Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

1987 — 2026

Pooya's Timeline

41 milestones across graphics, games, publishing, teaching, technology leadership, and cloud platforms.

1987–2008

Origins

  1. Born

    Born on January 7.

  2. First strokes

    Started learning to swim.

  3. Lifeguard certificate

    Earned his lifeguard certificate.

  4. Water polo

    Joined the Shahid Shiroudi Stadium water polo club as a goalkeeper.

  5. First hobby game

    Programmed Snake, his first hobby game, in C.

  6. A card game in C#

    Programmed the card game Whist in C#.

  7. Computer science and hardware engineering

    Graduated from Shomal University. His thesis work simulated a CPU and mainboard with an FPGA and a lift-truck robot with an Atmel microcontroller.

2013–2025

Publishing & teaching

  1. DirectX 11.1 Game Programming

    Authored DirectX 11.1 Game Programming, a step-by-step guide to creating 3D applications and games with a multithreaded C++/CX and DirectX 11.1 framework for Windows Store apps.

  2. DirectX Graphics Diagnostics

    Published an article about DirectX Graphics Diagnostics on GameDev.net and Packt Hub.

  3. A dedicated DirectX blog

    Launched a companion blog for DirectX 11.1 Game Programming, helping experienced DirectX developers explore newer DirectX 11.x features.

  4. University lecturer

    Became a lecturer at the Iran University of Applied Science and Technology's National Foundation of Computer Games.

  5. Iran Game Development Institute

    Became a lecturer at the Iran Game Development Institute.

  6. Learning Modern C++

    Launched Learning Modern C++ for Game Programmers, a free, open-source self-study project for developers learning modern C++ through game programming.

  7. Gaming in healthcare

    Published Gaming in Healthcare at Iran's first Game and Medical Health conference.

  8. IGDF jury panel

    Joined the IGDF 2014 jury panel for Best Computer Games Technology.

  9. Technical book reviewer

    Reviewed Game Programming Using Qt: Beginner's Guide by Witold Wysota and Lorenz Haas, his second Packt book project after DirectX 11.1 Game Programming.

  10. Technical reviewer — Rust for C++ Programmers

    Served as technical reviewer for Rust for C++ Programmers by Mustafif Khan, published by BPB.

  11. Co-author of Integrating Rust

    Co-authored Integrating Rust with Abhishek Kumar, a practical guide to adopting Rust for secure, scalable, and high-performance systems.

  12. Technical reviewer — Web Development in Rust

    Served as technical reviewer for Web Development in Rust by Viktor Daróczi, published by BPB.

2008–2026

Leadership & experiments

  1. Persian Engine

    Started developing his first in-house game engine, Persian Engine.

  2. Safa

    Joined Safa's development team as a Senior Silverlight Developer on Project Sara 8.

  3. Founded BaziPardaz

    Founded the independent BaziPardaz game studio to develop software, simulations, interactive games, and game-engine technology.

  4. The Land

    Started a prototype of The Land, a third-person shooter built with Persian Engine.

  5. Best technology award

    Persian Engine was nominated for Best Computer Games Technology at Tehran's International Digital Media Festival and Fair and won the award.

  6. Persian Engine on the web

    Started porting Persian Engine to the Silverlight 5 platform.

  7. The Master Chef

    Started The Master Chef at BaziPardaz, an interactive game based on Kinect and Persian Engine.

  8. City2

    Started City2, an online social-city simulation built with Persian Engine; its browser version used Silverlight 5.

  9. Persian Engine released

    Published the final version of Persian Engine, including its editor, animation mixer, and Softimage FaceRobot integration.

  10. Real-time playout and CG

    Started developing real-time playout and CG-editor tools based on the MOS protocol, using C++, FFmpeg, and DirectX 11.1 with Blackmagic DeckLink capture, editing, and HD/SD playback.

  11. Wolf Engine

    Started the next generation of his in-house game engine, Wolf Engine.

  12. CEO of Wolf Source

    Became CEO of Wolf Source, working across games, game engines, 3D tools, and television-broadcast technology.

  13. Project Falcon

    Joined Fanap as Project Manager of Project Falcon.

  14. PlayPod

    Co-founded and led PlayPod, the first cloud-gaming console in Iran and the Middle East.

  15. Co-Founder & CEO at Alpha

    Co-founded Alpha as CEO to build cloud, GPU, AI, cloud-gaming, enterprise-software, and metaverse infrastructure and products.

  16. Co-Founder of Arium

    Co-founded Arium, a cloud-gaming platform for peer-to-peer duels.

  17. Exited Arium

    Exited Arium in 2025.

  18. Alpha technology milestones

    Stepped down as CEO of Alpha after steering the company to its first profit. During Pooya's leadership, Alpha was recognized by Iran's Vice Presidency as a knowledge-based company, delivered a digital twin for Bank Pasargad's central branch named PodVerse, and built and scaled GPU-partitioning infrastructure to allocate GPUs to PlayPod and other GPU-based projects.

  19. Fellow at PlayPod

    He then became a Fellow at PlayPod. Since 2018, PlayPod has served more than one million Iranian gamers, was selected among the top candidates for Fit 4 Start Luxembourg in 2020, and was named the top product at the fifth Iranian Product Innovation Leaders Festival at Sharif University of Technology (Aryamehr).

  20. Sib

    Developed Sib, an open-source Rust library of cross-platform modules for real-time streaming, low-latency networking, scalable HTTP services, and WebGPU rendering.

  21. WebGPU examples

    Built a collection of Rust/WebGPU examples based on Sib's render module, adapting Sascha Willems' Vulkan samples for native applications and WebAssembly.

  22. AINU

    Joined AINU Tech Source and established the company's vision as well as its technical foundations from scratch to launch AINU Capital and other upcoming projects.