UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Shah Chowdhury graduated from Penn State in 2018 with a degree in community, environment and development. He co-founded an organization called Footsteps, was part of the Youth Assembly at the United Nations, was a Diana Award recipient, and was nominated for Forbes "30 Under 30" list for Asia.

Even before coming to Penn State, Chowdhury was involved in his community. With five other friends in high school, Chowdhury created Footsteps, a next-generation organization aimed at empowering communities by integrating the right set of skills and technologies to help them overcome social challenges currently limiting their development.

“It resulted from a discussion that began in the cafeteria of our school where we all wanted to make a difference in people’s lives,” he said. “Especially people who were undergoing social challenges every single day.”

The organization designs social ventures which not only address community challenges such as safe water, climate action, and public health, but also empower communities to be self-resilient without depending on donors' support in the long run.

“That is what the mission of Footsteps is,” Chowdhury explained. “It’s to transform the community mentality from being dependent to self-resilient. We’re on a mission to build resilient communities across Bangladesh.”

His work led him to receive the Diana Award, which is one of the most prestigious accolades for social and humanitarian work. Chowdhury also recently participated in the United Nations Youth Assembly. He was invited by the AFS intercultural program, a global not-for-profit network that provides intercultural learning opportunities to help people develop the skills to create a more just and peaceful world.

“It was a remarkable experience for me to be up there speaking at the prestigious UN building,” he said. “I was Bangladesh’s youth representative to the United Nations and they sent me to different summits and conferences all around the world, but I had never entered the UN headquarters building in New York. After a decade I made it, and not for UN purposes but through the work that I was doing for Footsteps, so obviously, that meant the world.”

The support Chowdhury received from Penn State was fundamental to developing the organization. For example, Footsteps is currently working on setting up water systems that can remove various sorts of contaminants, bacteria, and viruses. For a project like this to work, the water needs to be monitored in real-time which is where support with research and development comes into play. 

“When we reach out to someone at Penn State, a professor who is experienced or a veteran in that field, we get to improve the systems that we are working for,” he said. “Once we are in contact and partnership with professors of an institution like Penn State, we get that data inflow, and that support to engage and make our work more efficient. So, the research part enhances the work that we are doing on the ground over there.”

In his major, environmental economics and policy, he also completed two specializations: geographical information systems and international development. To Chowdhury, the combination complements his work as a professional environmentalist. The degree he earned at Penn State has helped him understand the environmental implications of the work he has been doing with his organization, especially Project Trishna, the organization’s lead project that helps to fund safe water systems in marginalized communities.

Chowdhury credits the classes he took for helping him to obtain certain skills that he has used to develop Footsteps system operations. “I was attending an agricultural business class and right after class, I created the entire database for Project Trishna,” he explains. “There was also this class on GIS, mapping the world, where after learning how to code, and locate data, I basically created an entire database, a mapping interface where people can actually go online and see where each of the Trishna filters systems are.”

With this database, donors can see where the system has been set, how many people are being impacted, and the current status of the filtration system every single day. Because of this work, Footsteps is considered one of the fastest and most efficient growing organizations in Bangladesh.

This efficiency is in large part due to Chowdhury’s interpersonal and communication skills, which he credits Penn State for improving. Through group class projects and presentations, he learned how to better collaborate with other students and improve while solving problems.

“One of the most important things that I learned was that the mentality of the community mattered,” he said. “You can’t just go into a community and force your ideas and solutions onto them, you actually need to have a conversation, work together with them, and ensure that the solution lasts in the long term. That is what I mostly picked up from Penn State.”

The sense of community was extended beyond the classroom. Chowdhury’s best memories from Penn State revolve around the people that he met and the connections he made. Meeting people from all around the world and figuring out the college experience with other international students made a difference to him.

“I remember the student associations from different countries used to host a lot of events together. It really brought the community together,” he said. “Imagine me holding a cultural festival in Bangladesh where people around the world are getting to enjoy the cuisine, the music, the drama, the experience. That actually means a lot to the people that are coming here. Getting to experience different cultures and different stories out there.”

Chowdhury was able to meet people from South America, North America, the Middle East, and many other regions of the world. He said that understanding new languages, new cultures, and new experiences helped open up his world perspective. This global connectedness also influences him as an alum, as Penn State’s alumni network reaches across the globe.

“You never know when you might bump into some Penn State alumni, which I’ve done on multiple occasions across my travels out there,” he said. “Who knows, whichever profession that you’re in, wherever you are in the world, there’s always a Penn Stater out there. Penn Staters can do anything together because at the end of the day We Are Penn State.”

Other than the personal connections, Chowdhury thinks that the amount of resources Penn State offers is extremely important for student development — sometimes in interesting ways. During his senior year, for example, he had the opportunity to try squash and fell in love with it.

“Penn State has a lot to offer, you have to take it all in. These are three to four best years of your life so why not make the most of it, you know?”

Chowdhury said his experience at Penn State was like a small fish in a small pond moving into a bigger pond. To him, that was necessary since, in the bigger pond, the fish has more room to grow.

“But going through the journey of Penn State, I can say 100% that this was the best decision that I made in life,” he said. “Because the journey has been not only remarkable but a life-changing one for me.”