Study UK Alumni Awards 2020-21

Ashik Chowdhury - London Business School

Having recently relocated back from London to add value and contribute in emerging markets, Ashik leads sustainable finance for HSBC Bangladesh, an issue he is very passionate about. Last year, one of his deals won Best Sustainable Finance Deal of The Year by The Asset Triple A. He is also working with his colleagues to introduce new financial instruments that would enable Bangladesh to graduate to a middle income economy. Ashik left Bangladesh a decade ago for London Business School and has since worked on Restructuring, M&A and Corporate Strategy. He is also a CFA Charterholder.

Outside work, Ashik tries to share his knowledge and experience by teaching at an University as Adjunct Professor and acting as a mentor in UN Young SDG Program. During the pandemic, Ashik co-founded a crowdfunding charity to help the marginalized. Through the platform, they were able to help more than 5,000 individuals ranging from Uber drivers to homeless children.

“My time in the UK had a profound impact in shaping me as an individual. London Business School and subsequent work experience equipped me with the advanced market knowledge that I am now able to apply as best practice. More importantly, the diversity, heritage, culture and deep rotted British values like tolerance really helped me see the world through different lenses.” – Ashik Chowdhury

Zahin Razeen - University of Glasgow

Razeen is a deep-tech futurist on a mission to drive the world towards closed-loop systems based industry 5.0  through renewable innovations where the high-speed accuracy of industrial automation will undergo symbiosis with the cognitive, critical thinking skills of humans. Endorsed as a future world changer by the University of Glasgow and as one of the 17  young Leader for the SDG's by the United Nation, he underwent a paradigm shift pursuing mathematical sciences. 

"Starving children, slums without clean water and sanitation, hopeless prospects for employment, amid a growing youth population.  What if instead of trying to eradicate signs of poverty we focused on creating lasting prosperity. This question led me to a path of exploration of renewable innovation. Over the last three years, I deeply researched hydro-informatics, computational engineering, linguistics and biomimicry to reimagine the status quo of tackling grand challenges. I began working on building breadth+depth in all areas related to creating a closed system living space."

The journey began in 2018  at the Hague One Young World Summit with founding Hydroquo+ Bangladesh's first R&D based Hydro-Informatics up-start which develops, executes and manages specialist consultancy project in the fields of monitoring, hydrodynamic modelling, water quality modelling, operational management systems and solutions which relate to chronic water issues.

Dr. Nilufar Fatema - Imperial College London

Dr. Nilufar Fatema has always been keen to devote her education, training and experience to the services of the less privileged. In Bangladesh, where a large section of people, particularly women are not in a socio-economic stage where they can afford or access quality health care, Dr. Nilufar’s strong focus and relentless initiatives has been to serve them as a specialist medical practitioner and also through various other community services. Not only in the capital Dhaka, where she lives, but also in Rajapur, a small village in rural Bangladesh, she reaches out frequently to stand by the people who has less to make their lives better.

"I believe that in addition to high-quality education, I have learned a lot about work ethics, moral values and has gained a very high-quality experience from her teachers at Imperial College, who are experts of global stature. I remember with profound gratitude how my teachers motivated me to do social work. The stories of my teachers at Imperial on how every year they go to under-developed countries and sacrifice their annual leave to do some charity work, has enormously encouraged me to go for charity work in rural parts of Bangladesh and serve the disadvantage people of the society." – Dr. Nilufar Fatema.

Dr. Nilufar is also a founding member of ‘Professor Mannan Sriti Shongshod’, a government registered social welfare organization. Under this charity, she runs Free Friday clinic for the poor in the urban area of Dhaka. During Covid 19 pandemic, she has also taken special initiatives to distribute free face masks, hand gloves, plastic face shields and PPE among primary health workers and front-line workers.

Dr. Nilufar is an active member of ‘Bangladesh Heart & Health Research Foundation’ which is registered by the government of Bangladesh. Through this organization, she takes part in arranging various free hearth camps and free cardiac investigations projects for poor in urban area. This charity also involves in research in health sector. 

Dr. Nilufar firmly believes that her education and training at Imperial College London in the UK has been a life changing experience for her and application of the knowledge and skills that she gained from her education in the UK has been the key to the success of her professional and social works.