the lock. I rode my own bike home that day, and it lasted for about 4 or 5 more years as far as I can remember. My bike after that got stolen.
So here’s the idea: a titanium bike lock that’s designed as cleanly and thoughtfully as a bike. It’s secure but elegant, simple and easy to use and store. I came across this idea on a crowd funding site, and thought it was genius so naturally I had to play a small part.
The lock includes a flexible titanium bow, and a compact, almost pick resistant lock cylinder. It has a protective coating to protect your bike, and stores snugly and unobtrusively on the top tube with simple and light weight straps. The bow is flexible so you can lock your bike to a variety of structures up to about 5 1/2” in diameter. Depending on your wheel base, rim, and tire configuration, you can even lock both wheels (without removal), and frame to a structure. Thanks for reading!
Asif Zamir
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Hardware
This drum pedal design is a viable alternative to the already existing short and long board. The unique shape provides a dedicated area to contact when using the heel-toe technique, giving playing more control, power and consistency.
Entrepreneur News & Strategy