In search of
relevant science

As the power line tripped, on the third floor of a teachers’ flat at Dhaka University, a square, white device fended off any risks that could be caused by electrical surges to the ceiling fan that was spinning in the drawing room of Professor K Siddique-e-Rabbani, as he sat under it talking about the his life, science and the need for appropriate technologies. ‘That is Bangladeshi technological know-how and made in this country,’ says Rabbani, a professor of physics at Dhaka University and lifelong innovator of ‘practical’ and ‘innovative’ science, as he points at the device that sits right at the entrance of his flat. As the founder of BITEK, later more popularly known as Grameen BITEK, which has made such locally produced electrical appliances such as surge suppressor and voltage stabiliser, and local brands such as VOLTAGuard popular, Rabbani has been a promoter of local technology.
   Born in May 9, 1950, seventh out of eight siblings, to Khandker Lutfi Rabbani and Nazmunnessa Rabbani, Rabbani started showing early signs of interest in academia and science. ‘Usually I came first in half-yearly exams and then I thought I was secured to pass. So, I wouldn’t come out first in the finals. But I suppose, in the later part of school, I started getting interested in radio technology. I was fascinated by how radios worked. If I were to put a finger on what were my first interest, that would be it,’ says Rabbani. In 1963, he participated in the National Science Fair in Curzon Hall of Dhaka University with his school-time home-made gizmo: a transistor!
   As his father was transferred regularly, Rabbani spent his early childhood at many places across the country. ‘I have to say that Comilla Zilla School was the best experience I have had as far as school life goes. Faridpur Zilla School, from where I finished my matriculation, was also a significant experience,’ he recalls. His father died when he was still in school, and the family had to go through financial hardship. Rabbani went to Dhaka College in 1965, where he became a bit serious about studies. ‘Actually even in the later part of school, being a bit docile than the more sports-oriented kids, I gave more concentration on cultural activities such as recitation, drama and debate. I was in the Boys Scouts. This continued throughout college, and while I won the championship awards for performing very well in a singing contest, it was also the beginning of a long complex journey of faith,’ explains Rabbani. It was in college that followers of the Tablig-e-Jamaat came to him and told him to question whether singing was good for a Muslim. ‘Frankly, it perturbed me as faith is important to me. But somehow I couldn’t find any good reasoning behind their questioning.’
   In 1967, he got admitted into his father’s alma mater, Dhaka University (his father studied economics in 1928). His subject of choice: physics. ‘Now that I look back, many had gone to engineering and other subjects, but there were those of us who thought it was necessary to understand bigger and more broader sciences, such as physics,’ he explains. While not studying much during his first two years at university, Rabbani actively took part in cultural activities and even won an essay competition. ‘It was in the third year that I really started studying, and now that I think of it, almost miraculously, came out first in the bachelor’s degree examinations,’ he recalls. But those were turbulent times: 1971. ‘After months of indecision as to what to do with the scholarship that was offered to four of us to study for master’s degree at the University of Islamabad, finally I left to take it up,’ he says. After obtaining his master’s degree, he returned to a free Bangladesh in 1973. While he tried to get a teaching position at Dhaka University, with a stubborn determination against the common practice of academic ‘nepotism’ in the form of mutual backslapping, Rabbani never got the position. But fate had other plans. In 1974, he received a Commonwealth scholarship to do PhD from the University of Southampton. ‘So I left, but with a strong mindset that I will come back to Bangladesh and contribute to my country.’
   After finishing his PhD on microchips, despite many offers from reputed foreign universities and companies, he returned to Bangladesh in 1978. This time, still under the department chair Professor Shamsul Islam’s intervention, he was offered an assistant professor’s position at the physics department of Dhaka University. Soon after, in one of the most unique events in the science faculty, Rabbani married Gulshan Ara Begum, an engineer by vocation who was then with the Power Development Board. They have two children – a daughter, Piul Sanjana Rabbani, who is presently pursuing post-graduate studies from New York University and a son, Rhaad Muasir Rabbani, who is in his junior year at Occidental College.
   ‘It was in the beginning years of Dhaka University that we started working on a project that was to mix physics with medical science. What is now the Pangu Hospital is where the first device in Bangladesh that entailed using bio-medical physics came about,’ recalls Rabbani. Over the years, he has pioneered along with his group at Dhaka University, a new stratum of science research in Bangladesh. ‘While a considerable amount of opposition from the high-brow theoretical physics camp, which is prevalent in most of Bangladesh’s science fraternity, still exists, bio-physics has been able to make significant progress in our country,’ he says.
   But if anything better is to be credited to Rabbani’s life as a scientist, then this is it: ‘I have always had an inkling that something innovative and useful, with also entrepreneurial zeal, needs to be done. At first, I used to make emergency light, completely using local technology. After hopping between many such ventures, in the late eighties, I started out on my own to make volt-protectors, which saved electrical equipments from surges. And that gave birth to BITEK. It was meant to be a local electronics innovation company that would utilise local hands coupled with global scientific know-how and produce “appropriate” technological solutions.’
   As with any new yet lucrative ventures, while Rabbani and a student of his had seen the venture through its initial turbulent years, it was when, ‘with a vision to expand this idea to a bigger platform’, he approached the Grameen Fund, the venture capital wing of the Grameen Trust, that things went horribly wrong. ‘They appointed a corrupt administrator, and what had started to become a profitable venture turned red within a short time,’ recalls Rabbani. Finally, after several attempts at reviving the fortunes of Grameen BITEK, and having succeeded in doing so, he realised that business was not an academic’s forte. He left the BITEK business several years back. But his contribution to the field of home-grown technology is what has spurred many such other ventures.
   ‘There is a lot of buzz on SME [small and medium enterprises] these days. In Bangladesh, instead of finding areas to provide funds arbitrarily is not going to work. The freedom to innovate is the largest incentive for any entrepreneur of technological or other businesses. Rather the government should concentrate on finding areas where groups of entrepreneurs are already doing good,’ explains Rabbani, who is an adviser to the newly formulated SME Foundation.
   Having already registered a ‘Relevant Science and Technological Society’ and a ‘Bangladesh Institute for Biomedical and Appropriate Technology’, Rabbani is continuing his quest for a more ‘appropriate’ and ‘relevant’ use of the scientific know-how gathered from the world. He is presently searching for funds to start these two initiatives. ‘Basic research and science is important. Like for me, my biomedical research has its own audience and purpose, and as many have often complained that maybe I should have concentrated more on my research than anything else. But to me that seems futile. If the skills and technological expertise acquired through this taxpayer’s money cannot be utilised properly, then what purpose does it serve than just a personal one,’ says Rabbani.
   A passionate Rabbani sees immense possibility in the prospect in Bangladesh’s light-industries and electronics industries. ‘If the illogical reverse taxation applicable to these industries and the value-added tax is removed we could see a surge in the entrepreneurship of technological ventures.’
   ‘Science is not just about science. At its core should lie the living people. My science is for both science and the people,’ the innovator says with a smile.
   
   Text: Mahfuz Sadique / Photo: Andrew Biraj