Leadership

People and community

Mayesha tends to notice a missing community or an unfair system and then try to organize people around it. The entries below say why she became involved, what she did, who was affected, what was difficult, and what she learned.

January 2019 — Present

Currently paused

Founder and former president

Women Opportunities

Why she became involved: Growing up in Bangladesh, Mayesha kept meeting rules and expectations that treated women’s restrictions as normal. Argument was not enough. She wanted a place where women could share opportunities and support one another.
What she did: She founded the organization, designed its structure, managed operations, built partnerships, and ran online and in-person programs. Community programs were delivered with local partners across seven villages in Bangladesh. The work is currently paused. She may return to it later.
Who was affected: About 1,700 people.
What was difficult: Caring about the problem did not mean she already knew how to solve it. Building something lasting required experience she did not yet have.
What she learned: That gap is part of why she later applied abroad: to become better equipped for a problem that had already shaped her choices.

Founder

E-learning for women’s practical skills

Superwoman: A She Learning Platform

Why she became involved: By 18 she saw that the problem reached financial independence, support, and freedom of choice — not only individual opinions.
What she did: She started Superwoman, an e-learning platform so women could learn practical business skills, reach customers, and earn.
Who was affected: Women looking for income-generating skills and a learning community.
What was difficult: Intention was clearer than a durable operating model.
What she learned: A platform is not the same thing as a solution. Structure and follow-through matter.

April 2023 — March 2026

Founder and former president

TIU Data Science and Analytics

Tokyo International University

Why she became involved: Students in an interdisciplinary major wanted a clearer path into data science than coursework alone provided.
What she did: She drafted the vision and structure, secured university approval, recruited members, and built a level-based curriculum with professors covering SQL, Python, statistics, and introductory machine learning. Students could study, take a test, and move on. A tracking system showed where people were stuck. The club later became the department’s student association.
Who was affected: 150+ members. More than 70 students completed the full pathway; 30+ later joined research teams; others used the skills for internships.
What was difficult: Even forming a club required layers of paperwork. No category existed for this group. After months of documents, negotiations, and interviews in Japanese and English, the university created a new category for educational activities and made the club its first member.
What she learned: Members came from many countries and approached the same goal differently. She learned to notice how people balance speed and precision before she sets a pace.

September 2022 — December 2025

Founder

Bangladesh Student Association

Tokyo International University

Why she became involved: When she arrived at TIU, there was no community for Bangladeshi students.
What she did: She founded the official student body, helped incoming students, and organized cultural festivals, including Bangladesh’s representation at the university’s international festival for four years.
Who was affected: About 100 people in the campus community recorded in her application.
What was difficult: A new student body has to do both celebration and practical support — housing questions, belonging, and the quiet first weeks.
What she learned: A community is infrastructure. People need it most before they know how to ask.

Divisional coordinator: April 2017 — September 2022

Head of Sponsorship: November 2018 — January 2022

Divisional coordinator; Head of Sponsorship

English Olympiad

Why she became involved: A large student English competition needed regional coordination, not only a stage on the day.
What she did: As Dhaka divisional coordinator (April 2017 — September 2022) and Head of Sponsorship (November 2018 — January 2022), she supported regional coordination, participant communication, and student engagement. She received the English Olympiad Leadership Award in December 2021. Application materials describe work with institutions and partners across a network that reached 50,000+ students and 5,000+ campus ambassadors.
Who was affected: Students and campus ambassadors across Bangladesh and a wider network.
What was difficult: Scale makes small communication failures expensive.
What she learned: Coordination is a form of care: people can only take part if the path to the event is clear.

June 2020 — September 2021

Educational content developer

Curriculum development for online education

National Curriculum and Textbook Board, Bangladesh

Why she became involved: COVID-19 moved assessment and teaching online. Students still needed assignments that could be done at a distance.
What she did: She developed 21 assignments for grades 6–8 and 28 assignments for SSC and HSC students, translated 24 assignments for the Business Studies group, and presented recommendations after looking at how the materials were used.
Who was affected: Secondary students in Bangladesh using the government’s online education and evaluation materials.
What was difficult: Assignments had to work without the usual classroom.
What she learned: Evaluation design is never only technical. It has to meet students where they actually are.

May 2018 — February 2025

Volunteer, later project coordinator

Worldwide Organization for Charity

Worldwide Organization for Charity (WOC)

Why she became involved: She learned about the work through the founder and wanted to do more than attend one annual day.
What she did: WOC supports orphaned and underprivileged children and widows through scholarships, living-expense support, medical care, counseling, and legal aid. Mayesha first volunteered on World Orphans Day — food, clothes, books, games, time. She later helped plan “Coding for Orphans,” intended to teach programming as a practical skill.
Who was affected: Children and families connected to the organization’s programs.
What was difficult: Coding for Orphans could not be fully carried out because of circumstances beyond the team’s control.
What she learned: A good intention is not yet a durable program. Sometimes what feels small from the giver’s side — a few hours, a book, a meal — means more on the receiving side.

March 2025 — July 2025

Peer support

Peer support during a friend’s crisis

Personal, in Japan

Why she became involved: A friend in Japan could not manage her own affairs during a mental-health crisis. Her mother was in Bangladesh and faced a language barrier. There was no one else locally who could coordinate care, studies, and logistics.
What she did: Mayesha coordinated hospital needs, university communication, housing, finances, embassy support, and the return home, while protecting her friend’s scholarship and serving as the local contact.
Who was affected: Her friend, and the people in two countries who needed a reliable person in Japan.
What was difficult: The work was practical and heavy at once: institutions, money, language, and someone else’s future.
What she learned: Leadership is sometimes just being the person who stays and translates a system for someone who cannot face it alone. No name is published here.

October 2025 — Present

Remote-team leadership

The Abroad Company

Why she became involved: The products needed a team that could work across time zones without turning every decision into a meeting.
What she did: Mayesha leads an 11-person distributed team across Japan, the United States, Canada, Bangladesh, and Italy. The team uses a shared portal, meets twice a week, and works mostly through asynchronous coordination. She reviews weekly task completion, activity, hours, and efficiency to improve the workflow.
Who was affected: Engineers, operators, and mentors working on AbroadMates and ApplicationMate.
What was difficult: People from different countries approach speed, perfection, and silence differently. A process that feels clear in one culture can feel abrupt in another.
What she learned: She now tries to understand each person’s working norms before setting expectations. This is operational leadership, not a formal human-subject study.