People

Iqbal Quadir—President and Founder, USA

EBI is headed by Iqbal Quadir, the visionary and catalyst behind GrameenPhone, the largest cellular carrier in Bangladesh that also provides nearly universal access to telephony for the rural poor. Quadir’s career has focused on leveraging emerging first world technologies for the benefit of bottom up, private sector driven, approaches to development. His goal is to apply the framework and principles that led to GrameenPhone’s success to the energy problem facing developing countries in South Asia and Africa.

E-mail: quadir (at) emergencebioenergy (dot) com

Hal Stillman—Technical Advisor, USA

Technology management and development will be overseen by Hal Stillman, the current Director of Technology for the International Copper Association. Stillman has provided critical guidance on technology issues for EBI since 2006 and played an important role in connecting EBI with Infinia. He has extensive international experience in technology strategy and entrepreneurial ventures. Stillman began his career at General Electric; moved on to consulting on technology strategy and using entrepreneurial ventures to achieve business growth. He received the Industrial Research Institute’s highest achievement award in recognition of his accomplishments. At ABB he held the positions of Senior Vice President, New Ventures and Senior Vice President, Technology and Innovation and was involved in many new product and new business development initiatives.

Firas K. Ahmad—Director, USA

Operations and business development in the US will be managed by Firas K. Ahmad. Ahmad was involved in the initial experiment that took place in Bangladesh in 2005 and has since been managing day to day operations at Emergence BioEnergy Inc. He has travelled to Bangladesh several times and worked on the ground in the country with EBI’s various partners. Ahmad previously worked in Pakistan as part of a taskforce to reformulate primary education and health care services for the poor and as an Analyst for Abt Associates, an international consulting firm. Firas is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

E-mail: firas (at) emergencebioenergy (dot) com