Bangladesh Association of Chicagoland

PRESS RELEASE

ASIAN MODEL FAMILY AWARD- 2005

Ali Ahmed Family

Ali & Jubaida (Rosie)

Nishat, Rafat & Polly

Ali Ahmed arrived in Chicago in 1982 as a foreign student. The Bangladeshi community of Chicago was very small at that time and only a handful of Bangladeshis lived in the area. Ali received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). While a student at IIT, Ali played a special role in assisting his parents and guiding his younger siblings (three brothers and a sister) who later joined him in America. He worked for several companies including IBM before he founded his small IT consulting firm- Datasoft Corporation. Ali also owns two other small businesses- one in Retail and the other in Service industry. Ali taught at a college as an adjunct professor while his wife, Rosie, attended school to complete her B.S. degree in computer science.

Rosie showed exceptional determination and worked hard to complete her degree being a caring mother and a wife. After the completion of her degree from Lewis University, Rosie started as a test engineer at Tellabs and later joined Discover Financial Services, a Morgan Stanley Company. Ali and Rosie are blessed with two sons- Nishat and Rafat and an adopted daughter- Polly. Their children are also in honors and gifted programs.

Ali has been involved with the Bangladeshi community for over twenty years. He served as elected Executive Secretary (1995) and President (2003) of Bangladesh Association of Chicagoland (BAC). In January 2003, Ali received the most prestigious ‘The National Leadership Award’ from the U.S. Congress in recognition of his achievement as an entrepreneur, community leader and philanthropist. He was invited to the White House and to a Joint session of the U.S. Congress. Ali served as the Illinois state Chairman to President Bush’s Small Business Advisory Committee. His support for small business policy of President Bush was published in The Wall Street Journal while the country was trying to come out of a down-turn in the economy. Ali has been involved in several philanthropic projects both in the U.S. and in Bangladesh. He comes from a very humble background and he finds tremendous amount of pleasure in serving the humanity in any capacity.