Dear Friends,
Welcome back to Berkeley and best wishes for a healthy new year. The coming semester at the Center is full of lectures, performances, and workshops, and we hope you will join us. Let me just mention a few of the many upcoming events to give you a sense of what your participation and support of Bangladesh@Berkeley have made possible.
We are delighted to announce that the 2017 Chowdhury Center Distinguished Lecture will be delivered by
Bangladeshi Lawyer and Human Rights Activist, Sara Hossain. Past Chowdhury Center Distinguished Lecturers have included
Dr. Amartya Sen and
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. Sara Hossain is a human rights lawyer who has served as a powerful voice for Bangladesh’s most disadvantaged and marginalized citizens, particularly women and girls. Ms. Hossain's lecture will take place on Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 5 pm and is free and open to the public. Please join us in welcoming her to Berkeley.
On March 10, we will celebrate International Women's Day with a program jointly organized with the
Bangladeshi Women's Empowerment Network of CA in which
Monira Rahman, Co-founder of the Acid Survivor's Foundation in Bangladesh, and
Anika Rahman, Former President and CEO of Ms. Foundation for Women, will talk about their groundbreaking work in conversation with UC Berkeley Sociologist, Prof. Raka Ray.
On April 13, we proudly present an evening of Baul music by the eminent Baul singer from Bengal,
Parvathy Baul. Other event highlights include talks by Anthropologist
Naveeda Khan (Jan 24), and
Hasan Mazumdar, The Asia Foundation Country Representative for Bangladesh (March 22).
Two events that are still being planned are a talk by Vivek Bald, Professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT and author and director of
Bengali Harlem, a book and documentary that details the overlooked waves of Bangladeshi immigrants to the United States, and a UC Berkeley launch of bestselling author and award-winning quality management consultant, Mr. Subir Chowdhury's newest book, T
he Difference: When Good Enough Isn’t Enough.
Please scroll to the bottom of the page to see a list of all the Chowdhury Center events this semester.
As part of the Center's focus on creating opportunities for collaborative research between UC Berkeley and universities in Bangladesh, we are delighted to share two new partnerships. The first is a
remote internship opportunity with the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), a legal services organization in Bangladesh that focuses on human rights, law and justice. Select UC Berkeley students will have the opportunity to assist with research as well as drafting, editing and reviewing of press releases, case summaries, reports and publications. The second collaboration is between the Dept. of Bioengineering at UC Berkeley and the
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) on a faculty exchange program. This exchange program will bring BUET faculty specializing in Bioengineering to UC Berkeley for a period of one to two months. During this time, they will have the opportunity to learn and engage in the educational and research opportunities at UC Berkeley's Bioengineering Department and allow for potential research collaborations to develop.
Plans are underway for further collaborations with the American Institute for Bangladesh Studies to host faculty members from Bangladesh and host joint conferences in both the US and in Dhaka. We are also in discussions with the London School of Economics to jointly host a series of conferences focused on current issues in Bangladesh to be held in London and Dhaka.
The Chowdhury Center provides three scholarships to Berkeley students for conducting research to improve the lives of those in Bangladesh. The awardees of the Chowdhury fellowships for 2016 are:
Sayah Bogor (MPH Candidate, Infectious Diseases) was the recipient of the Subir Chowdhury Fellowship on Quality of Life in Bangladesh;
Laura Boudreau (Ph.D Candidate, Business & Public Policy) was awarded the Malini Chowdhury Fellowship on Bangladesh Studies; and
Abhishek Dalal (BA, Public Health, South Asian Studies, Class of 2018) received the Subir Chowdhury Undergraduate Scholarship.
In other news, the Chowdhury Center in partnership with the American Institute for Bangladesh Studies (AIBS) and the US Embassy in Dhaka hosted five faculty members from top universities in Bangladesh to participate in a program focused on academic writing and publishing in October 2016. Titled the
Faculty Workshop on Research Writing & Publishing, this program brought five faculty members from Bangladeshi institutions of higher education to be in residence for one week at the Chowdhury Center, where they took part in workshops on research methodologies, writing, and the publishing process led by UC Berkeley faculty. Faculty arrived in Berkeley and were in residence from October 11-19, 2016. After the week at Berkeley, they traveled to Madison, Wisconsin for the annual South Asia Conference on October 20, 2016 where they attended a pre-conference and presented their papers in progress. The final product, as a result of this workshop, will be an academic paper that can be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication. Further details about this program may be viewed
here. The Center asked the visiting faculty to reflect on their time spent in UC Berkeley. These were recorded and can be viewed by clicking on the boxes on the right.
During the 2016 summer, Sheikh Waheed Baksh (MDP candidate and Chowdhury Center intern) traveled to Bangladesh and India to research the various stakeholders needed to adapt new technologies for arsenic remediation. Waheed primarily focused on three aspects of arsenic remediation efforts in Bangladesh and India: the current engineering capabilities, the role of the government, and the role of socially responsible businesses. In Bangladesh, he found that there was interest from all three sectors in adopting Professor Ashok Gadgil’s revolutionary technology, ElectroChemical Arsenic Remediation (ECAR). Waheed shared his findings through a presentation at the Center (here are links to the
PRESENTATION and event
PHOTOS). Additionally, Waheed has also been talking about these issues with middle school students through the
ORIAS Speakers Bureau, a program that brings UC Berkeley graduate students to Bay Area K-12 schools and community colleges.
As a result of Waheed's internship work in this area, the Chowdhury Center was selected by UC Berkeley to submit a Statement of Interest for the Sustainable diaspora Goals (SdG) Challenge to the US Department of State. We hope to have the opportunity to compete for funding to support arsenic remediation efforts in Bangladesh.
