Basil Khowaja

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Basil Khowaja

Towfiq Chinoy & Family HU TOPS Scholar

Graduate of 2026
BS Computer Engineering

Aspiration Statement

Computer Engineering student focused on cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and distributed systems. Experienced in AWS, DevOps, and secure application development, motivated to build resilient platforms and advance cloud security practices.

Core Skills

  • Agentic Coding and Debugging
  • Cloud Deployment
  • Web Development

Core Competencies

  • Adaptability
  • Agility

Preferred Career Paths

First priority: Security Engineer

Second priority: Cloud Engineer

Third priority: Software Engineer

Academic Awards / Achievements

  • High Academic Leap Scholarship 2025

Experience

Leadership / Meta-curricular

  • Vice President, Sports & Recreational Club
  • Volunteer, Habib University Student Government
  • Volunteer, Gaming Club Habib Debate Union

Internship / Volunteer Work

  • Software Engineer, Woot Tech (February – April 2026)

Publications / Creative Projects

  • Publication – Evaluation of IoT Protocol Performance in a Cloud-Enabled Home Safety System

Final Year Project

Project Title

Lightweight Cryptographic-Based VPN for Secure IoT Communication

Description

My Final Year Project focuses on designing and implementing a lightweight cryptographic framework for secure communication in resource-constrained IoT devices. The system evaluates lightweight encryption algorithms such as ASCON, TinyAES, and SPECK to determine their performance and security suitability for embedded platforms like ESP32. The framework supports modular integration of different cryptographic primitives and enables secure device-to-device communication over constrained networks. Experimental benchmarking is conducted to measure latency, throughput, CPU usage, and memory overhead under different configurations. The goal is to identify efficient cryptographic approaches that maintain strong security while minimizing computational and energy costs, making them practical for real-world IoT deployments.

Project Pictures