Being home to a large, young and vibrant Bangladeshi community, Ontario annually marks Bangladeshi Heritage Month in March. This comes after the proclamation took place in 2016 under Bill 44: Bangladeshi Heritage Month Act.
In March, Bangladeshis celebrate their nation’s independence day on the 26th. It is also the time to reflect upon the successes and achievements of those in Bangladesh and across the diaspora. From education to politics to business and entertainment, these are some of the Bangladeshi people that have contributed to societies across the world.
1. Rafiqul Islam
Islam was a language activist from Bangladesh. While living in Vancouver, Canada, in 1998, he and his friend Abdus Salam proposed the idea of an International Mother Language Day in order to preserve all the languages of the world. In a letter to Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Islam suggested February 21st as the date, which is one of the most memorable days in the History of Bangladesh. February 21st marks the start of the Bangla Language Movement in 1952, where a fight for the right to speak Bangla sparked massive rallies held by students in the University of Dhaka, resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries after clashes with the police.
On November 17, 1999, UNESCO unanimously approved 21st February to be declared as the International Mother Language Day held worldwide to promote diversity, multilingualism and the importance of the mother tongue.
2. Shahana Hanif
Hanif was born and raised in New York, U.S to Bangladeshi parents and got her B.A from Brooklyn College.
In 2017, Hanif took on two roles after she started working for then Councilman Brad Lander: first as his liaison to the Bangladeshi community and later his Director of Organising and Community Engagement. Her decision to run for New York City Council was significantly influenced by when she assisted a woman in escaping a forced marriage.
In late 2019, Hanif declared her intention to run for the City Council’s 39th District in 2021. Facing six other Democratic candidates, she won the election on July 3 with a final count of 89% of votes. With her victory, Hanif made history: not only did she become the first woman to represent her district, but also the first Muslim woman and the first Bangladeshi-American to be elected into the New York City Council.
3. jawed karim
Born in East Germany to a Bangladeshi father and German mother, Karim and his family later moved to the United States after living in West Germany for a while. He went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois after which he did his Master’s Degree in the same subject from Stanford University.
While doing his Bachelor’s, Karim started working at PayPal where he met Chad Hurley and Stephen Chen. Three years after they first met in 2005, they launched the most-used video watching & sharing platform, YouTube. Karim also uploaded the first ever video on YouTube, titled “Me at the Zoo”; a 19-second video shot at the San Diego Zoo that has more than 310 million views as of March 2024.
In 2008, Karim launched a venture fund named Youniversity Ventures, A.K.A. YVentures. The following year, he became one of the first investors of Airbnb and also invested in Reddit, Eventbrite and Palantir.
4. Marina Tabassum
Born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tabassum attended the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, graduating in architecture in 1994.
In 2005, Tabassum set up her own architecture practice, Marina Tabassum Architects. During her career, she designed some of the most iconic buildings in Bangladesh, including the Museum of Independence and the Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, both located in Dhaka. For the latter, she won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016. In 2022, Tabassum went on to become the first South Asian to win the Lisbon Triennale Lifetime Achievement Award.
Besides that, Tabassum is associated with education in Bangladesh. She has been a visiting professor at BRAC University since 2005. She also gives lectures in other educational institutions and runs studios for undergraduates at the University of Asia Pacific. Since 2015, she serves as the Director of Academic Program at Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements.
5. nadiya hussain
A second-generation British Bangladeshi, Hussain (nee Begum) was born and raised in Luton, and later moved to Leeds when she got married at age 20.
Hussain’s passion for baking arose during her childhood. She first learnt basic cooking skills in school, where Baking Studies became her favourite subject. She continued to bake during her marriage, especially for her husband. The two would watch cooking shows, one of them being BBC’s The Great British Bake Off. It was time for Season 6 of the series when her husband presented her with the application, encouraging her to participate. A mother of 3 at the time, not only was Hussain taking care of her home and family, but also working towards a degree in Childhood and Youth Studies from the Open University to pursue her childhood desire of becoming a social worker. Initially, Hussain declined to participate in the show, but she later agreed after her husband explained the importance of finding herself. Hussain later appeared in the sixth season of The Great British Bake Off in 2015…emerging as the winner.
From then on, Hussain has appeared in multiple shows of her own as a presenter, including a BBC One travel food show, The Chronicles of Nadiya, where she visited Bangladesh to discover her roots and culinary origins. She visited the capital Dhaka, as well as her paternal grandfather’s village in Sylhet as she engaged in cooking with the community. Moreover, Hussain was commissioned to bake a cake for Elizebeth II’s 90th birthday.
Hussain is also a columnist for The Times Magazine, and has published her own cooking books such as Nadiya’s Kitchen, Nadiya’s Everyday Baking, a children’s book Bake Me A Story, as well as her autobiography Finding My Voice.
For her achievements, Hussain was listed as one of the 100 Women by BBC News. Her work has earned her numerous nominations, including the Children’s Book of the Year award at the British Book Awards for Bake Me A Story, and Breakthrough Star at the Royal Television Society Awards for The Chronicles of Nadiya.
6. salman “sal” khan
Khan was born in Louisiana, U.S, to a Bangladeshi father and Indian mother. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he earned three degrees: both Bachelor’s and Master’s in Electrical Engineering as well as a Bachelor’s in Mathematics. He also has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
The idea of Khan Academy came to Khan when he first started tutoring his cousin in mathematics, before going on to upload his tutorials on Youtube upon requests from other relatives and friends for his tutoring. Khan was working as a financial analyst when his educational videos began gaining popularity from both students and non-students, which led him to quit his job and work full-time on growing his YouTube channel, Khan Academy.
As of December 2023, the Khan Academy channel on YouTube has over 8 million subscribers with over 2 billion views on its videos. In 2012, Khan was listed as one of the TIMES’s 100 most influential people in the world. That year, he was also featured on the cover of Forbes, tagged as “The $1 Trillion Opportunity.” Khan Academy has also received enormous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2010.
According to Khan, his mission was to enable and boost learning for all ages, which he successfully continues to do even today.