I
Who I am
I’m Md Ashikur Rahman. Most people call me Ashik, and some know me as Ayon. I grew up in Rajshahi, in the north-west of Bangladesh. I finished school at Harimohan Govt. High School, in the science group, and I’m now sitting my Edexel A Levels as a private candidate, which leaves room for everything else on this page.
I don’t fit neatly into one category, and I’ve stopped trying to. My pattern is usually the same: something catches my curiosity, I explore it, build something with it, learn what I can, and move on. Much later I notice the dots were connected all along. Technology, product, design, science, sustainability, debate, astronomy and books have all been part of that.
Curiosity, then a thing made, then a lesson. Repeat.
II
Building products at RareDev
RareDev is where my ideas stopped being only ideas. I started it with my co-founder, Eusha Ibna Akbor, who leads the technology. Since January 2026 I’ve been Head of Product. It’s the clearest picture of what I want to do: understand people, make something for them, and keep improving it.
Our main product is SafeShare, privacy-first file sharing, because sharing a file shouldn’t mean giving it away. I’ve looked after the whole product lifecycle: what SafeShare should be, who it’s for, and what gets built next. More than 20,000 people around the world now use it, and we’re building a customised version for companies.
I also work on Eflow, a small “living island” on the Windows screen that brings assistants, notifications and everyday tools together. There I look after the product, the brand and how we tell its story. Alongside both, we’re shaping an interactive learning platform built around practical skills.
What RareDev is really teaching me is the distance between an idea and something people rely on, and how design, users, business and plain hard execution all have to meet along the way.
III
Science and sustainability, with SLSN
In August 2025 I co-founded the Sustainability & Life Sciences Network, where I’m Director of Strategy. SLSN is run by young people, and it connects science, sustainability and human impact.
With Zero Competitions we organise BOCE, the Bangladesh Olympiad on Climate Change & Environmental Issues. It selects the national team for the international olympiad in Sirius, Russia, and in 2026 that team made history for Bangladesh. We’ve brought on sponsors such as flydubai and sent several teams abroad. I also lead the graphics team for BIDE, and we’re building Quitora, software that uses a reward model to help prevent dengue.
Three teams abroad so far. They came home with golds.
IV
Debate, and learning to lead
From February 2025 to February 2026 I was President of the Harimohan Govt. High School Debate Club. We grew to more than 200 members, and for the first time we brought the alumni back into the room. The club directed competitive events and won titles at district, regional and national level.
From March 2025 to June 2026 I was also Assistant General Secretary of the Chapainawabganj Debating Club, running sessions and events and the quiet admin that keeps a club going. Debate is where I learned to listen properly, and that an idea isn’t ready until someone has tried hard to break it.
“Ideas get sharper when they collide.”
V
The sky, and the craft of design
I joined the Bangladesh Olympiad on Astronomy & Astrophysics as a graphics intern. Since December 2024 I’ve been a Senior Associate there, overseeing the documentation, digital infrastructure and systems a national science olympiad depends on. It’s my way of staying close to the sky.
Design has run underneath almost everything. I led the creative department at the Bangladesh United Astronomical Forum and worked in the creative team at the Bangladesh Space Research Society. I don’t think of design as making things pretty. It’s visual identity, creative direction and storytelling, and it’s a way of thinking about how something should feel to the person using it. This website is the best example I can give you.
Precision is part of the creative work, not a chore after it.
Technology is worth building only when it makes someone’s life better.
VI
Research I haven’t finished
Research, for me, is a question I can’t put down. The Structured Leapfrogging Investment Model asks whether a late-developing economy can skip a stage of development instead of repeating it, through the order in which it invests. A version of that thinking was accepted as an essay by Open Dialogue Russia in 2026.
I’m also studying why so few people in Bangladesh get to learn about astronomy, and how digital tools and local communities could change that. And I’m working on early wildfire detection that brings together satellite images, weather and years of environmental data.
All three are still open. That’s the point.
VII
Representing Bangladesh
I first represented Bangladesh abroad in February 2024, at the Indo-Bangladesh International Scouts Friendship Camp in Darjeeling. In September 2025 I represented Bangladesh at the International Scientific Conference on Ecology and Climate Change in Sirius, Russia, and received an Outstanding Presentation Award. In July 2026 I joined Doing Good, a UWC short course in Vietnam, living and arguing kindly with young people from many countries about what it takes to change a community. Dubai in September 2025 and Malaysia in July 2026 joined the map along the way.
Along the way: Champion at the 9th Rajshahi College Science Fest, first runner-up at the IUT Techathon and at the BDOAA Astro Poster Competition, and a place in The Knowledge Society, which accepts about 15% of applicants.
VIII
Work that reaches people
With উদ্ধার Uddhar I work as an admin on flood rescue, relief and the volunteer coordination behind them, along with environmental protection and climate resilience. It keeps me honest. Work only counts if it reaches someone.
Since August 2024, with a lot of good people.
IX
What I believe
I believe in humanity first. Technology should serve people, solve problems that matter and open doors nobody had imagined. Progress means little if nobody’s life improves.
I believe in precision, because how a thing is made shows what you thought of the people using it. I believe in accountability for what I choose, how I spend my hours and what I add to the room. I believe in hard work, because ideas and ambition are the easy half. And I think a lot about time: life is short, and it is also long enough to build something meaningful.
“Life is short. It is also long enough.”
X
Outside all that
I read in two languages. Bangla science fiction came first, in primary school, then Kishor Alo and Biggan Chinta every month from third grade, and after that everything else: Dostoevsky, Orwell, Thiel, Isaacson. I listen to jazz while I work, play chess slowly, travel when I can, and will happily lose an evening to a random argument about almost anything.
I speak Bangla, English, Hindi and Urdu, and a little Spanish. On a good day I type at 149 words a minute.