BONY Podcast

In this episode, Tawhid takes us through his incredible journey—from growing up in Japan as a Bengali to moving to America and overcoming challenges, all the way to his current role as a Staff Software Engineer at IBM. Tune in, and be inspired.

Faizan Ahmed is the Co-founder and Head of Machine Learning for Headstarter, a large community of software engineers all around the Earth. The following is a conversation with Faizan, on his journey in tech, and his experience being a Desi in New York City. 

Nabeel is a Senior Product Manager at Amazon, as well as being a startup mentor, and a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School. In this episode, we get to see the Bengali side of Nabeel, as well as his career journey being a product manager.

Season 5 - Episode 12: Md Jabed Uddin, came in USA at a very early stage and lives in Astoria with his family.

 He is also General Secretary of MoulviBazar District Society. He is a man from Moulvibazar and actively doing his social work. Now become well known for his social activities in NYC.

As a General Secretary, Mr. Jabed Uddin is doing excellent job and trying to make AWS, a number one organizations in NYC. He does actively many community based foods distribution like halal boxes, masks, hand sanitizers in different places in NYC.

Community activists and is a very well known community friend and a people person.

Season 5 - Episode 11: I feel like in my upbringing, alongside having to study really hard in school, I feel like there's this sort of nurturing care put into having some sort of artistic ability. Be it painting or singing or playing an instrument. For me, it was playing the violin. I grew up playing the violin since I was five years old. My mom would play the harmonium, and I have an uncle who plays guitar. I was in orchestra my whole life and I used to play the violin doing solo repertoire stuff as well as group orchestra stuff for a really long time. But when I got into high school, I found it to be quite unsatisfying only because I was performing music that was already written hundreds of years ago, which I have great respect for. I have great respect for all the composers and classical musicians, but I wasn't feeling like I was just getting anything out of it at a certain age. It was then that I started writing music. I felt that in school, you would take English classes where you would learn how to read and write. You would read books and write about the books, such as analysis papers, etc, but with music, you only learn how to read and perform. We never learned how to write. I felt like that was an itch that needed to be scratched. It was just something that was in me that I needed to learn. 

Listen to the entire conversation with Jai Wolf on the BoNY Podcast.

Available on all Podcast platforms and on BengalisofNewyork.com/bony-podcast. Subscribe and share. Link in bio. Also, Amazon Alexa/Echo knows us! Just say, “Alexa, play BoNY Podcast.

Season 5 - Episode 10: Even though sex education is such an everyday aspect of our life because it can impact a person from the moment that they're born to their death bed. Because it's such an everyday part of our lives, I thought it was really integral to only have this information in Bangla, because it's meant for aunties, it's meant for uncles, it's meant for our parents. It's meant for people back home. I can't even begin to tell you the kinds of questions that I've received, and it makes me so sad because a lot of the questions that I received from people living in Bangladesh, it's questions and answers that kids ask here in the United States. One of the first emails I received, I had someone ask me, "I'm getting married this weekend. How do I make sex enjoyable for my wife?" That was really overwhelming because I didn't think I was going to get so many intimacy questions so quickly. I want to be respectful of the Bangladeshi culture. I'm mindful of the fact that it is somewhat conservative, and I respect that completely. So that's why I'm trying to come at it from a public health perspective. But I started getting all of these intimacy-related questions from men, women and people of all different genders, different backgrounds, and whom all look different. I had students reaching out to me about their boyfriends. I had niqabis reaching out to me about how to please their husbands. It was really eye-opening to me, and it also made me realize my own biases that might not be right because Bangladesh has a population of over 160 million. So that's a lot of sex.  I think we shy away from this topic, but we're clearly doing it. 

Listen to the entire conversation with Bushra Mollick on the BoNY Podcast.

Link in bio. Also, Amazon Alexa/Echo knows us! Just say, “Alexa, play BoNY Podcast.

Season 5 - Episode 9: I have basically been past five and a half, almost six years in investing in emerging markets or frontier emerging models. And a lot of that time has been spent in the south Asia region. And as part of that obviously spent time in, in Bangladesh. Now, when I spend time with Nash is primarily been with public companies, investing for one of the largest investment funds folks in the region in public companies, a fund called Kingsway where I've been for over five years now through that work, I think I obviously I've gotten to know the market pretty well.

Listen to the entire conversation with Lima Ali on the BoNY Podcast.

Available on all Podcast platforms and on BengalisofNewyork.com/bony-podcast. Subscribe and share. Link in bio. Also, Amazon Alexa/Echo knows us! Just say, “Alexa, play BoNY Podcast.

Season 5 - Episode 8: The diaspora club is more of a passion project for me. I kind of started it when I was in lockdown because I was on furlough, which meant that I wasn't working. So. I need to find something to do, and I didn't want to be doing fashion-related stuff. So I started drawing ethnically, uh, I think minorities, um, weld, cultured inspired imagery.

Listen to the entire conversation with Lima Ali on the BoNY Podcast.

Available on all Podcast platforms and on BengalisofNewyork.com/bony-podcast. Subscribe and share. Link in bio. Also, Amazon Alexa/Echo knows us! Just say, “Alexa, play BoNY Podcast.

Season 5 - Episode 7: "I think the story of Bangladesh is still an uprising trend. If you look at the country specifically from a startup or a technology lens, if you look at countries like Singapore and other countries surrounding Bangladesh, what you notice is all the countries are on the same trajectory because of the younger population, digitization, and constant use of the internet. All of these countries are on the same trajectory but at different points. Bangladesh is on a very nice upward trajectory that gives us hope. I think once the infrastructure is in place, and once the people are more and more connected, then I think the rest will automatically take shape on stone. The nature and the forces of the Bangladeshi people will automatically define the growth."

Listen to the entire conversation with Sajid Rahman on the BoNY Podcast.

Available on all Podcast platforms and on BengalisofNewyork.com/bony-podcast. Subscribe and share. Link in bio. Also, Amazon Alexa/Echo knows us! Just say, “Alexa, play BoNY Podcast.

Season 5 - Episode 6: It was January of this year that I just realized, wow, she's reading on her own. So it just kind of surprised us and I think every child is different when they're gonna learn, how to read, but we were lucky that it was a fun surprise.