Akhlaque Haque, Ph.D., [pronounced äkläk häk], 42, says he has always had two passions: great art and tinkering with technology.
“I love tinkering with technology not just for the fun of it,” says Haque, an associate professor of public administration in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Government, “but to see how it can be better utilized for improving the human condition.
“While writing my dissertation, I was also working on learning Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to use it for a project. I was really excited about GIS because of its vast potential in social science. Particularly, how technology can be used to understand and improve individuals’ socioeconomic situation.
“Being an economist by training, I was already familiar with known statistical techniques for observing human behavior,” says Haque. “But GIS seemed more powerful and had more potential because of how it relayed knowledge as a whole – not in bits and pieces – about one’s situation to the general audience.”
Haque has since become a renowned expert on GIS technologies and its uses in government. He has written numerous peer-reviewed articles on GIS and has presented research at conferences around the United States and Canada. Haque says it has been a personal goal of his to return to his native country to introduce GIS mapping as an empowerment tool for the people of Bangladesh. His opportunity came this spring when he was named as a Fulbright Scholar to Bangladesh.
Haque will return to his homeland on Sept. 1. It will be his first trip back to Bangladesh in 18 years, nearly 50 years after his father, Afzal Ul Haque, was named as a Fulbright Scholar to the United States in 1957.
Afzal Haque was one of the first Fulbright scholars from the Indian subcontinent. He earned his law degree in the United States and returned home to teach at the University of Dhaka. He later became Appellate Judge of Bangladesh in 1974 and served in the position until his death in 1980.
“Following the footsteps of my father,” says Haque, “I always wanted to become a teacher. I started my teaching career at a very early age. During my senior undergraduate year I tutored sophomore and junior economics majors. I was a graduate assistant while in graduate school and worked after hours tutoring math undergraduates.”
Haque says he is excited about writing the blog in order to teach others not only about GIS, but also about the land, the people and the culture of Bangladesh.