SARIC Rising Tide

48 S HAME EMA S U LTANA BANG L ADE S H DEGREES OF CONFIDENCE 49 degrees of confidence Financially, I couldn’t do it right away, but thought if I studied hard, I could do it too. S urrounded by four rivers, Dhaka is a city of surprises. It has grown to become a bustling center of the arts, and the commercial hub of the country. Increasing progress requires an increasing supply of electricity—a pressure that Shameema Sultana recognises all too well. She works with Power Grid Bangladesh PLC, the single Licensee Company in the country responsible for the construction, operation and maintenance of the country’s National Power Grid. A planning engineer, Shameema is responsible for planning necessary transmission infrastructure for the construction of the national grid—working directly with the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources as required. Born in rural Bangladesh, her family moved to Dhaka when she entered school. “My father was a banker, and he drove us to be strong women who are highly educated,” says Shameema proudly. She adds, “I have three sisters. One is a chartered accountant, one a school teacher like my mother, and the third is in medical college. We were all under their guidance when it came to school!” Her path to engineering as a career, however, was based on observation rather than careful selection of a program. “My uncle is an engineer, and I always noticed his work in Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB). I also noticed the large number of stamps in his passport and thought I wanted that for myself as well,” she laughs. Science was a confident choice in school, and it would propel Shameema to, and through, college. It was a decision that would test her mettle later; job opportunities were hard to come by and even those required rigorous exams. “Out of several thousand students who took the admission test, only 200 were selected for an interview, with 45 selected to join PGCB. Of that number, four were women.