My Other Selves
My Other Selves
Me as a writer : at the intersection of fiction and non-fiction
I first got published in my college magazine, also wrote for some lit mags. In my online writings and blogs I talk about Dhaka : the city of my belonging and separateness. My pieces on social media has often worked as opinion-makers and made me a micro-influencer eventually. Two of my short stories : Gormanush Totto ( The theory of averageness) and Sepia color er ekti adorsho bishonno bikel ( An evening of melancholy) was published from Afsar Brothers in a series compilation.
My write up titled ‘Storytelling Classroom’ was selected as one of the top entries in an international competition named ‘A paper for Progress’ organized by EDGE, the foundation in 2018 and I was awarded the richest prize in Bangladesh for writing an essay. In 2012, I was Champion in an online essay contest on Population and Development organized by UNFPA in 2012 and was featured in national dailies like Prothom Alo. In 2011, I was selected as a delegate in Bangladesh Children’s Film Festival supported by UNICEF for composing a story. In these write-ups, I talked about various issues like empathy, macro development ideas and history of our independence war.
I first got published in my college magazine, also wrote for some lit mags. In my online writings and blogs I talk about Dhaka : the city of my belonging and separateness. My pieces on social media has often worked as opinion-makers and made me a micro-influencer eventually. Two of my short stories : Gormanush Totto ( The theory of averageness) and Sepia color er ekti adorsho bishonno bikel ( An evening of melancholy) was published from Afsar Brothers in a series compilation.
My write up titled ‘Storytelling Classroom’ was selected as one of the top entries in an international competition named ‘A paper for Progress’ organized by EDGE, the foundation in 2018 and I was awarded the richest prize in Bangladesh for writing an essay. In 2012, I was Champion in an online essay contest on Population and Development organized by UNFPA in 2012 and was featured in national dailies like Prothom Alo. In 2011, I was selected as a delegate in Bangladesh Children’s Film Festival supported by UNICEF for composing a story. In these write-ups, I talked about various issues like empathy, macro development ideas and history of our independence war.
Year 2012Taking prize from UNFPA Country representative
Year 2016My first story published on National Book Fair
Year 2017Received huge appraisal from prominent academicians for my essay
Year 2017My second story got published in this anthology
Me as a Debater and Organizer
I ended my debating career as a General Secretary of BUET debating club. In my tenure, I participated in wide range of internal and external club level competitions. I was consecutive finalist of Inter Faculty Debate Tournament was awarded as the Debater of the Tournament in 2016. I represented Ahsanullah Hall inter hall tournaments and also in National Television Debate Championship. I had also been a part of BUET Contingent in RV Debate Championship, Bangalore, India.
As a debater of BUET Debating Club, I appeared on national TV channels to engage with Information minister and Water Resource minister and many other policy makers in different talk-shows.
I was a debate organizer and led two major events in my undergrad. a) Essence: 25 years celebration of BUET Debating club and b) Paradigm Shift: 10th BUETDC National Debate Championship. I played the role of event-philosopher for both the events, made statements of purpose, innovated newer things to engage the audience and collaborated with my team to make these great events happen. Besides, I conceptualized multiple events inviting academicians and intellectuals for public talks in the university campus using my club platform. Our events used to get much attention from the national dailies on regular basis.
I was also the editor of the yearly magazine of the club ‘Boidurja’ in its 2017 publication and editing adviser in 2018. I also wrote on BUETDC blog. In Notre Dame Debating Club, I was the Champion of Inter group Debate Championship in 2011 and experienced how to organize the biggest debate festival in Bangladesh in club level being part of a magnificent team.
I ended my debating career as a General Secretary of BUET debating club. In my tenure, I participated in wide range of internal and external club level competitions. I was consecutive finalist of Inter Faculty Debate Tournament was awarded as the Debater of the Tournament in 2016. I represented Ahsanullah Hall inter hall tournaments and also in National Television Debate Championship. I had also been a part of BUET Contingent in RV Debate Championship, Bangalore, India.
As a debater of BUET Debating Club, I appeared on national TV channels to engage with Information minister and Water Resource minister and many other policy makers in different talk-shows.
I was a debate organizer and led two major events in my undergrad. a) Essence: 25 years celebration of BUET Debating club and b) Paradigm Shift: 10th BUETDC National Debate Championship. I played the role of event-philosopher for both the events, made statements of purpose, innovated newer things to engage the audience and collaborated with my team to make these great events happen. Besides, I conceptualized multiple events inviting academicians and intellectuals for public talks in the university campus using my club platform. Our events used to get much attention from the national dailies on regular basis.
I was also the editor of the yearly magazine of the club ‘Boidurja’ in its 2017 publication and editing adviser in 2018. I also wrote on BUETDC blog. In Notre Dame Debating Club, I was the Champion of Inter group Debate Championship in 2011 and experienced how to organize the biggest debate festival in Bangladesh in club level being part of a magnificent team.
Debating moments on BTV
I was (almost) a full-time anchor for my club and department
Adjudicating is also a hard task
Received (not) a lot of prizes, but memories seem more important at this stage
I co-created the idea of debatathon deliberately mixing debate, policy thinking and hackathon
I miss those sleepless nights in publishing house for this magazine
Asking questions to the energy minister about research allocation in national budget
Okay, we definitely had gossips and fun in the club!
Bob Dylan was the theme person for this event, that's how I used to philosophise a random debate programme
Me as a half-artist
I design ideas but take help from people to realise them. If you consider cooking as art, I've tried that too.
The diversified cirles are staying together resembling pluralism. Suddenly after 24 circles, there comes the special one : 25 with a peaceful red color to celebrate co-existence.
This logo definitely has an ambiguity and it will leave you feeling perplexed representing the current unstable state of the world. It may not be an eye or may be it is with an eternal longing for a beautiful world. Emon Kalyan help me with this logo.
long before in 2013, I designed the cover of this Notre Debate Club magazine which reflects how we are chained by the new imperialism in the context of global spring of change. Mahfuz helped me a lot to implement this idea that time.
I designed the cover of this book by writer Mahfuz Siddique Himalay Interestingly, this is the first book in Bangladesh which doesn't have any name.
How to hope and be grateful
It has been a privilege a to be in such a wonderful network of people. This is how I prepared myself.
In 2014, I joined as a delegate at Youth Leadership Summit organized by Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC) with other 500 delegates and 50 speakers from around the world for 3 days of knowledge sharing, leadership training and global networking.
In 2015, I worked as an organizer of ‘Sorob Shwar’, a series of talks connecting the youths with the emerging experts from different sectors in Bangladesh. It was under the platform of an online forum, and played a key role in polpularsing public talk culture here.
In 2017, I secured a funded international Participation for Asia Urban Youth Assembly (AUYA) in Melaka, Malaysia as a Young leader from Bangladesh. The discussions at the assembly have examined the potential areas for youth contribution to New Urban Agenda for 2030.
In 2018, I joined a round table discussion regarding the challenges of young people in upcoming fourth Industrial Revolution era as a youth representative along with some sector experts, practitioners and some young Bangladeshi graduates from Ivy leagues.
The best way to learn is to share.
Here is how I deliver.
Engineering Students Association of Bangladesh (ESAB) organised a competition for the students across the country 'Mindshift: Inspiring Transcendence'. As part of this, I talked on a session at BUET about my case on 'IDPs, WASH and Identity'
House of Volunteers runs a series of workshops for their volunteers under 'Skillshop', I took two sessions for them, one regarding 'Basics of Content Writing: Sophisticated Simplicity' and the other one is its follow up, on 'Visual Storytelling'.
I joined Youth Policy Forum's conference themed 'Future of the state: equality of opportunities' as a young professional and presented Infrastructure and environment related recommendations on behalf of the policy lab I co-guided on the program.
During this COVID-19 period, I joined with my peers to co-create a online platform Youth Alliance for Technology to evoke discussions around technology for development among the young people in Bangladesh. We recently had a talk on future of tech through Facebook live.