Geni.com interviews Geni Curator and fellow techie, Rehan Allahwala, also the founder and CEO of Techistan.

This social network that brings together people who are family related from past, present and future of over 90 million profiles. Preserve your family history, discover new relatives, share family photos and videos, and remember those important family dates and it’s all free!

TIME magazine named it among the top 50 websites in 2008. PC Magazine awards it among the top and best free softwares for 2008, 2009 and 2010. Read on, or listen via the Techistan audio button while you work on other things.

Geni.com Team Member Ashiya: Rehan, your blog states that you started your first venture in Pakistan back in 1987. Tell us a little bit about what got you interested in re-selling Commodore 64 games.

Rehan: I started by exchanging games and building my library bigger and bigger, so eventually it led me into selling these games so I could buy more games with the money I earned; I was in Class 7th.

Geni.com: Do you find having that sort of knowledge has helped you today?

Rehan: It was business, and I was selling stationary before that in my school, or something else. Today I am still in business of filling in some gaps for anyone, no matter if it is for money or for without money. It gave me people skills.

Geni.com: You are also an editor and collaborator on Techistan. Tell us about this site and how you got involved.

Rehan: I started the magazine Techistan last year, the idea came to us in Singapore, while visiting the next door booth besides of DIDX.net. Suzanne Bowen (my company co-founder) loves to read and write and is always writing blogs about the partner companies of DIDX, so I (suggested starting) a full fledge magazine to help our customers grow their companies.

Geni.com: Techistan is about to celebrate the site’s first anniversary. How has it been collaborating on this site,  and where do you guys see yourself in the next 12 months?

Rehan: I think that Suzanne would be the right person to answer that as she (runs) it, but I think we are adding awards into our magazine, and also more videos; we may end up doing a weekly or even a daily 5 min tech show on the tech news, like Tech TV.

Geni.com: We noticed that you have a Techistan page where you have tagged videos related to Geni. Tell us about the response you have received from your video tutorials.

Rehan: I started using geni.com for initially getting our family directory inserted, and I had to tell a lot of people what it (was), so when I was doing a TV show, I presented geni.com on it; the tutorial you see on techistan.com/geni/ comes from that TV show. Later people asked me how to do this, so we added that content also.

Geni.com: Do you plan on making any more Geni tutorials?

Rehan: If someone asks me more questions about Geni, I would make more videos.

Geni.com: What brought you to Geni- was it the love for new sites or the idea of collaborative genealogy (or perhaps both)?

Rehan: Well, I was working on a similar project,  to create something like geni.com in 2006. I assigned a programmer to it, and khandaan.us was born. Eight months down the road, the programmer sent me the link to your web site. It was as if someone copied my brain and made Geni, so I used Geni a little.

Then a cousin of mine who had the first family tree, added the data of family and it started spreading.  So then I abandoned the khandaan.us project as there was no need to re-do it when you are doing such a great job on it already.

Geni.com: You have been a power user on Geni pretty much since you signed up about 3 years ago. What are some of the changes you have appreciated on the site?

Rehan: I love the function of finding the people in the tree a lot and would like a faster web site and ways to merge more trees quickly.

Geni.com: Where would you like to see the site go in terms of overall UI (user interface) enhancements? 

Rehan: I would like to see when a (node on the tree has been) deleted by someone else. I would also like to see that when I entered the data for someone, (that I was able to) at least find them and see them, or add a category of “added” perhaps. I also need to be able to add data of other people, like it used to (be).

I miss that, as it (has) made my life (more) difficult (when it comes to the) adding (of) our family directory.

Geni.com: We see that you are currently collaborating/following 6 Geni Projects. They are: Bollywood , India puranic/ vedic tree including modern royal dynasties, JPSD , Mohammad PBUH, The Gandhi Project and US Presidents and Vice Presidents.

What can you tell us about those projects? Also, which one is your favorite one and why?

Rehan: It started as my family tree the project JPSD or Jamiat Punjabi Dehli Saudagraan , and later I found the tree of Prophet Mohammad, (so) I wanted to show all different sects of Islam how they are well connected via connecting their trees. So, (the) Prophet Mohammad Project is most interesting to me, but I would like to get more tools to maintain it properly, and more power on the tree (i.e. force merger of profiles not being touched for over 2 years now).

Visit www.geni.com to connect your family past, present and future and get involved in your own favorite Geni Projects!

* Artwork the property of  http://www.artismessy.org. Thanks, from Techistan.