Born on 4 May 1953 in Barlekha, a border town in South Sylhet. He attended Shatma Primary for his elementary education and Patharia Chotolekha High for a year after which he left home to be schooled at Faujdarhat Cadet College, Sylhet MC College, and the University of Dacca wherefrom he received his bachelor's honors degree in physics. Karim started his graduate studies at the University of Alabama in 1976 wherefrom he earned his master's degrees in physics and electrical engineering, and a doctor of philosophy in electrical engineering. Karim began creative writing in high school. A large number of his popular science writings in Bengali appeared in Bigyan Shamoeeki and Bangla Academy Bigyan Patrika during 1972–1976. Of these, the most significant were Biborthon Kahinee, a series of articles on cosmic and biological evolution, and Shamproteek, a monthly feature of current affairs in science, both of which appeared in Bigyan Shamoeeki. By sophomore year in 1974, he had completed his first book manuscript which he submitted to Bangla Academy for publication. After about two years, the Academy informed him that it was not prepared to take a chance on its juvenile author. This episode troubled him deeply ending his creative writing efforts in Bengali. All his subsequent books and articles were written in English and all were published from outside of Bangladesh. A 2004 Government of Bangladesh report and a number of books in Bengali, including Bangladesher Shera Bigyani and Medhabi Manusher Golpo, as well as Star Insight, cite him as an example of outstanding success of the Bangladeshi diaspora. His efforts to correct illegal practices that otherwise discriminated against international graduate students was featured by the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Wall Street Journal in "Hidden Costs of a Brain Gain" and in turn by David Heenan in his book "Flight Capital: The Alarming Exodus of America's Best And Brightest". Karim is married and has three children.
During his academic career, he supervised MS/PhD research of over 60 graduate students and authored 19 books, 8 book chapters, and over 365 research papers. He guest edited 33 journal special issues in areas of communication, computing, multimedia, networks, optics, pattern recognition, remote sensing, and software.
Relevance to Bangladesh
He leads the International Conference on Computer and Information Technology, now in its 16th year. Since 2009, with assistance of 5 teams of guest editors, Karim produced 20 journal special issues that featured works of Bangladesh-based researchers in the fields of communications, computing, multimedia, networks, and software. His edited book on "Technical Challenges and Design Issues in Bengali Language Processing" provides a state-of-the-art platform for information communication technologyresearch and development that is of significance to nearly 260 million Bengali-speaking people who live in Bangladesh, India and in diaspora in Middle East, Europe, and US. This milestone work includes 16 chapters coauthored by 41 researchers from Bangladesh, Canada, India, Ireland, Norway, UK, and US.
