Ataullah Khan Ozai-Durrani (1898–2 May 1964) was an Afghan inventor, known for inventing a method for preparing instant rice.
[3] H. K. Smith, the manager of the Arkansas Rice Growers Collective, let Ozai-Durrani set up another lab in their growing area.
In 1941, Ozai-Durrani walked into the New York City offices of General Foods with a portable stove and kit to demonstrate this rice-cooking method.
[4] General Foods bought the product for several million dollars, making Ozia-Durrani instantly wealthy.
[3] In his will, he left $30,000 to Louisiana State University to commission "an encyclopedic text" about rice, and over $500,000 to "Harvard University or such non-profit institution" for research and biographies of 19th-century Persian poets Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib and Mir Taqi Mir, as well as translation of their work into English.