Elijah Z. Green.

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Dhaka Rush

An interactive driving game inspired by the streets of Dhaka

The idea: turning Dhaka traffic into a game

Growing up in Bangladesh, you’re surrounded by a kind of traffic that is difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it: cars, buses, rickshaws, and other vehicles sharing crowded streets in a constant dance of movement.

I wanted to turn that familiar experience into something people could interact with rather than simply observe. Dhaka Rush grew out of that idea: a browser-based driving game that captures the challenge and unpredictability of navigating busy city traffic.

I also wanted to make the experience accessible to more people by supporting both English and Bangla.

The design: making the experience playable

Dhaka Rush is designed around a simple premise: navigate through traffic, react to obstacles, and keep moving without crashing.

The design needed to make the game immediately understandable while keeping each run engaging. Rather than asking players to learn complicated controls or install an application, I chose a browser-based experience that players could access directly.

My role: from concept to playable product

I developed the concept for Dhaka Rush, established its creative direction, and made decisions about the experience I wanted to create. I used Claude Code extensively to help implement the game.

My role was to guide the project toward a specific outcome: a recognizable Dhaka-inspired driving experience that people could play in their browsers. That meant thinking about the game’s identity, deciding which features mattered, and evaluating whether the result matched the original vision.

I see the project as an opportunity to learn how software products come together: not only how an idea is conceived, but also how design choices, implementation, and testing affect the experience.

The development process: turning an idea into something that works

One of the central challenges of this project was translating a broad concept into a playable experience. A game about Dhaka traffic needed to be more than a visual reference to the city; navigating it had to feel like the core activity.

Using an AI coding tool accelerated implementation, but generating code was only one part of the process. The important question was whether the resulting game actually delivered the experience I wanted.

• The car’s movement and collision detection didn’t always behave correctly, so I worked through rounds of testing and revisions.
• At times traffic was too easy or too difficult, so I adjusted how obstacles appeared.
• The game worked on desktop but not on mobile, so I had to rethink the controls and the layout.

As the project developed, I had to evaluate the result against that goal and decide what needed to change. The process helped me see the difference between producing code and building a coherent product.

What’s next: story missions

I’m expanding Dhaka Rush with story missions that give players a reason to return beyond simply driving for a high score.

The next step is to build a more structured experience around the driving itself, using missions to give individual runs a purpose. This could create opportunities to introduce new challenges, different objectives, and more of the world that inspired the game.

My longer-term goal is to keep developing Dhaka Rush from a simple driving game into a more distinctive interactive experience rooted in Dhaka.

Play at dhakarush.com ↗ (opens in a new tab)

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The Balloon Shoppe

Founder · Balloon artist · E-commerce developer · 2019 – present

I started The Balloon Shoppe in 2019 and grew it from a balloon-art hobby into a business serving customers across two very different places: New York City and Dhaka.

By age 14, I was independently running seven-hour fairs and event bookings. Over time, I developed a range of balloon designs and learned how to manage the practical side of a small business, from presenting products to customers to promoting my work online.

I also built the business’s website, bringing together product listings, online ordering, event inquiries, and a digital storefront for a business built around handmade products.

Rather than treating the website as a static catalog, I designed it as an interactive storefront, combining product discovery, booking inquiries, and small games that encourage customers to return.

Running The Balloon Shoppe has given me experience that goes beyond making the product itself: understanding customers, communicating value, building a brand, and finding ways to turn a creative skill into a sustainable business.

Growing through digital marketing and customer referrals

By improving the online storefront and generating more business through customer referrals, I grew sales 18% over two years.

I focused on two ways customers discovered and purchased my work. First, I improved the online storefront so that customers could more easily browse balloon designs, understand the available options, and inquire about orders or events. Second, I recognized that satisfied customers could become an important source of new business. Referrals and word of mouth helped introduce The Balloon Shoppe to people beyond my immediate customer base.

These efforts complemented one another: the website gave prospective customers a place to explore my work, while personal recommendations helped establish trust.

Running the business taught me that growth doesn’t necessarily come from one major change; it can come from improving the customer experience and making it easier for people to discover, trust, and recommend a business.

Explore balloonshoppe.org ↗ (opens in a new tab)

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The Bacterial Internet

National Champion, British Council FameLab Science Communicators Competition 2025

How do organisms without language communicate with one another?

My FameLab talk explored how bacteria use chemical signals to communicate and, in certain circumstances, coordinate their behavior. I wanted to challenge the assumption that bacteria operate only as isolated cells and introduce audiences to the surprising complexity of microbial interactions.

The misconception

One misconception I wanted to challenge was the idea that bacteria are merely isolated, simple organisms that respond individually to their surroundings. In reality, some bacteria can detect chemical signals released by other bacteria and alter their behavior in response to those signals.

I wanted the audience to see bacteria not just as individual cells, but as organisms capable of interacting with their surroundings and, in some cases, coordinating their behavior as a group.

The analogy

I used the idea of an online group chat to make bacterial communication easier to understand. In a digital network, individual users send messages that other users can receive and respond to. In some bacterial communication systems, cells release chemical signaling molecules that other cells can detect.

The analogy helped the audience visualize how bacteria can influence one another’s behavior without speaking or communicating in a human language. I also wanted to make clear that bacterial signaling is chemical, not digital: the comparison was a way to introduce the concept, not a claim that bacteria literally use the internet.

The hardest part

The hardest part was explaining how individual chemical signals can lead to coordinated behavior across a bacterial population without making the process sound too much like human conversation.

I needed to simplify the science enough for a general audience while preserving the important details. In particular, I wanted to explain that bacteria can detect signaling molecules and respond under particular conditions, rather than suggesting that they consciously exchange thoughts or intentions.

That challenge taught me that effective science communication is not simply about removing technical terminology. It is about finding the simplest explanation that remains scientifically accurate.

What I took from it

Preparing for FameLab forced me to make difficult choices about what to include in a short scientific presentation. I had to decide which details were essential to understanding bacterial communication and which could be left out without distorting the science.

Winning the national competition strengthened my interest in explaining complex ideas clearly. It also reinforced a lesson that extends beyond science: communicating an idea well requires understanding it deeply enough to simplify it without losing what makes it true.

Read the coverage in New Age ↗ (opens in a new tab)

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Student Council President

Grace International School · Year 13

As student council president, I work to turn student ideas into practical improvements and shared experiences at school.

My contributions have included helping increase hot lunch sales, expanding the menu, and supporting school events such as Neon Night and Grace Games. I also led the farewell assembly for teachers.

These experiences have taught me that leadership involves more than holding a position: it means understanding what people need, coordinating with others, and following through on the details that make an initiative work.

Improving the school lunch program

As student council president, I wanted to make the school’s hot lunch program more responsive to what students actually wanted.

I began by gathering feedback about the existing menu and identifying which options students wanted to see more often. I brought those preferences into discussions about expanding the menu and improving the lunch offering.

Rather than assuming that adding more options would automatically increase demand, I saw the process as an opportunity to listen to students, work with the people responsible for the program, and evaluate whether the changes were making a difference.

The experience showed me how listening to a community and turning feedback into practical changes can make a real difference.