Time selects Hussam for Global Heroes of Environment award

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FE Report
Time Magazine has selected expatriate Bangladeshi scientist Prof Abul Hussam for its 'Global Heroes of the Environment 2007' award for his invention of Sono Filter, a low-cost technology to free water of arsenic.
The global magazine Friday formally announced the name of Hussam as one of the 'global heroes' in the scientists and innovators category. The award will be conferred upon him on October 25 in London.
Hussam, associate professor of Chemistry at George Mason University in Virginia, US, and his younger brother Dr Abul Munir jointly invented the Sono Filter, the simple, life-saving way of purifying poisoned water, after a decade of research. The brothers hail from Kushtia.
Their another brother - Prof Abul Barakat of Dhaka University - has also contributed to the research on the socio-economic implications of the arsenic-afflicted people, and on ways to make the Sono Filter cheaper for the last 10 years.
Hussam's device also won the inaugural Grainger Challenge Prize from the US National Academy of Engineering this year. Most of the $1.0 million prize-money went to a Bangladeshi non-profit organisation that produces and distributes the filter.
The Sono Filter can save a large number of lives among the estimated 137 million people around the world whose water supply is contaminated with high levels of arsenic that accumulates in the body to cause sores, nerve damage, cancer and, too often, death.