President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Abduganievich Karimov
Islam Abduganievich Karimov was born on 30 January 1938 in Samarkand into a family of civil servants. He graduated from the Central Asian Polytechnic Institute and the Tashkent Institute of national economy, receiving degrees as an engineer-mechanic and economist.
He began work in 1960 at the “Tashselmash” (Tashkent agricultural machinery) plant. From 1961-66 he worked as an engineer, a leading engineer-constructor at the Tashkent aviation production complex.