Abed's maternal grandfather, Syed Moazzem Uddin Hossain, had served successively as ministers for agriculture and education for Bengal during the last years of British rule.

[2][3][4] After passing intermediate from Dhaka College, Bangladesh, in 1954, Abed left home at the age of 18 to attend University of Glasgow, UK where, to break away from tradition and do something radically different, he studied naval architecture.

He realized there was little work in shipbuilding in East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh) and a career in naval architecture would make returning home difficult.

With friends, Abed created HELP, an organisation that provided relief and rehabilitation to the worst affected in the island of Manpura, which had lost three-quarters of its population in the disaster.

Abed decided to use the funds he had generated from selling his flat to initiate an organisation to deal with the long-term task of improving the living conditions of the rural poor.

Since then, BRAC has expanded to 10 countries across Asia and Africa, successfully adapting its unique integrated development model across varying geographic and socioeconomic contexts.