University of Alabama, Birmingham, U.S.A. (UAB) Associate Professor Akhlaque Haque, Ph.D., is returning to his native country of Bangladesh to begin a four-month adventure to create Bangladesh's first comprehensive digital maps using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology. Go to http://www.uab.edu/bangladesh to learn about the project. Students can blog and participate in the project.

Specifically, Haque plans to create a map of the capital city of Dhaka, the nation's largest city with more than 5 million people and a major commercial and cultural center. To begin the project, he and his team will spend weeks traveling through Dhaka's roadways and crowded, narrow streets carrying GPS units to collect location data on Dhaka's roads, neighborhoods and major buildings. To collect the data, the team will have to navigate Dhaka's famously congested traffic, with people traveling by car, bike, scooter or rickshaw or riding crowded buses and trains. The team will drive past the city's colorful bazaars, shops and mosques, past shanties and modern buildings and high rises.