There is no straight answer to the above question, and maybe he found it worthy of a challenge in the midst of a thriving military career and a comfortable life in Bangladesh as he sailed abroad. There is a deeper yearning that we all experience at some point in our lives; some heed it, while the majority do not. Dr. Kawser Ahmed studied peace and conflict at Dhaka University, Bangladesh, and he decided to work for peace and conflict transformation for the rest of his life. And Canada seemed to be a worthwhile destination.

He was born and raised in Bangladesh, where he joined the military in December 1990. For his job, he worked as an exchange officer in Turkey. He also worked as an observer-peacekeeper for the  United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) between 2001 and 2002, and he graduated from the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, DC.

Dr. Kawser Ahmed received his PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Manitoba in 2017. His PhD research investigated social conflicts in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the contributions of community-based organizations in peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He was a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada post-doctoral fellow at the University of Winnipeg where he studied pedagogical intervention in countering radicalization to violence in schools. He is now in charge of a three-year federal project in Manitoba that will help him achieve his goals in this area.

He co-founded a Winnipeg-based not-for-profit organization named the Conflict and Resilience Research Institute, Canada (CRRIC) in 2017. It does research on the Rohingya crisis, genocide prevention, refugee education, counter-extremism through education, transformative dialogue through webinars, and UN peacekeeping research and activism. CRRIC is an affiliated research institute at the University of Winnipeg, Global College. He also leads a community-based organization – Bangabandhu Centre for Bangladesh Studies in Canada (BCBS).

He teaches as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Winnipeg, Political Science department.