What is the working policy for this scholarship program?

1. Awardees must be the enrolled postgraduate students of EEE.

2. The awards will be given twice every year- at the beginning of each semester. The award disbursed in April semester will be named ‘Prof. Mohammad Ali Choudhury Memorial Award’ and the award disbursed in October semester will be named ‘EEE Alumni Excellence Award.’

3. The applicants must have an assigned Thesis supervisor. The application will be forwarded by the Thesis supervisor and the Head of the Department of EEE.

4. M.Sc. Engg students can apply only once for this award, whereas Ph.D. students can apply twice.

5. The application will be accompanied by a 1-page proposal mentioning the research background and motivation, objectives, methodology and possible outcomes.

6. Selection process will be based on the following criteria:

   1. Priority will be given to the applicants whose Thesis supervisor’s students have not received this award before.

   2. If none of all the applicants fall under ‘criteria a,’ selection will be based on outcomes of previous awardees of the Thesis supervisor

   3. If multiple applicants are on equal standing as per ‘criteria,’ selection will be based on UG CGPA, PG CGPA and merit of the proposal.

What is the amount of scholarship?

Every year in the beginning of April semester, one student/ students will be the recipient(s) of Prof. Mohammad Ali Choudhury Memorial scholar and in the beginning of October semester, one student/ students will be the recipient(s) of EEE Alumni Excellence scholar. The award money will be approximately 30,000 BDT/month for three academic semesters for MSc Engg./Ph.D. students. Based on performance, Ph.D. students will have the opportunity to apply for the renewal of the award for another three academic semesters. Awardees will also receive a certificate signed by the Head of the Department of EEE (ex-officio) as well. The cost involved in the certification process will be carried out by the scholarship fund.

What is the amount allocation for Mohammad Ali Choudhury Power Electronics Laboratory development?

20% of the collected funds (up to 50 lac BDT) will be utilized for the development of ‘Mohammad Ali Choudhury Power Electronics Laboratory.’ It can be noted that BUET EEE Department has prepared a proposal for establishing this laboratory with the approval of BUGS (Board of Undergraduate Studies). The proposed funds will help to complete the project.

Who will decide the scholarship recipients?

The scholarship recipients will be selected by a working committee through blind review process. This working committee will be comprised of the following members:

1. Head or a designated member by the Head of the Department of EEE (Ex-officio).

2. Two or three EEE alumni who are working as faculty members in universities abroad.

3. Among the alumni serving outside BUET, Dr. Md Maruf Hossain (2000 batch), Dr. SM Moududul Islam (2000 batch) and Dr. Md Shofiqul Islam Khan (2007 batch) will serve in the selection committee. For the replacement or inclusion of new alumni (serving outside BUET) in the selection committee, current serving members from the alumni and the working committee will work together in the future.

4. One faculty member outside BUET designated by Ankur Foundation.

This committee will finalize the list of scholarship recipients at the end of each semester.

How do we plan to collect money and provide to BUET?

We aim to gather $100-$1000 from each of the alumni members and aim for approximately 750 donors to raise an initial fund of $150,000-$500,000. The scholarship fund will be raised through communication with alumni of EEE/EE-BUET who are working in various professions throughout the world. A committee comprised of dedicated alumni of EEE-BUET and approved by the above working committee will be in-charge of the fund-raising effort with help of Ankur International, and Ankur Foundation (a sister concern of Ankur International in Bangladesh). A simple one-page website will be created and maintained with information about the mission/vision, committee details, list of scholarship recipients, link to donate money to the fund etc. It is the best if this page can be directly linked to the webpage of EEE-BUET as a separate tab under ‘Giving back or Donate’ header so that the donors can be comfortable in donating money for the departmental cause. One who wants to donate can follow the subsequent ways-

-go to eee.buet.ac.bd page and find the link to the project webpage

-will find the link to donate through Ankur International from the project webpage

-foreign alumni members can use PayPal/debit/credit cards, members in Bangladesh can use ‘sslcommerz’ link for the same. The donor info like name, HSC/intermediate batch, contact details, donation amount will be recorded for book-keeping purposes only.

-Donors will receive a copy of receipt after donation is complete

-Donors will have the option to choose between $100/$200/$300/$500/$750/$1000 or custom amount as their donation

-Donors residing in Bangladesh will be able to directly deposit their donations to the Sonali Bank, BUET branch as described below.

How do we maintain the fund?

A new bank account will be created at Sonali Bank, BUET with name: “EEE Alumni Award” for this scholarship plus the lab development fund.

1. Designated personnel from BUET (preferably the Comptroller of BUET and Head of the Department of EEE (Ex-officio)) will be allowed to sign to withdraw money from this account.

2. The money collected from the donors will be transferred to this account through Ankur International.

3. EEE Department of BUET will update the information related to the scholarship recipients and the balance sheet of the account on the project webpage associated with this fund in every semester. It will help the alumni to get the idea about the current standing of the funds and transparency of the expenditure.

4. We aim to raise a fund of $150,000-$500,000 from donors to start the scholarship process. Initially 20% of the collected funds (up to 50 lac BDT) will be utilized for the development of ‘Mohammad Ali Choudhury Power Electronics Laboratory.’ Rest of the amounts will be deposited as a fixed deposit and this money won’t ever be withdrawn to provide any other form of scholarship to the students or institutional or departmental welfare.

5. The expense of the scholarship will be carried out by the profit of the entire fixed deposited money. The scholarship money will be gathered based on the annual profit/loss (not interest) from this fixed deposit. The fixed deposit will use the profit-loss based mudaraba system. This is to ensure that the donors are comfortable in donating money to the fund since many alumni may not be comfortable in dealing with interest-based banking method.

6. The beneficiary of this fund can only be the students of the department of EEE of BUET.

What is the budget for three scholarship recipients?

The total number of scholarships can be correctly determined after receiving donations from the alumni. However, the following table provides an idea about the required contributions for supporting three scholarships. In addition to the scholarship funds, a one-time fund of $60,000 is required to support ‘Mohammad Ali Choudhury Power Electronics Laboratory’ development.