Ambassador Tariq Ahmad Karim, currently Director of the Centre for Bay of Bengal Studies at the Independent University, Bangladesh, has joined the Cosmos Foundation as its Honorary Advisor Emeritus.

A career diplomat, Ambassador Karim served extensively both at home and abroad since he joined the Foreign Service in 1967. He had been an advisory consultant until recently for South Asia Regional Integration and Engagement with the World Bank since 2014.

His major assignments abroad include: Bangladesh High Commissioner to India (2009-14), Ambassador to the United States (2001-2002), Ambassador to Iran with concurrent accreditation to Lebanon (1991-95); High Commissioner to South Africa, with concurrent accreditation to Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, and with consular jurisdiction in Zambia and Zimbabwe (1997-98); Deputy High Commissioner in New Delhi (1984-88), and Deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing (1988-91).

Ambassador Karim was also Distinguished International Executive in Residence (1999-2000) at the University of Maryland.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, Honorary Fellow of the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and former Foreign Affairs Advisor (Foreign Minister) of the Caretaker Government in Bangladesh from 2007 to 2009, is President of the Cosmos Foundation.

Besides, Dr Danilo Turk, former President of the Republic of Slovenia, Ambassador Krishnan Srinivasan from India, Haider A. Khan, a professor of economics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, Professor George Edward Moose from the United States, and Ambassador Li Debiao, a Distinguished Retired Chinese Diplomat, are members of the Advisory Board of the Cosmos Foundation.

About Cosmos Foundation

Cosmos Foundation is a philanthropic arm of the Cosmos Group, registered as a trust dedicated to providing strategic insights and policy solutions to help Bangladesh chart its course towards a better future, apart from discovering, cultivating and disseminating for a global audience, the art of Bangladesh. Cosmos Foundation is organizing Bangladesh's first-ever festival of disabled artists in collaboration with UNESCO.

The Foundation provides direction to the Group's flagship curatorial space, Gallery Cosmos, and its pioneering printmaking studio, Atelier71, which work in tandem.

The Foundation aims to engage both local and global audiences in artistic and intellectual interventions that aim to illuminate the past, examine the present, and imagine the future.