As a part of the "Dr. Anwarul Abedin Lecture Series", a regular development initiative of the American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB), the Faculty of Engineering (FE) at AIUB organized a webinar titled "A Smart Wearable Air Quality Monitor Using MEMS Ultrasound Technology" on Thursday, August 19, 2021 in Dhaka from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM.  

The webinar was inaugurated with a welcome address by Dr. ABM Siddique Hossain (Professor and Dean, Faculty of Engineering, AIUB). He started by paying gratitude to Dr Anwarul Abedin, AIUB's Founder- Chairman, who contributed significantly to the development of the university. He then presented a quick overview of the need to monitor air quality in human society and highlighted the need of engineering skills development.

The esteemed guest speaker of this webinar was Dr. Chowdhury Fazlur Rahim, President and CEO, Aromatix Inc. During his lecture, Dr. Rahim shared his experience of 35 years at companies such as Intel, Bell Labs, MicroLinear, and 24 years at Maxim integrated. He served as an Executive Director of Design a Maxim integrated products developing and commercializing analog mixed-signal semiconductors and sensor products and has extensive industry contacts for developing gas sensors, among several other positions while at Maxim. He has successfully commercialized 30 innovative integrated circuits relating to sensor and sensor interfaces and many more derivative products. He has 15 patents and a dozen papers in internationally recognized journals. Since founding Aromatrix, he has assembled a unique team of engineers who were instrumental in developing a portable ultrasound gas sensor solution. He has also filed three patents to date on a unique innovative technology, viz. a fully solid-state ultrasound gas sensor, uniquely suited for a first-of-its-kind medical device to facilitate COPD and asthma patients monitor their health while at home or on the road. He is now actively involved with raising capital to develop the final product.

One in every six people on the planet suffers from respiratory problems such as COPD, asthma, or hyperventilation. His world-first solid-state portable gas sensor system is the only one that can assist these individuals in determining the quality of the air in their local proximity and decide whether to go out or take effective treatment. Aromatrix demonstrated the viability of high selectivity and sensitivity gas sensors in a variety of environmental circumstances, including humidity and temperature. For carbon dioxide, this breakthrough was accomplished by the combination of machine learning with a high-resolution ultrasonic MEMS sensor. The speaker discussed the difficulties inherent in developing portable air quality sensors. It involves integrating four disciplines: MEMS ultrasonic sensor, application-specific integrated circuit, gas sensing functionalization, and finally, machine algorithm to improve gas sensing precision in real-world settings.

Following the presentation, the moderator, Dr. M. Tanseer Ali (Senior Assistant Professor, Department of EEE, AIUB), announced the start of a Q&A session, during which Dr. Rahim enthusiastically answered to questions from faculty and students in the audience. Dr. Md. Abdur Rahman (Professor and Associate Dean, Faculty of Engineering, AIUB) concluded the session by expressing gratitude to Dr. Rahim for the enlightening session on a highly technical concept. Prof. Rahman announced opening one elective course for the undergraduate student conducted by Dr. Rahim from the Fall 2021-22 semester. Later, Prof. Rahman presented a digital token of Appreciation to Dr. Rahim as a token of gratitude for sharing his valuable time and insight

The webinar was held on Zoom online platform and was attended by about 266 local and foreign participants. Additionally, the video was also live-streamed on the AIUB Facebook page. Dr. Md. Abdul Mannan (Professor and Director, Faculty of Engineering, AIUB), Mr. Nafiz Ahmed Chisty (Associate Professor and Head In-Charge, Dept. of EEE, AIUB), Mr. Md. Saniat Rahman Zishan (Associate Professor and Head, Dept. of CoE, AIUB), Mr. Chowdhury Akram Hossain (Senior Assistant Professor and Special Assistant of OSA, Faculty of Engineering, AIUB) co-hosted the event.