Professor Wins $1 Million Prize for Providing Clean Water, One Village at a Time
February 26, 2007
Professor Abul Hussam's water filtering system is improving health and saving lives in developing countries. Most of his $1 million Grainger Challenge Award will go toward ensuring that even more people can benefit from clean water.
By Tara Laskowski
In the United States, turning on the tap and getting clean drinking water is something most people take for granted. We have the luxury of multimillion-dollar filtration systems and deep wells that pump toxin-free water to our homes.
However, in developing countries such as Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, shallow water wells are the norm for villages. Arsenic, a poisonous element, is naturally occurring in these tube-wells, and in Bangladesh alone, more than 18 million people are daily drinking arsenic-contaminated water.
Arsenic poisoning is a slow, painful process that can cause skin cancer, tumors and ultimately death. Affected people can have difficulty working or even walking, and continued exposure can lead to liver failure, kidney failure and the need for amputation of arms or legs.
Abul Hussam
For Bangladesh native Abul Hussam, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Mason for more than 20 years, this threat hits close to home. About 10 years ago, his brother, a medical doctor in Bangladesh, started to see the frightening consequences of arsenic poisoning in his village. He asked Hussam to help develop a way of measuring the arsenic levels in wells.
Measuring the Problem
Hussam did his PhD work in analytical chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. Developing an instrument to measure arsenic levels in drinking water was a perfect match for his interests.
He started with his own family’s well in Bangladesh. To his shock, he learned his family had been drinking water with three times the toxicity level of arsenic for more than 20 years, and there was a possibility his own father had died from arsenic poisoning.
“Measurement is absolutely critical – it is my strength and what brought me to this project – but once you know what you have, now the question is, ‘What can we do about it?’” says Hussam.
That’s when Hussam started looking at ways to build a filter to help provide safe drinking water for his family and neighbors. The challenges required looking at issues such as economy, environment and efficiency. Because Bangladesh is a developing country, the filter had to be inexpensive. Hussam also had to ensure that the materials used were safe for the environment and easy to obtain and reproduce.
After years of research and testing, Hussam and his brothers developed the SONO filter. Simple, inexpensive and made with easily available materials, the filter involves a top bucket, which is filled with locally available coarse river sand and a composite iron matrix (CIM). The sand filters coarse particles and imparts mechanical stability, while the CIM removes inorganic arsenic. The water then flows into a second bucket where it again filters through coarse river sand, then wood charcoal to remove organics, and finally through fine river sand and wet brick chips to remove fine particles and stabilize water flow.
A Distinguished Recognition
When Hussam learned the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) was offering a $1 million Grainger Challenge Award for water filtration systems that removed arsenic from drinking water, he knew his work was perfect for the contest.
After all, the systems had to be affordable, reliable, easy to maintain, socially acceptable and environmentally friendly. They had to meet or exceed the local government guidelines for arsenic removal and require no electricity – everything he had been working on for years.
Last week, he was proven correct. On Feb. 20, Hussam was awarded the Grainger Prize at a gala dinner held in Washington, D.C.
Hussam's water filter is simple, inexpensive and made with easily available materials.
Photos by Evan Cantwell
Three prizes were awarded by the NAE, with the support of the Grainger Foundation, from a field of 70 entries. The Silver Award went to the nonprofit Water for People and the Bronze Award was given to the Children's Safe Drinking Water Program at Procter & Gamble Co. Hussam won the Gold Award.
Hussam’s $1 million prize will go to George Mason Intellectual Properties Inc., (GMIP) a separate nonprofit corporation established to facilitate the transfer of new discoveries made at George Mason University. GMIP will distribute the majority of the award to a Bangladeshi nonprofit organization that will use the funds to increase its production, quality control and training capacities so more SONO filter units can reach Bangladeshi households more quickly. Most of the remainder will fund Hussam’s continuing research in removing toxic cations and anions from drinking water sources. GMIP will keep a small portion of the prize and will pay back the Chemistry Department, which generously funded the tests needed last summer to enable Hussam to enter the contest.
GMIP is also handling potentially still patentable matter in the SONO filter.
Seeing the Difference Firsthand
In 2000, the Hussam family started distributing the SONO filter in Bangladesh. They started with their own village, and donated many of the filters to schools with high arsenic levels in their water.
“At first, the people were not sure if they should listen to us,” said Hussam. But after talking to them about the water and showing them the filter – which cost only $35 and lasts at least five years – people started to believe.
“Now, we hear of women who want to use the filtered water to shampoo their hair because it makes it softer,” says Hussam. “And people say their tea tastes different and their rice is a different color. It’s been very interesting.”
Today, there are more than 30,000 of these filters in homes, schools and businesses in Bangladesh. Hussam hopes that with the prize money they can distribute the filter even more widely and help even more people.
He and his brothers have also seen hospital patients improve dramatically from arsenic poisoning by drinking the clean, filtered water.
“The most satisfying aspect of working on this project is seeing people drinking clean water from the SONO filter and feeling better, and for some, the melanosis [poisoning] has been reversed,” says Hussam. “It is truly gratifying to see results of our scientific knowledge at work in the field for the betterment of human conditions.”
Return to Main Gazette Page
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Reverse exodus: High-tech Indian immigrants returning home
========================
Reverse exodus: High-tech Indian immigrants returning home
By Mira Kamdar
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:05/13/2007 01:54:47 AM PDT
Sri Renganathan had made it in America - she owned a lovely home and had a good job with Intel. But three years ago, she and her husband decided to move back to India. They headed to Bangalore, her hometown, where she was able to keep her job with Intel, before moving on to a better position with another high-tech company. Her husband, who'd been laid off in the wake of the tech-bubble bust of 2001, started his own biotech consulting business.
"Ours was a one-way move," says Renganathan of her family's return to India. "We sold the house and packed up and came."
Renganathan and her husband are among the tens of thousands of Indians who, despite having more than achieved the American dream, are voting with their feet to return home.
This is not the mythic immigrant saga most Americans imagine. India's economic boom is now offering returning Indians things that simply didn't exist there when they left: U.S.-level salaries and an American lifestyle, including gated communities with manicured lawns and swimming pools, shopping malls filled with familiar brands, and international schools for their children.
Moreover, a low-cost, English-speaking workforce, a liberalizing economy that just hit a 9.2 percent annual growth rate, and the recent infusion of millions of dollars in venture capital and foreign direct investment have come together to create an environment many Indian entrepreneurs find hard to resist, especially when it is located in their home country.
No region of the United States has been more affected by this trend than Silicon Valley. The Indus Entrepreneur Group, known as TIE, estimated in 2003 that between 15,000 and 20,000 Indians had left Silicon Valley to return home. That strong trend has continued, with about 40,000 more returning in the last four years, according to Vish Mishra, a charter member of TIE and a senior venture partner with Clearstone Venture Partners.
The flow of investment capital to India also has expanded, much of it from Silicon Valley VC firms. Clearstone Venture Partners now has an office in Mumbai, as do many other firms that either are based in or originated in Silicon Valley. During the 12-month period that ended in August 2006, Mishra notes, VC firms invested $2 billion in early- and late-stage companies, and new India-focused VC funds raised a total of $3 billion.
Clearly, the flow of people and money to India from the Silicon Valley was not a one-time response to the tech-bubble bust. Should the valley be worried?
According to a report released earlier this year by Anna-Lee Saxenian of the University of California-Berkeley and by Duke University, Indians founded 15 percent of all Silicon Valley start-ups. The study also found that 53 percent of the science and engineering workforce in the valley is foreign-born, and that one-quarter of immigrant-founded engineering and scientific companies founded in the United States during the past decade were created by Indians. These companies rang up $52 billion in sales and created 450,000 jobs.
No wonder some business and policy leaders are sounding alarm bells about American competitiveness in general and Silicon Valley's future as a technology leader in particular.
There isn't a single major information-technology company in the United States that hasn't set up operations in India. IT companies are attracted by the low-cost, highly skilled workforce; 3.5 million white-collar U.S. jobs, along with $151 billion in wages, are expected to be outsourced by 2015, with India the top outsourcing destination, according to a report by Forrester Research.
But these tech companies also see a market of potentially epic proportions. Half of India's 1.2 billion people are younger than 25. That's 600 million people coming into their peak consuming years in an economy fueled primarily by exploding retail growth.
As Amar Babu of Intel India, where 15 percent of the workforce is made up of Indians who returned from the United States, explained, "Intel views India as a critical research and development site. At the same time, India is a consumption market for IT. A lot of future growth will come from these emerging markets."
In fact, India is moving beyond simply being attractive because of the obvious cost advantage of lower wages. As wages rise on the tide of higher demand for skilled workers, India is shifting its competitive advantage toward more and more sophisticated industry needs. This has led to a trend from call centers to back-office processing to cutting-edge engineering. India is no longer just one of the world's biggest buyers of commercial aircraft and pharmaceuticals; it also is emerging as a center for research and development in scientific and technological areas as diverse as aeronautics and biotechnology.
Yet India also faces a series of serious challenges it must overcome if it is to realize the promise of its renaissance as a global economic power. That China has huge advantages over India when it comes to infrastructure development is common knowledge. Overloaded roads, insufficient airport and port capacity, and woefully inadequate power are all potential roadblocks to India's advancing economic engine.
Education gap
On the human side, the situation is even worse. The information-technology industry in India has created 1 million jobs, which in turn are estimated to generate an additional 3.5 million jobs. But that's a drop in the bucket compared with the hundreds of millions of jobs India needs if it is to give its unemployed and underemployed the financial resources they need to participate in India's booming economy.
A cruel irony in India is that while a small proportion of the population is exquisitely educated and speaks English, the vast majority do not have these skills. Only one in 10,000 Indian students makes it to college. Few of those who get to college obtain a level of education equal to their aspirations - or equal to the needs of companies desperately looking for qualified workers. Of the more than 1 million Indian applicants for jobs at Indian tech giant Infosys last year, for example, less than 2 percent met the company's requirements.
More people live in absolute poverty in India than in any other country in the world. Malnutrition and illiteracy rates are among the world's highest. And India has the largest number of people infected with HIV: 5.7 million. India also is facing an environmental catastrophe, with some of the world's worst air and water pollution. And India, like most of the developing world, will be disproportionately affected by global warming.
In this contradiction between India as exploding tech leader and developing nation lies huge opportunities for Silicon Valley - opportunities it can leverage through its Indian workforce that is returning home to its native land.
There's only one way forward for India: innovation. India needs precisely the skill set Silicon Valley famously nurtures: the ability to think outside the box, and the daring to risk capital on new ideas. These solutions in turn will create products for the great untapped markets of the world. Face it: More people on the planet live in conditions that resemble those in India than those in the Menlo Park. The problems India is facing are global problems. How much the dynamic recirculation of money and talent between Silicon Valley and India focuses on solutions to these problems may determine how much Silicon Valley remains relevant and in the vanguard of a changing world.
In the age of cheap jet travel and digital communication, many of the Indians returning to India from Silicon Valley aren't leaving so much as expanding the sphere of their well-honed talents and networks beyond California. As Clearstone's Vish Mishra put it, "These people are building bridges, not burning them."
For Mishra, Silicon Valley's unique tradition of innovation and educational and research excellence, coupled with a free-wheeling entrepreneurial environment, cannot easily be duplicated. "The whole state of mind here is very difficult to replicate. India will try to come close to it but they don't have all the pieces," he says. "Indian-Americans are playing a big role in what is happening in India, but they are doing it because of what they have learned here and their connections here."
Valley connections
The immigrant talent from Asia that has been so much a part of Silicon Valley's success in the past will be critical to that success in the future, helping turn the valley into the hub of a vast network that relays talent and capital back and forth to new centers of innovation and market growth. The more Indians who leave Silicon Valley and renew linkages with their homeland, the more Silicon Valley will reap the benefits of having fostered an Indian immigrant population.
For Renganathan and her family, the transition back to India has had some bumps along the way. Real estate values shot up 300 percent before she and her husband were able to buy property in Bangalore. The daily commute in the city's famously hideous traffic is wearing. And their young daughter took some time to adjust to life in a country where she had never lived.
Still, Renganathan has no regrets. Her family is enjoying renewed closeness with their Indian relatives. They're building a new house. Their daughter now attends a local school where her best friends are children who, as she did, began their childhoods in America. (For more on Renganathan's experience moving back to India, visit her blog at: http://sribloremusings.blogspot
.com/)
At the same time, Renganathan confesses that "all my close friends are still in the U.S." She keeps up her professional contacts in the high-tech world in the United States and has traveled back to visit friends and family. While her daughter is happily adjusted now to her new life in India, Renganathan considers it temporary. "She thinks she'll go back to the U.S. for college," she says.
Reverse exodus: High-tech Indian immigrants returning home
By Mira Kamdar
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:05/13/2007 01:54:47 AM PDT
Sri Renganathan had made it in America - she owned a lovely home and had a good job with Intel. But three years ago, she and her husband decided to move back to India. They headed to Bangalore, her hometown, where she was able to keep her job with Intel, before moving on to a better position with another high-tech company. Her husband, who'd been laid off in the wake of the tech-bubble bust of 2001, started his own biotech consulting business.
"Ours was a one-way move," says Renganathan of her family's return to India. "We sold the house and packed up and came."
Renganathan and her husband are among the tens of thousands of Indians who, despite having more than achieved the American dream, are voting with their feet to return home.
This is not the mythic immigrant saga most Americans imagine. India's economic boom is now offering returning Indians things that simply didn't exist there when they left: U.S.-level salaries and an American lifestyle, including gated communities with manicured lawns and swimming pools, shopping malls filled with familiar brands, and international schools for their children.
Moreover, a low-cost, English-speaking workforce, a liberalizing economy that just hit a 9.2 percent annual growth rate, and the recent infusion of millions of dollars in venture capital and foreign direct investment have come together to create an environment many Indian entrepreneurs find hard to resist, especially when it is located in their home country.
No region of the United States has been more affected by this trend than Silicon Valley. The Indus Entrepreneur Group, known as TIE, estimated in 2003 that between 15,000 and 20,000 Indians had left Silicon Valley to return home. That strong trend has continued, with about 40,000 more returning in the last four years, according to Vish Mishra, a charter member of TIE and a senior venture partner with Clearstone Venture Partners.
The flow of investment capital to India also has expanded, much of it from Silicon Valley VC firms. Clearstone Venture Partners now has an office in Mumbai, as do many other firms that either are based in or originated in Silicon Valley. During the 12-month period that ended in August 2006, Mishra notes, VC firms invested $2 billion in early- and late-stage companies, and new India-focused VC funds raised a total of $3 billion.
Clearly, the flow of people and money to India from the Silicon Valley was not a one-time response to the tech-bubble bust. Should the valley be worried?
According to a report released earlier this year by Anna-Lee Saxenian of the University of California-Berkeley and by Duke University, Indians founded 15 percent of all Silicon Valley start-ups. The study also found that 53 percent of the science and engineering workforce in the valley is foreign-born, and that one-quarter of immigrant-founded engineering and scientific companies founded in the United States during the past decade were created by Indians. These companies rang up $52 billion in sales and created 450,000 jobs.
No wonder some business and policy leaders are sounding alarm bells about American competitiveness in general and Silicon Valley's future as a technology leader in particular.
There isn't a single major information-technology company in the United States that hasn't set up operations in India. IT companies are attracted by the low-cost, highly skilled workforce; 3.5 million white-collar U.S. jobs, along with $151 billion in wages, are expected to be outsourced by 2015, with India the top outsourcing destination, according to a report by Forrester Research.
But these tech companies also see a market of potentially epic proportions. Half of India's 1.2 billion people are younger than 25. That's 600 million people coming into their peak consuming years in an economy fueled primarily by exploding retail growth.
As Amar Babu of Intel India, where 15 percent of the workforce is made up of Indians who returned from the United States, explained, "Intel views India as a critical research and development site. At the same time, India is a consumption market for IT. A lot of future growth will come from these emerging markets."
In fact, India is moving beyond simply being attractive because of the obvious cost advantage of lower wages. As wages rise on the tide of higher demand for skilled workers, India is shifting its competitive advantage toward more and more sophisticated industry needs. This has led to a trend from call centers to back-office processing to cutting-edge engineering. India is no longer just one of the world's biggest buyers of commercial aircraft and pharmaceuticals; it also is emerging as a center for research and development in scientific and technological areas as diverse as aeronautics and biotechnology.
Yet India also faces a series of serious challenges it must overcome if it is to realize the promise of its renaissance as a global economic power. That China has huge advantages over India when it comes to infrastructure development is common knowledge. Overloaded roads, insufficient airport and port capacity, and woefully inadequate power are all potential roadblocks to India's advancing economic engine.
Education gap
On the human side, the situation is even worse. The information-technology industry in India has created 1 million jobs, which in turn are estimated to generate an additional 3.5 million jobs. But that's a drop in the bucket compared with the hundreds of millions of jobs India needs if it is to give its unemployed and underemployed the financial resources they need to participate in India's booming economy.
A cruel irony in India is that while a small proportion of the population is exquisitely educated and speaks English, the vast majority do not have these skills. Only one in 10,000 Indian students makes it to college. Few of those who get to college obtain a level of education equal to their aspirations - or equal to the needs of companies desperately looking for qualified workers. Of the more than 1 million Indian applicants for jobs at Indian tech giant Infosys last year, for example, less than 2 percent met the company's requirements.
More people live in absolute poverty in India than in any other country in the world. Malnutrition and illiteracy rates are among the world's highest. And India has the largest number of people infected with HIV: 5.7 million. India also is facing an environmental catastrophe, with some of the world's worst air and water pollution. And India, like most of the developing world, will be disproportionately affected by global warming.
In this contradiction between India as exploding tech leader and developing nation lies huge opportunities for Silicon Valley - opportunities it can leverage through its Indian workforce that is returning home to its native land.
There's only one way forward for India: innovation. India needs precisely the skill set Silicon Valley famously nurtures: the ability to think outside the box, and the daring to risk capital on new ideas. These solutions in turn will create products for the great untapped markets of the world. Face it: More people on the planet live in conditions that resemble those in India than those in the Menlo Park. The problems India is facing are global problems. How much the dynamic recirculation of money and talent between Silicon Valley and India focuses on solutions to these problems may determine how much Silicon Valley remains relevant and in the vanguard of a changing world.
In the age of cheap jet travel and digital communication, many of the Indians returning to India from Silicon Valley aren't leaving so much as expanding the sphere of their well-honed talents and networks beyond California. As Clearstone's Vish Mishra put it, "These people are building bridges, not burning them."
For Mishra, Silicon Valley's unique tradition of innovation and educational and research excellence, coupled with a free-wheeling entrepreneurial environment, cannot easily be duplicated. "The whole state of mind here is very difficult to replicate. India will try to come close to it but they don't have all the pieces," he says. "Indian-Americans are playing a big role in what is happening in India, but they are doing it because of what they have learned here and their connections here."
Valley connections
The immigrant talent from Asia that has been so much a part of Silicon Valley's success in the past will be critical to that success in the future, helping turn the valley into the hub of a vast network that relays talent and capital back and forth to new centers of innovation and market growth. The more Indians who leave Silicon Valley and renew linkages with their homeland, the more Silicon Valley will reap the benefits of having fostered an Indian immigrant population.
For Renganathan and her family, the transition back to India has had some bumps along the way. Real estate values shot up 300 percent before she and her husband were able to buy property in Bangalore. The daily commute in the city's famously hideous traffic is wearing. And their young daughter took some time to adjust to life in a country where she had never lived.
Still, Renganathan has no regrets. Her family is enjoying renewed closeness with their Indian relatives. They're building a new house. Their daughter now attends a local school where her best friends are children who, as she did, began their childhoods in America. (For more on Renganathan's experience moving back to India, visit her blog at: http://sribloremusings.blogspot
.com/)
At the same time, Renganathan confesses that "all my close friends are still in the U.S." She keeps up her professional contacts in the high-tech world in the United States and has traveled back to visit friends and family. While her daughter is happily adjusted now to her new life in India, Renganathan considers it temporary. "She thinks she'll go back to the U.S. for college," she says.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Tracking Hasan Elahi : Self-imposed surveillance : trackingtransience
Hasan Elahi is a Bangladesh-Born New Jersey artist & art professor. He was detained by the FBI and interviewed about every detail of his life. He now developed a web site to track every move of his life, for FBI or anyone else who might be interested. He hacked his cell phone and links it to his web page. Now his webpage show his where about in a GPS supported map. He is also posting photos of what he is seeing, eating and so on as alibi. He is logging every dollars he is spending and where. He turned around the whole situation, at least as it appears now. His biggest shortcoming is now his biggest asset as an artist. Very brilliant, good job!
-x86
=====================================
In the News:
CNN's Kiran Chetry talks to a man who developed software to track his
every move to prove he's not a terrorist. (May 30)
Video Link: http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/tech/2007/05/30/gps.on.line.alibi.elahi.cnn
ABC News reports:
Artist combats FBI profile by creating online alibi
Rebecca Lee
(5/30/07) - When the FBI started to track to every move of artist Hasan Elahi, he responded by giving his personal information to the whole world.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Elahi, like many minorities across the United States was flagged as a potential terrorist.
The Bangladesh-born, Brooklyn, NY-raised media artist often travels overseas for work, and with his Arab-sounding name and dark skin, Elahi found himself the subject of an FBI interrogation in June 2002.
He was detained and interrogated by airport and government officials while on his way back from a business trip in Dakar, Senegal.
Although he was cleared to enter the country, Elahi's travel nightmare was far from over. From June 2002 until December 2002, he was the subject of an ongoing U.S. government investigation, which included intense questioning, lie-detector tests and documentation of his every move.
"For six months, I had to justify every second my existence, proving to the FBI that I was not a terrorist or a terrorist threat of any kind," Elahi told ABC News. "So, after having to recount every detail of my life to the micro level, I said to myself, 'Why don't I just do this myself?'"
Elahi's experiment started slowly. He initially recorded his coordinates every couple of hours via a cell phone he had implanted with GPS software as a way of keeping the FBI informed of his whereabouts.
He then posted the information on his Web site, www.trackingtransience.net, and created a documentary art exhibition, "Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project," to make all his personal information, from his current location to his bank statements and telephone records available to the public.
"If you think about it, intelligence agencies are all based on the commodity of information and secrecy," said Elahi. "So, I started thinking & what if I just volunteer my information? What that does is make my FBI profile useless because everything you would want to know, now you can just come to me and cut out the middleman. I've basically become my own Big Brother."
'Everything's Out There'
In the past few years, Elahi's site has expanded, thanks in part to technological advances but also as a result of his dedication to this project.
"It's hard to say when this art project started, because it was a very organic process," he said. "It started out as just an image on a computer screen, then a map, then a little more detailed map, and now it's completely full blown to the point where you can dig out any little detail about my life. Everything's out there."
But there are some pieces of information he's keeping private. While Elahi photographs his meals and surroundings, his self-surveillance is not completely without bias.
Like any art project, the artist has the ability to shape the online profile he is creating of himself and does not include his own photo or images of his friends. From the pictures he chooses to post, to the locations he chooses to record, Elahi's "Tracking Transience" is really a reflection of how he would like to be defined.
"By taking matters into my own hands, I decided that I'm going to define myself based on my own information, not based on what someone else thinks I might be and this is really the center of this project. It's really all about identity management," explained Elahi.
Yet, he points out, the places you visit and the things you buy and eat, even when "managed," only show us a certain portion of a person's true self. "When you stitch together all this information you really know everything and nothing about me, because nowhere is my name, nowhere is my face, nowhere is there one actual thing that identifies me," said Elahi.
Ultimately, Elahi hopes his documentary experiment will serve a dual purpose. By keeping track of his records and whereabouts, he hopes to avoid any further involvement with the U.S. government and, second, by supplying the public with all his information, he hopes that people will question the ways in which our society is being tracked and policed, often without our knowledge or our consent.
"I'm hoping to take this [project] to such a point of absurdity that someone somewhere out there realizes, 'Hey, this isn't right. We shouldn't be living in a society where we have to do this,'" Elahi explained. "I'm just hoping that people start questioning, because if we don't, people won't even realize that [this kind of tracking] is even happening."
Source: http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=sci_tech&id=5354459&ft=print
-x86
=====================================
In the News:
CNN's Kiran Chetry talks to a man who developed software to track his
every move to prove he's not a terrorist. (May 30)
Video Link: http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/tech/2007/05/30/gps.on.line.alibi.elahi.cnn
ABC News reports:
Artist combats FBI profile by creating online alibi
Rebecca Lee
(5/30/07) - When the FBI started to track to every move of artist Hasan Elahi, he responded by giving his personal information to the whole world.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Elahi, like many minorities across the United States was flagged as a potential terrorist.
The Bangladesh-born, Brooklyn, NY-raised media artist often travels overseas for work, and with his Arab-sounding name and dark skin, Elahi found himself the subject of an FBI interrogation in June 2002.
He was detained and interrogated by airport and government officials while on his way back from a business trip in Dakar, Senegal.
Although he was cleared to enter the country, Elahi's travel nightmare was far from over. From June 2002 until December 2002, he was the subject of an ongoing U.S. government investigation, which included intense questioning, lie-detector tests and documentation of his every move.
"For six months, I had to justify every second my existence, proving to the FBI that I was not a terrorist or a terrorist threat of any kind," Elahi told ABC News. "So, after having to recount every detail of my life to the micro level, I said to myself, 'Why don't I just do this myself?'"
Elahi's experiment started slowly. He initially recorded his coordinates every couple of hours via a cell phone he had implanted with GPS software as a way of keeping the FBI informed of his whereabouts.
He then posted the information on his Web site, www.trackingtransience.net, and created a documentary art exhibition, "Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project," to make all his personal information, from his current location to his bank statements and telephone records available to the public.
"If you think about it, intelligence agencies are all based on the commodity of information and secrecy," said Elahi. "So, I started thinking & what if I just volunteer my information? What that does is make my FBI profile useless because everything you would want to know, now you can just come to me and cut out the middleman. I've basically become my own Big Brother."
'Everything's Out There'
In the past few years, Elahi's site has expanded, thanks in part to technological advances but also as a result of his dedication to this project.
"It's hard to say when this art project started, because it was a very organic process," he said. "It started out as just an image on a computer screen, then a map, then a little more detailed map, and now it's completely full blown to the point where you can dig out any little detail about my life. Everything's out there."
But there are some pieces of information he's keeping private. While Elahi photographs his meals and surroundings, his self-surveillance is not completely without bias.
Like any art project, the artist has the ability to shape the online profile he is creating of himself and does not include his own photo or images of his friends. From the pictures he chooses to post, to the locations he chooses to record, Elahi's "Tracking Transience" is really a reflection of how he would like to be defined.
"By taking matters into my own hands, I decided that I'm going to define myself based on my own information, not based on what someone else thinks I might be and this is really the center of this project. It's really all about identity management," explained Elahi.
Yet, he points out, the places you visit and the things you buy and eat, even when "managed," only show us a certain portion of a person's true self. "When you stitch together all this information you really know everything and nothing about me, because nowhere is my name, nowhere is my face, nowhere is there one actual thing that identifies me," said Elahi.
Ultimately, Elahi hopes his documentary experiment will serve a dual purpose. By keeping track of his records and whereabouts, he hopes to avoid any further involvement with the U.S. government and, second, by supplying the public with all his information, he hopes that people will question the ways in which our society is being tracked and policed, often without our knowledge or our consent.
"I'm hoping to take this [project] to such a point of absurdity that someone somewhere out there realizes, 'Hey, this isn't right. We shouldn't be living in a society where we have to do this,'" Elahi explained. "I'm just hoping that people start questioning, because if we don't, people won't even realize that [this kind of tracking] is even happening."
Source: http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=sci_tech&id=5354459&ft=print
Thursday, May 24, 2007
RE: Bangladesh parties oppose 33 percent women's quota
But it will not be possible to accommodate 33 percent female??
Why is this Mr. Jalil? Is it because we don’t have enough female in the country? Don’t we have enough educated female in the country? Can you show some data to support it? What the hell is Mahila League is doing? Who are those women?
"But taking part in field-level programmes and leading an organisation at different tiers are not the same thing". Hmmm.. really? Why not, why not. Let’s look at one interesting data, shall we?
Among many other gang-star and top corrupt, these are few known faces who won Mr. Jalil’s party nomination last canceled election:
Narayanganj-4 Shamim Osman
Feni-2 Khodeza Begum (sister of Joynal Hazari)
Barisal-1 Abul Hasnat Abdullah
Dhaka-8 Haji Mohammad Selim
Chandpur-2 Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya
Chittagong-12 Aktaruzzaman Babu and
We have not seen them in the street, in the public, or in the news conference over last 5 years. Why is that? Were they sick, or they are too shy? No, not really. They were in hiding, running from the law. All of a sudden, they pop up just in time before election, just at the time of nomination submission. And voiala, they win a party ticket!
Too bad, election was canceled. Guess what? Right after election was canceled, they were no where in the horizon. Why is that? They have some important work to do? Their hidden girl friend call to report back. Ohh no no no. They went to hiding because, police were looking for them. They are once again running from the law.
Now how did they won a party ticket? That’s a great mistry. What was the reason one of our begams (I call begam the lesser, but you can call begam the greater if you like) handed out these folks a party nomination?
So yes, “taking part in field-level programmes” is okay for women. But want to “lead an organisation at different tiers”, we need a gang lord, no kidding. Now women being gang lord to get a party ticket or party position, ha ha ha, even the most feminist won’t dream to claim that.
-x86
==============================
::In the news::
Bangladesh parties oppose 33 percent women's quota
Posted May 23rd, 2007 by TariqueMuslim World News By IANS
Dhaka : The two main political parties of Bangladesh have disapproved of the Election Commission's proposal to reserve 33 percent of nominations for women in elections, despite both being headed by women who have ruled the country.
The country's oldest political party the Awami League, headed by Sheikh Hasina, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Begum Khaleda Zia, expressed their reservations about the proposal, which the Election Commission and the interim government want to implement as part of electoral reforms.
Besides Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia, the two former prime ministers around whose rivalry Bangladesh's politics has revolved since the 1980s, the country has always had a plethora of women in public life. Their role has been relatively better than other South Asian countries, political analysts say.
Another cause of unhappiness is the electoral body's proposal to ban political parties from having youth or student fronts. Both the parties traditionally draw their cadres from these fronts.
"We generally support most of the commission's proposals to bring reforms in political parties. But it will not be possible to accommodate 33 percent female representatives in each and every committee," Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil was quoted as saying by the New Age newspaper.
Jalil drew a line between women's participation in political activities and their being nominated to contest elections. He argued that the commission might have put forth such a proposal considering the participation of women leaders and activists in street demonstrations.
"But taking part in field-level programmes and leading an organisation at different tiers are not the same thing," he remarked.
Sheikh Hasina has led the Awami League from the front since 1981 and electoral reforms have been high on her political agenda.
M.K. Anwar, vice president of BNP, linked the women's issue to the country's culture and to the urban-rural divide wherein, according to him, rural women do not participate in political activities.
The Communist Party of Bangladesh too found the commission's proposal "unrealistic". Its general secretary, Mujahidul Islam Selim, said the spirit of incorporating women in different committees is appropriate. "But the proposed percentage is unrealistic."
On the idea of banning student fronts, a former student leader pointed out to the role played by youth groups in national movements and said the ban was unreasonable.
"The student community played a pioneering role in different national movements and the initiative taken by a quarter of the interim government (to control student politics) is illogical," said Sultan Mansur, a former vice-president of the Dhaka University Central Students Union (DUCSU).
"Student politics will survive by its own strength and the students will not bow to any external pressure," he said.
Source:
http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2007/may/23/
bangladesh_parties_oppose_33_percent_womens_quota.html
Why is this Mr. Jalil? Is it because we don’t have enough female in the country? Don’t we have enough educated female in the country? Can you show some data to support it? What the hell is Mahila League is doing? Who are those women?
"But taking part in field-level programmes and leading an organisation at different tiers are not the same thing". Hmmm.. really? Why not, why not. Let’s look at one interesting data, shall we?
Among many other gang-star and top corrupt, these are few known faces who won Mr. Jalil’s party nomination last canceled election:
Narayanganj-4 Shamim Osman
Feni-2 Khodeza Begum (sister of Joynal Hazari)
Barisal-1 Abul Hasnat Abdullah
Dhaka-8 Haji Mohammad Selim
Chandpur-2 Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya
Chittagong-12 Aktaruzzaman Babu and
We have not seen them in the street, in the public, or in the news conference over last 5 years. Why is that? Were they sick, or they are too shy? No, not really. They were in hiding, running from the law. All of a sudden, they pop up just in time before election, just at the time of nomination submission. And voiala, they win a party ticket!
Too bad, election was canceled. Guess what? Right after election was canceled, they were no where in the horizon. Why is that? They have some important work to do? Their hidden girl friend call to report back. Ohh no no no. They went to hiding because, police were looking for them. They are once again running from the law.
Now how did they won a party ticket? That’s a great mistry. What was the reason one of our begams (I call begam the lesser, but you can call begam the greater if you like) handed out these folks a party nomination?
So yes, “taking part in field-level programmes” is okay for women. But want to “lead an organisation at different tiers”, we need a gang lord, no kidding. Now women being gang lord to get a party ticket or party position, ha ha ha, even the most feminist won’t dream to claim that.
-x86
==============================
::In the news::
Bangladesh parties oppose 33 percent women's quota
Posted May 23rd, 2007 by TariqueMuslim World News By IANS
Dhaka : The two main political parties of Bangladesh have disapproved of the Election Commission's proposal to reserve 33 percent of nominations for women in elections, despite both being headed by women who have ruled the country.
The country's oldest political party the Awami League, headed by Sheikh Hasina, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Begum Khaleda Zia, expressed their reservations about the proposal, which the Election Commission and the interim government want to implement as part of electoral reforms.
Besides Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia, the two former prime ministers around whose rivalry Bangladesh's politics has revolved since the 1980s, the country has always had a plethora of women in public life. Their role has been relatively better than other South Asian countries, political analysts say.
Another cause of unhappiness is the electoral body's proposal to ban political parties from having youth or student fronts. Both the parties traditionally draw their cadres from these fronts.
"We generally support most of the commission's proposals to bring reforms in political parties. But it will not be possible to accommodate 33 percent female representatives in each and every committee," Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil was quoted as saying by the New Age newspaper.
Jalil drew a line between women's participation in political activities and their being nominated to contest elections. He argued that the commission might have put forth such a proposal considering the participation of women leaders and activists in street demonstrations.
"But taking part in field-level programmes and leading an organisation at different tiers are not the same thing," he remarked.
Sheikh Hasina has led the Awami League from the front since 1981 and electoral reforms have been high on her political agenda.
M.K. Anwar, vice president of BNP, linked the women's issue to the country's culture and to the urban-rural divide wherein, according to him, rural women do not participate in political activities.
The Communist Party of Bangladesh too found the commission's proposal "unrealistic". Its general secretary, Mujahidul Islam Selim, said the spirit of incorporating women in different committees is appropriate. "But the proposed percentage is unrealistic."
On the idea of banning student fronts, a former student leader pointed out to the role played by youth groups in national movements and said the ban was unreasonable.
"The student community played a pioneering role in different national movements and the initiative taken by a quarter of the interim government (to control student politics) is illogical," said Sultan Mansur, a former vice-president of the Dhaka University Central Students Union (DUCSU).
"Student politics will survive by its own strength and the students will not bow to any external pressure," he said.
Source:
http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2007/may/23/
bangladesh_parties_oppose_33_percent_womens_quota.html
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Banglasesh: Local scientists develop diarrhoea vaccine
Local scientists develop diarrhoea vaccine
Staff Correspondent
Scientists in Bangladesh have developed a vaccine that can prevent diarrhoea caused by commonly found micro-organisms.
Experts described the achievement as a breakthrough in medical science as the vaccine will provide immunity from two most deadly and common bacteria--Vibrio cholerae and Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC).
These two bacteria cause about 55 percent diarrhoeal cases in the country, experts said at a press conference yesterday morning at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre at Agargaon in the capital.
Healthcare Pharmaceutical Ltd and SBL Vaccines of Sweden jointly organised the press conference.
Describing the launching of the vaccine as a milestone event, the experts said researches since 1985 reveal that once taken the vaccine acts as a shield for the body against any further attack of the two bacteria at least for two years.
In 1985, scientists of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh, (ICDDR,B) began testing the safety and efficacy of the vaccine at the institute's Dhaka hospital popularly known as Cholera Hospital.
ICDDR,B senior scientists Dr Firdousi Qadri, Dr Mohammad Yunus, Dr Abdus Salam, and Executive Director Dr David A Sack conducted the successful trials. Based on the results of their trials, the vaccine is now registered in over 50 countries. The vaccine was registered in Bangladesh in 2006.
The availability of the vaccine brand-named "Dukoral" may eventually save greater number of lives of especially children, the most common victims of the water-borne diseases, researchers said.
Already approved by the World Health Organisation and the country's Drug Administration, the vaccine is now popular among travellers as it prevents even the most severe attacks of the water-borne diseases.
Bangladesh is the only South Asian country where the vaccine has been registered as a therapeutic product.
The vaccine--to be taken in two doses 14 days apart--stops toxic agents released by attacking germs from entering intestine cells and thus averting diarrhoea trigger.
Dr Sack said, "I view the launching of the vaccine as an important event since it is being introduced for the first time in Bangladesh.
"Although its price is high, I am sure one day the vaccine will be within the reach of the general population like the oral saline," he added.
The vaccine, manufactured by Swedish pharmaceutical company SBL Vaccines, will be available only at approved vaccination centres across the country and one cycle or two doses will cost Tk 2,400. It must be preserved at 2-8 degrees Celsius temperature.
The vaccine is presently recommended for adults and children over two years of age. Recent studies in Bangladesh among infants and younger children show that the vaccine is safe and effective.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/04/13/d70413012214.htm
Staff Correspondent
Scientists in Bangladesh have developed a vaccine that can prevent diarrhoea caused by commonly found micro-organisms.
Experts described the achievement as a breakthrough in medical science as the vaccine will provide immunity from two most deadly and common bacteria--Vibrio cholerae and Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC).
These two bacteria cause about 55 percent diarrhoeal cases in the country, experts said at a press conference yesterday morning at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre at Agargaon in the capital.
Healthcare Pharmaceutical Ltd and SBL Vaccines of Sweden jointly organised the press conference.
Describing the launching of the vaccine as a milestone event, the experts said researches since 1985 reveal that once taken the vaccine acts as a shield for the body against any further attack of the two bacteria at least for two years.
In 1985, scientists of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh, (ICDDR,B) began testing the safety and efficacy of the vaccine at the institute's Dhaka hospital popularly known as Cholera Hospital.
ICDDR,B senior scientists Dr Firdousi Qadri, Dr Mohammad Yunus, Dr Abdus Salam, and Executive Director Dr David A Sack conducted the successful trials. Based on the results of their trials, the vaccine is now registered in over 50 countries. The vaccine was registered in Bangladesh in 2006.
The availability of the vaccine brand-named "Dukoral" may eventually save greater number of lives of especially children, the most common victims of the water-borne diseases, researchers said.
Already approved by the World Health Organisation and the country's Drug Administration, the vaccine is now popular among travellers as it prevents even the most severe attacks of the water-borne diseases.
Bangladesh is the only South Asian country where the vaccine has been registered as a therapeutic product.
The vaccine--to be taken in two doses 14 days apart--stops toxic agents released by attacking germs from entering intestine cells and thus averting diarrhoea trigger.
Dr Sack said, "I view the launching of the vaccine as an important event since it is being introduced for the first time in Bangladesh.
"Although its price is high, I am sure one day the vaccine will be within the reach of the general population like the oral saline," he added.
The vaccine, manufactured by Swedish pharmaceutical company SBL Vaccines, will be available only at approved vaccination centres across the country and one cycle or two doses will cost Tk 2,400. It must be preserved at 2-8 degrees Celsius temperature.
The vaccine is presently recommended for adults and children over two years of age. Recent studies in Bangladesh among infants and younger children show that the vaccine is safe and effective.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/04/13/d70413012214.htm
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