Tooba Waqar

Tooba Waqar

Product Designer in Finland

About

Continously oscillating between the marvel of science & the awe of art ✨

💘 0 -> 1 Product design junkie

👩‍💻 Former Product Designer + manager at Odlamer

⚡ Lead design for 4 startups, won international grants, made users very, very happy!

Speaking

2023

I was able to contribute towards helping Code for Pakistan empower wonderful women interns from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under their KP Women Civic Digital Internship Program. I walked them through the importance of empathy with participatory design workshops.

2019
Islamabad

Speaker in the panel discussion titled 'Women breaking barriers in Tech'

Awards

2022
Masters Scholarship Recipient from Tampere University

Tampere University Scholarship Awardee - 100% tuition waiver.

2020

I alongside with my esteemed team members at an edTech startup competed against 3,400 companies from 148 countries to reach the final round of #GlobalMakerChallenge of Muhammad Bin Rashid Initiative. The startup secured 2nd place and was awarded 10k USD in grant money.

2020

Runner up representing aiyin in She Loves Tech 2020, Islamabad round.

2019
Merit Award from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST)

Merit Award presented to my FYP titled 'Threat Perception Simulation', which was visualisation of incoming aerial threats supported by a custom built flight simulator with real-time threat index calculation
based on air defense algorithms. Built using UE4, python & java.

2019
Commandant’s Medal of Excellence from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST)

Awarded for leading Emerging Technologies Research Lab & enabling more exposure to technologies, opportunities and industry engagement among the student masses.

Features

2021

QuranTalk makes it to top 10 startups that qualified for the national finals of Entrepreneurship World Cup 2021!

2020

Lead a revolution in the Pakistani VR space by being the first to pitch the idea of bringing VR labs to underprivileged slum schools

Work Experience

2023 — 2024
Stenhamra, Sweden
  • Product development: Lead a team of 3 senior developers in the successful development and deployment of a comprehensive product feature roadmap, encompassing over 5 features, resulting in improved user experience and increased 32% customer satisfaction.

  • User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) design: Oversaw the complete design process of feature UX & UI, ensuring a seamless and intuitive interface for over 150 users, leading to a significant increase in user engagement and retention.

  • Feature validation: Implemented an extensive feature validation process by identifying and curating a list of more than 40 relevant online communities for alpha-beta testing, resulting in valuable feedback that drove iterative improvements to the product.

  • Product testing: Lead end to end testing on Android & iOS platforms for feature builds including SEO, iOS + app store optimization and release notes

2023 — 2023
Stenhamra, Sweden
  • Main Application Flow Redesign: Redesign of main application flow (that include 7 new end-to-end features) that yielded 52% improved feedback

  • Feature Validation: User research for feature validation via semi-structures interviews, questionnaires and contextual inquiries which lead to over 30 actionable insights for feature improvement.

  • User Engagement: Increased application engagement by 25% by strategically reactivating users on core features and continuously monitoring their usage patterns for further enhancements.

  • Social Media Content: Social media content curation for brand alignment for over 8 months of social media campaigns and 3 B2B partnerships.

  • User Persona Refinement: User persona refinement for application improvement & monetization strategy

2022 — 2023
Research Intern - Device UX at Nokia Bell Labs
Tampere, Finland
  • Developed image processing module featuring Yolov5, Qt & OpenCV in Python to support AR HUD prototype for Nokia Bell Labs.
  • Collaborated with teams through UX workshops to ideate solutions & research potential automotive-centered AR UIs, creating foundation of multidevice interactions.
  • Conducted UX research on automotive technologies, analyzing over 25 use cases that resulted in over 10 potential applications.
  • Spearheaded invention ideas by successfully submitting 5 potential patent ideas for invention screening.
2020 — 2022
Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Utilized UX research, wireframing & prototyping to create www.qurantalk.app, garnering 2K+ downloads in 12 months and maintaining 5 to 4.9 stars consistently since launch.
  • Utilised responsive design for web & mobile platforms to create the website. Created custom illustrations and design systems.
  • Developed user testing through surveys & customer interviews to gather customer feedback, resulting in a 40% improvement of app usability score for version 2.
  • Implemented social media content strategy & campaigns synthesizing UX/UI design with emotion-based Q&A to reach over 5K followers. QuranTalk makes it to top 10 startups that qualified for the national finals of Entrepreneurship World Cup 2021
2021 — 2021
Computing Teacher at The City School
Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Taught over 5 sections of K-12 grades ranging from grade 1-3 comprising of over 300 students
  • Drafted custom study plans based on curriculum.
  • Conducted need-based assessments for multiple student groups with a special emphasis on slow learners with the K-12 level.
  • Introduced Figma for the first time within the K-12 space in Pakistan in 2021.
2020 — 2021
Account Manager & Project Lead at Odetta.ai
Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Managed Quora, Zola, Safegraph, DisruptOps & OnScale projects across teams of 8-12 personnel with over 200 hrs of trainings delivered; achieved 98% client satisfaction ratings.
  • Directed product QA processes for Safegraph using JIRA to meet project delivery timeline by 82%, reducing rework costs by 25%.
  • Spearheaded content production for Zola via team collaboration cutting development cycle time by 70% cutting costs by 55%
2021 — 2021
Design Fellow at Code for Pakistan
Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Designed a fully functional hi-fi prototype for a mobile based telemedicine application meant for at risk pregnant women. Was responsible for total design stack.
  • Conducted Usability Analysis on a web & mobile based telemedicine service to enhance UX, accessibility & user engagement. Drafted 26 actionable design improvements across web & mobile user flows. Used JN Usability Heuristics & Gestalt Principles.
  • Designed two websites for internal departments that managed different healthcare projects.
  • Improved service design workflows by conducting field research & using service design principles for the national COVID testing pipeline in collaboration with the Govt. of Pakistan.
2019 — 2020
Design Lead & Founding Team Member at aiyin
Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Lead a revolution in the Pakistani VR space by being the first to pitch the idea of bringing VR labs to underprivileged slum schools
  • Designed and developed VR experiences for product prototypes
  • Aiyin went on to win 10k USD in grant money with the idea in the Muhammad bin Rashid Initiaive 2020 under my team leadership

Volunteering

2024 — Now
Design Volunteer at FinUA
Helsinki, Finland

Assisting in design deliverables that directly impact Ukranian refugees fleeing Ukraine amidst the current war front opened by Russia within the region.

2023 — Now
Community Member & Mentor at Herizon
2021 — Now
Alumni & Volunteer at Code for Pakistan
2018 — 2019
Campus Ambassador at Women Engineers Pakistan
Islamabad, Pakistan
2018 — 2019
Student Body President at Emerging Technologies Lab
Islamabad, Pakistan

Education

2022 — Now
M.Sc. in Human Technology Interaction at Tampere University
Tampere, Finland
2015 — 2019
Bachelors of Computer Engineering at National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST)
Islamabad, Pakistan

Certifications

2021

ID: aaab5ed93fdfecfa2731a082d45737dc

2021

ID: 543c803ed2e565aceb26f3c2c9e50a95

2021

ID: dbb2fad49932edf2ae582c423d2d4b95

2021

ID: 592a98ae22271355e1cacadb9fe38d46

2021

ID: 413dd41697cb5115c722abb5bb491d7c

Contact

Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn