Shaupaun Koumar (Kawsar), an engineer-turned-economist, was born on January 20, 1953, in old Dacca (Dhaka). He chose seamanship for his career in 1975 and received a scholarship to study Marine (Industrial) Engineering at the Marine Fisheries Academy in Chittagong, a very intensive academic course, which was run by Russian experts. He graduated from the academy in 1977 and immediately got an offer from the Libyan Ministry of Marine Fisheries. Before moving to Libya, he worked in a Japanese Shrimp Research Vessel in Chittagong for a very short time.

Shaupaun worked in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya, for about three years, then abandoned his marine life. He moved to Belgium to pursue his Master’s degree in a two-year Industrial Location and Development programme at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He graduated with distinction in 1990. In order to enrich the thesis of this programme entitled ‘Economic and Ecological Impact of Tropical Deforestation’, he simultaneously followed another Masters in Environmental Science (Human Ecology). He earned his second Master’s degree in Management Programme from the same university in 1992.

He became passionate about applied economics and, in an unprecedented way (1994), enrolled in a four-year course at Vesalius College, VUB, to pursue a prestigious Bachelor’s degree in an American-style education in Europe. He graduated from the university in 1998 with honours in Business Economics and a minor in Computer Information Systems. In fact, he has an insatiable hunger for knowledge about various academic disciplines.

He joined a consulting firm in Brussels as a Business Economist in 1998. Over time, he also specialised in Corporate Tax and Public Accounting, making him a Certified Professional of the Institute Professionnel des Comptables et Fiscalistes Agréés (IPCF). As a registered member of the institute, he has been running his own corporate consulting firm in Brussels to date.

Extracurricular activity: He studied French Language & Literature at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) for a few non-consecutive years (1985-87). In 1991, he participated in a summer course in Japanese Management at Sophia University in Tokyo. In 1999, he completed a semester-long Economics and Commerce programme, focusing on Business Law at the University of Sydney, Australia.

He was enthusiastically involved in cultural and sportive activities during his school days. He was such a fan of cricket that he took the game from the capital to the villages of Dohar in southern Dhaka (the home of his maternal grandparents), at a time when cricket was not played much in cities except Dhaka in East Pakistan at the time.

Shaupaun has been living abroad since 1977. He is very keen to know different cultures and people; he has travelled extensively to many parts of the world. In 2006, he created a voluntary organisation ‘PraubashBaungau a.s.b.l.’ based in Brussels.

Mr. Koumar and his wife, Rokshana (Rani), have two sons and a daughter, Aupourbau, Aushim and Shaurnally, and have maintained a permanent home in Brussels.