Bangladesh youth on Forbes list
Famous American business magazine Forbes has selected two Bangladeshi young men in its ‘30 Under 30: 2019’ list.
Sunny Sanwar, 28, founder of Verd2Go, was named in the energy section and GM Mahmud Arif Pavel, 29, a researcher, was named in the science section that the magazine published recently.
Sunny’s US-based battery venture Verd2Go commercially supplies lithium-polymer packs. Large electricity plants without any carbon emissions can be set up under his project.
GM Mahmud Arif Pavel works on the ion channel of human body. Ion channel complications lead to kidney complications. Pavel’s research will contribute to solve this.
Sunny Sanwar went to Kansas City from Bangladesh when he was fifteen, an eighth grader at an English medium school, under the Kennedy –Lugar youth exchange and study programs (YES programs). He got admitted into twelfth grade there.
Sunny obtained his graduation in mechanical engineering when he was 19 and by 22, he developed the lithium-polymer pack. Very soon he scaled up the battery pack’s energy production from 1kwh to 1mwh. In 2016, energy storage company Exergonix bought Verd2Go.
Sunny told Prothom Alo in an e-mail, the energy section of Forbes generally lists an inventor, scientist or founder of an institution, below the age of 30, who can collect a fund of at least one million dollar.
Earlier, tech giants like the Facbook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel were included in the list. Sunny said, “Verd2Go’s main objective is to curb the use of carbon emitting energy and to spread the use of renewable energy. Already electricity is being produced using lithium-polymer battery across several US cities. I’ve started negotiating with government and non-government institutions in Dhaka over renewable energy.”
Sunny did his PhD from the Missouri University in Kansas on business enterprise and invention. His family comes from Rajshahi. His father Sarwar Azam, a retired colonel of Bangladesh Army, is a mechanical engineer too. His mother Kamrun Nahar is an associate professor of environment science at North South University. He is currently a teacher at the University of Missouri. In 2016 Sunny won the ACS Heinz von Foerster Award.
MGM Mahmud Arif Pavel went to study at the Saint John’s Hopkins University in US on scholarship after his graduation in genetic engineering and biotechnology at Dhaka University. He completed his postgraduate and PhD there and now is a post-doctoral associate at Scripps Research.
There is hardly any treatment for autosomal kidney diseases. The research conducted by Pavel and his team shows if proper changes are introduced in the channels, positive impacts can be traced in such kidney ailments.
Pavel and his fellow researchers call the ion channels as the “fundamental sensors of life”. Pavel’s research is hoped to make the anesthesia mechanism safer during kidney treatment and surgery. In an e-mail sent from Jupiter, Florida, Pavel told Prothom Alo, “There are many more Bangladeshi scientists who are more talented than me. I have been enlisted as I am below 30. I am working with two world famous scientists Yang Yu and Scott Hansen—this is my greatest achievement.”