Sunny Sanwar

Sahibzada Sanwar Azam Sunny (; , born 17 December 1989) is a Bangladeshi-born American artist, environmental activist, inventor and entrepreneur. He became fluent in multiple languages and is one of the youngest artists to have a solo exhibition at the National Art Gallery with work in permanent collection at the Liberation War Museum.

Early life and family

His father was a senior member of the Singranatore family and a military commander of the national Army, United Nations forces and the Border Guard, while his mother, Kamrun Nahar of the Munshibari family of Comilla was an artist and scientist, a student of Iajuddin Ahmed, the thirteenth president of Bangladesh. Both parents were born in erstwhile East Pakistan. He grew up in various places around the country. He has an older sister, named Shahzia Sarwar, an architect.

The House of Singra and Natore (Singranatore Zamindari) was a formerly ruling family who were hereditary lords (Zamindars) in the northwestern region of Rajshahi in erstwhile East Bengal in the area of present-day Singra, Bangladesh. In 1950, the State Acquisition Act was adopted by the erstwhile democratic government of East Pakistan, abolishing the rights of the feudal ruling families. The Singranatore family, who served as vassals to the Maharajas of Natore and Dighapatia, also produced many influential members and politicians.

Background and education In 2005, as a youth ambassador to the United States, he was supported by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State. He started high school at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy after completing eighth grade, to study International Baccalaureate and was a senior aged fifteen. His first ever paid job at the age of 16 was to do a MATLAB programming project for Miftahur Rahman at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at North South University.

A child prodigy, he could fluently read, write or speak six languages by the age of eight He was a final year university student (college senior) studying engineering by the age of eighteen.

He also holds a Master of Public Administration degree (2013) and a PhD in entrepreneurship and innovation (2018) from the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He was a graduate researcher under Jered Carr at the L.P. Cookingham Institute of Urban Affairs where Nicholas Peroff was his graduate advisor. He graduated with Pi Alpha Alpha, Omicron Delta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi honours.

Activities His family was involved in the energy and infrastructure sectors for decades, particularly oil. His paternal uncle M. M. Rahmat Ullah, an East Pakistani bureaucrat from the 1960s and politician who unsuccessfully contested the seat of Natore's third constituency as a member of parliament to the National Assembly in the Eighth National Parliamentary Elections of 2001, was also the chief engineer of the Public Works Department and later the chairman of the Capital Development Authority of the government of Bangladesh under General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, the military dictator and later president of Bangladesh. The President and he were however charged in the Janata Tower Case in the early 1990s by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. Another paternal uncle, Akther Hussain of Natore, an East Pakistan regional officer of Pakistan State Oil was made one of the six executives of the Jamuna Oil Company, Bangladesh's National oil company under Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation by the government of Bangladesh. The Ecohawks was one of the largest and most promising initiatives of the University of Kansas and was funded and sponsored by Aptera Motors, The Coca-Cola Company, Daimler Trucks North America, Grundfos, Yokohama Rubber Company and Black & Veatch among others, at various stages. A college senior at age eighteen, he also worked to computationally quantify and minimise vehicle rolling friction and aerodynamic drag. They built a solar energy filling station on campus consisting of six 180W panels that allowed recharging the car batteries in half a day while it is parked. Cars typically reached 40 mph around campus while the fuel economy was increased to 80 mpge due to solar refilling. Although the recycled car ran, initially media reports called the car to get 500 mpg, which it did not. The ecohawks also proposed a plan to take the vehicles completely off grid. They installed six monocrystalline solar cells on their workspace and charged the cars from it, with no energy taken from the grid.

Their efficiency over performance initiatives, coincided with the Automotive crisis where in 2009, in an exhibition opening, he told the University Daily Kansan that the point of the initiative is trying to get people to think about how 'inefficient' the auto industry is.

Green buildings

Sunny founded the Sustainable Built Environment Initiative – Bangladesh (later Bangladesh Green Building Council) and since 2008 been bringing together national architects, scientists, environmentalists and government officials to transform the building industry in Bangladesh into a more sustainable and efficient system. With growing population in a diminishing land and rapid urbanisation to major cities, 'Going green' had become a marketing ploy for various organisations as there were no quantifiable way to judge a structures sustainability. He offered a centralised board to offer Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifications to interested projects and firms and then to propose a similar voluntary building rating tool that is much cheaper to attain and one that is much suited to the socio-economic conditions of the country and relevant to its building environment and construction culture. He elaborated:

In 2015, he opined that the garments industry has been a critical early-adopter of green buildings, with certifications playing a critical role:

Educational programs in sustainable designs and various universities in Bangladesh started to promote Green Building principles in their curriculum, such as in the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, American International University-Bangladesh, North South University, BRAC University and Asia Pacific University. The first proposed rating tool aimed to fulfill the Seventh Target from the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Initially with minimal government support, the plan was to transform the market with cost effective steps. In another interview with The Independent, it was pointed out that the cost effectiveness of the green buildings are not correctly understood, and that increased productivity and energy savings of a green building outweighs initial costs. In the Dhaka Tribune, he reiterated that "the problem is that there is a great misconception regarding the cost effectiveness of the green design and construction" and that the energy savings far outweigh the initial costs when green building projects are correctly done. In an interview with Southeast Asia Building magazine, he said: At the same meeting, the Additional Chief Architect of the Ministry of Housing and Public Works, Bangladesh spoke about the government's role. BGBC also briefly collaborated with Washington D.C.–based Development Alternatives Inc to work with World Bank to conduct the first ever national study to identify the scope for developing Green Building Codes and to benchmark the GHG emission standards on Green Buildings and Climate Change in Bangladesh.

In 2012, he was a Brower Youth Award semi-finalist. In 2013, he won the SBN Youth Award (Australia) by patrons Peter Ellyard and Jane Goodall.

Sustainable infrastructure

To provide jobs for fresh graduates and help the dwindling power sector of the country reduce systematic power outage, he proposed that Bangladesh integrate RETs into the national electric grid to supplement any generation and to maintain a storage system, so that the country may move towards a more stable supply of electricity to the masses and 'attempt' reach the global Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations, specifically on Environmental sustainability as well as Bangladesh's National Renewable Energy Policy's goal of meeting 5% of the national demand with renewable energy sources by 2015 and 10% by 2020. With lack of implementation, he said it would be nearly impossible on the current time frame. Private power could be integrated to the grid and demand response capabilities would mean that Feed-in tariff would be possible for parties who generate power on site and even for energy-efficient home owners. This would expedite investments in sustainable sources of energy. He commented:

He urged to lower the system losses and rectify illegal links, and provide more jobs to the large Electrical and Telecommunications Engineering graduate base in Dhaka while transmitters and meters themselves could be made by local populace. During that time, aged only 21, he taught college courses in the fields of electrical engineering and computer science at North South University.

Although think tanks such as Bangladesh Solar Energy Society and Renewable Energy Institute (REI), along with the German Federal Government International Development Government Agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) supported his scheme, the Secretary of the Ministry of Power, Government of Bangladesh has said that the government has no plans to upgrade to a smart grid.

Works

He eventually became one of the youngest artists to have a solo exhibition at the National Art Gallery with work in permanent collection at the Liberation War Museum.