Bangladesh

Shazeeb M Khairul Islam is an Obama Scholar and the founder of YY Ventures, a social business company that incubates and invests in social businesses that are fighting poverty, unemployment, and carbon emission. YY Ventures has supported more than 60 social entrepreneurs since 2016 who have impacted the lives of more than 150,633 people and created over 1300 jobs. He is also a co-founder and managing director at Impact Hub Dhaka, part of the global Impact Hub Network mobilizing a vibrant community of entrepreneurs in Dhaka through inspiring space, meaningful content, and a diverse network to create a Bangladesh where everyone thrives.

Previously, Shazeeb worked as the founding country director of YGAP in Bangladesh, an innovative international development nonprofit that supports local entrepreneurs with local solutions, and as a country advisor at Give2Asia, a U.S.-based nonprofit funding vetted community-based organizations that are addressing the most pressing issues at the local level.

Shazeeb is an alumnus of the Jolkona Catalyst Global Entrepreneurship Summit, and a member of the Board of Trustees at Grameen Trust, a non-profit and non-government organization founded in 1989 by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus that supports, promotes, and implements poverty-focused microfinance, social business and other programs around the world.

Shamir Shehab is a public policy analyst at the intersection of climate change, environment, and development, and an emerging social and environmental justice advocate. He has over ten years of experience working on climate finance, governance, and resilience projects and programs for international development organizations such as the World Bank, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Green Climate Fund (GCF), and others.

Shamir is the co-founder and managing partner at Catalyzing Sustainable Transformation (CaST) Network, an action, policy research, and advocacy institution that generates evidence-based knowledge and systematic solutions to some of the key development challenges of the Global South. Shamir is also an adjunct lecturer at North South University. Previously, he worked as a researcher at the Green Climate Fund and climate change and disaster risk consultant at Oxford Policy Management on a range of projects related to climate finance, disaster risk management, adaptive social protection, renewable energy, etc. Shamir is also affiliated with the International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCCCAD) as a non-resident researcher in climate policy and finance.

Shamir founded the Bangladesh Youth Environmental Initiative (BYEI) to educate, train, and empower young people to become environmental champions. He received several national and international recognitions for this work, notably the Queen's Young Leaders (QYL) Award from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, an excellence award, and an innovation grant from the U.S. State Department. Shamir holds an MPA with a specialization in environmental policy from Cornell University. He studied politics and international affairs as a Yenching Scholar at Peking University and leadership as a QYL fellow at the University of Cambridge. He is an alumnus of the Global UGRAD Program.

Arju is a strategic communicator, policy advocate, and social entrepreneur committed to environmental and climate justice. As a self-trained professional, he has over twelve years of experience in communication and conservation.

He is currently the communications coordinator at the Association Consortium for Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCA Consortium), which supports the Indigenous peoples and local communities in governing and conserving their collective territories. Locally in Bangladesh, Arju leads a social enterprise, Sagar Seba, to help fishing communities in environmental stewardship and community wellbeing.

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Arju supports the global exchange and peer learning among ICCA Consortium members on complex aspects of the pandemic, including impact and response. He is an alumnus of the Community Solutions Program.