I go to the Goldman School of Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley, and I get tons of emails requesting for information on the application process. I thought it's best to put everything in a blog post. Between working at One Degree Initiative Foundation, the countless coaching centers and the numerous Facebook groups, I … Continue reading Applying to Grad Schools in the U.S.
A Non-Engineer’s Year in Silicon Valley
In April 2011, my organization from Bangladesh signed a contract with Khan Academy and their partners, Agami from the U.S. to translate and localize their education content in Bangladesh. It took nearly seven months to finalize the deal, meticulously reviewing the requirements, capacity to execute and leadership of the contract. A social enterprise working in … Continue reading A Non-Engineer’s Year in Silicon Valley
Musings #1
To this day, I have had 6 near-death experiences. The funny thing about nearly dying is that you don't feel like it's about to happen -- it feels uneventful and can be summed up in the sensation of a microsecond. I had often felt I was dying when I had a migraine pain or a … Continue reading Musings #1
#4
I discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature. I discovered … Continue reading #4
#3
He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
#2
But the subject of war never came up until Billy brought it up himself. Somebody in the zoo crowd asked him through the lecturer what the most valuable thing he had learned on Tralfamadore was so far, and Billy replied, “How the inhabitants of a whole planet can live in peace! As you know, I … Continue reading #2
#1
Each clump of symbol is a brief, urgent message -- describing a situation, a scene. We Tralfamadorians read them all once, not one after the other. There isn't a particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that when seen all at once, they produce an image of … Continue reading #1
Why Tech Demands a Gender Balance
In a recent Forbes survey, it was found nearly 40% of the U.S. tech industry has females, while in San Francisco, only 22.9% of the workforce is female. This is a gaping disparity -- but more importantly and in my opinion, an definition problem. Technology is largely seen limited to hardware and software, so if … Continue reading Why Tech Demands a Gender Balance
The Girl who Loved Dogs
Photo: Ata Mohammad Adnan I met Sumaiya on February 2015 while working on a project in Dhanmondi. Sumaiya is the 'mother' of 11 beautiful street dogs and she has named all of them. Lali, Boltu, Tommy, Rocky-do, Tiger, Shadhu, Bagha, Tutu, Jimmy, Kalu and their little pups come running to play and nibble your fingers … Continue reading The Girl who Loved Dogs
Some Dreams Should Never Die
I have been waiting for this day for a long time. Floating little paper boats of dreams. Being in Dhaka in winter means you don’t get much water. Our only option was Dhanmondi Lake (because we both live close to it) and so we decided to pile up all our enthusiasm on a sunny November … Continue reading Some Dreams Should Never Die
