Category : Bangladesh

Rajeeb Samdani: Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh, from the Pandemic to the Future

Jun 18, 2020 | Announcements, Bangladesh, Community, News

Recently, the Mittal Institute held a webinar to delve into entrepreneurship in South Asia amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We spoke with webinar panelist Rajeeb Samdani — Managing Director of Golden Harvest Group, Co-Founder and Trustee of the Samdani Art Foundation, and a member of the Mittal Institute’s Arts Advisory Council — to learn more about how the pandemic has impacted business in Bangladesh, as well as the nation’s many unique qualities that have quickly made it an economic powerhouse in the region.

Confronting the Economic Challenges of COVID-19

Apr 23, 2020 | Announcements, Bangladesh, In Region, India, News

Recently, Dr. Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School and the Director of the Mittal Institute, addressed an online audience of more than 15,000 youth at the South Asia Youth Resilience Summit organized by Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC).

What Does It Take to Grow the World’s Largest NGO?

Mar 12, 2020 | Announcements, Bangladesh, Community, In Region, News

Last week, Muhammad Musa, Executive Director of BRAC International, visited the Mittal Institute to speak with Tarun Khanna, Director of the Mittal Institute and Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at Harvard Business School. Together, they uncovered the effort it takes for BRAC to continue expanding on its role as the world’s largest NGO.

Empowering the Rohingya Refugee Community Through Design

Mar 5, 2020 | Announcements, Bangladesh, In Region, News, Students

With the support of the Winter Travel Grant, I traveled through Bangladesh for over 30 days during December 2019 and January 2020. I was accompanied by my research partner, John David Wagner, an Irving Innovation Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. During our trip, we carried out extensive field research in Bangladesh to inquire if the very nature of the spatial quality of refugee camps contributes to keeping the inhabitants of these urban dwellings marginalized for many generations.

Fatima Zahra: Improving the Wellbeing of Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Feb 27, 2020 | Announcements, Associates, Bangladesh, News

Fatima Zahra, Research Affiliate at the Mittal Institute and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard University, has been working to design and implement socially responsible programs to address the loss of human potential and enhance life outcomes among the most marginalized. Recently, she was in Bangladesh for about three months to work at the Rohingya refugee camps and uncover ways to improve the mental and fiscal wellbeing of the refugees who live there.

TraumaLink Provides Rapid Emergency Response in Bangladesh

Jan 16, 2020 | Announcements, Bangladesh, In Region, News

TraumaLink was founded in 2013 as a volunteer-based emergency response system providing free care to traffic injury victims in Bangladesh. Recently, in November 2019, the organization celebrated its five year anniversary. The project grew out of a winter session trip that brought together three Harvard T.H. Chan students: Jon Moussally, Eric Dunipace, and Ryan Fu. During their time in Dhaka, they met Mridul Chowdhury, CEO of mPower Social Enterprises, Ltd., who holds an MPA in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Architectural and Urban Ecosystems in Bangladesh’s Rohingya Refugee Camps

Sep 26, 2019 | Announcements, Bangladesh, Blog, In Region, News, Students

By Tommy Schaperkotter. This summer I traveled to Bangladesh to survey and conduct fieldwork in the Rohingya refugee camps located in the Ukhiya and Teknaf regions, adjacent to the country’s border with Myanmar. I am pursuing this research as a component of a publication and my master’s thesis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, which addresses the architectural and urban patterns of refugee settlements created in the wake of forced migration that has engendered a humanitarian crisis heretofore unprecedented. This crisis is often explained as one of refugees, but not always as one of refuge, of architectural spaces where the voices, memories, and capabilities of people are held in abeyance, precluded from substantive participation in the creation of their own built environment.

Ira A. Jackson: Bangladesh Is Paving a New and Distinctive Path of Progress

Sep 19, 2019 | Announcements, Bangladesh, Community, Faculty, News

The following transcript contains the remarks given by Ira A. Jackson, Visiting Lecturer on Sociology at Harvard University, at the conclusion of the Mittal Institute’s Bangladesh Rising Conference on September 16, 2019.

Gary Bass: Development and the Legacy of the 1971 War in Bangladesh

Sep 5, 2019 | Announcements, Bangladesh, News

Bangladesh is growing rapidly — both in population size and its economy. Its rich and complex history continues to guide its growth and development today, creating a thriving mix of cultures and ideals. We spoke with Gary Bass — a keynote speaker at our upcoming Bangladesh Rising conference, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and author of The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide — to learn his perspective on the current state of Bangladesh’s politics, economics, and humanitarian efforts.

Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Bangladesh?

Aug 22, 2019 | Announcements, Bangladesh, News

Bangladesh has a complicated history, existing under many names and empires — sometimes independently, other times as a colony or kingdom. Its borders have been drawn and redrawn extensively over the past 4,000 years. At different points in its history, this small section of South Asia repelled Greek invaders, housed a series of Indian dynasties, was conquered by an Islamic empire, supported multiple Hindu kingdoms, was colonized by Europe, and regained its independence as a modern nation.

Rohingya Refugee Crisis: Can Architecture Create a Place to Heal?

May 13, 2019 | Announcements, Bangladesh, In Region, News, Students

At Harvard’s latest Arts First Festival, Mittal Institute student grant recipients Nadyeli Quiroz and John David Wagner unveiled their Living Form sunshade project — an installation that will eventually make its way to a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh.

Exploring the Centuries-Old Ruins of Bangladesh

Apr 3, 2019 | Announcements, Arts Program, Bangladesh, In Region, News

Though it might have been the jetlag, my recent field trip to the Paharpur World Heritage and archaeological site in Naogaon District in northern Bangladesh did not feel like my first visit. As a second-year graduate student in the department of History of Art and Architecture, I had written a seminar paper on the vast Buddhist monastery last fall for a class on esoteric Buddhist art and had spent days hunched over site plans, maps, and photographs of the ninth-century complex.