UC Berkeley first opens Bangladesh Studies centre today

A new centre for Bangladesh Studies opens officially at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States, today.

Launching ceremony of the Subir & Malini Chowdhury Centre for Bangladesh Studies, first of its kind outside Bangladesh, will be held on the campus with Chancellor Nicholas Dirks presiding over the programme, according to the UC Berkeley.

Improving garment-industry safety, designing apps to solve social problems and collecting data on antibiotic-resistant bacteria found on fruits and vegetables are among the research projects made possible by the centre.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of Brac, considered the world's largest NGO in terms of number of employees and people served, will be the featured speaker at the inauguration and will deliver a talk after the ceremony on Bangladesh's quiet revolution, said a press release of the university.

Subir Chowdhury is a quality-management strategist and the CEO of ASI Consulting Group and his foundation provided US $1 million for the centre.

The centre is currently screening applications from scholars willing to work in Bangladesh as part of their studies.

Independent University, Bangladesh in Dhaka will host two research interns, one to investigate garment-industry safety and the other to examine the role of women in business.

Dhaka's Technohaven, a software and system-integration company, will host the third intern for designing a web or mobile application.

Caitlin Cook, one of the centre's two inaugural fellows, worked at a top health research centre on, what she calls, "a public health crisis that knows no borders". With researchers at ICDDR, B, she gathered data on antibiotic-resistant produce-borne bacteria.

Berkeley's Bangladesh Studies Centre is also developing an exchange programme for faculty and students of UC Berkeley and Brac University in Dhaka as well as a summer study-abroad programme at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong.