“Education is the universal value that cancels diversity. This is my creed”.
From Bosnian refugee to professor at MIT of Boston, the most prestigious university on the planet. Scientist, he has patented a concrete that repairs itself and allows you to keep bridges standing for a thousand years. And from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it launched Mit ReACT (Refugee Action Hub) a free program for getting talented refugees to study computer science and entrepreneurship of all the world.
The one of I admire Masic it’s an exciting story. Full of life. Indeed of lived lives. “I’m Bosnian, I have an Italian heart, a German passport, a brain in America. I feel like a citizen of the world“. You speak five languages.
Admir was born in Slavonski Brod, a small village in the then Yugoslavia, now Croatia. He lives in Gornje Kolibe, a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was March 1, 1992 when the war broke out in Bosnia. Admir’s father is a carpenter, works for power plants, repairs large plants. He spends six months at the front. Then he is called to Rijeka by the company where he works. With him he takes his three children, his wife and mother. He has a shack for home 7 km from the city.
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Admir is a 14-year-old boy, very good at school. “At the end of eighth grade I had all five, which is the highest grade for my country. Your 10”. Suddenly his life changes. He feels like a stranger at home. “Everyone asked me: where are you from? Ah, you are a refugee. I had a stamp on my face that made me suffer”. When he goes shopping in a small shop, the shopkeeper tells him: “Hey Bosnian boy, did you go to school? – Yes, I was the top of the class. – Here in Croatia you will barely be a three. Our schools are better.” “.
School was forbidden for refugee children in Croatia. They spent their time in the slums, playing endless games of ping pong. Admir and Mom don’t give up. Talent and desire for redemption are looking for a way. In September, the two decide to enter the first high school they find in the city. Any school. “We cannot admit you, you are Bosnians”.
The story looks like a movie: the mother cries, the boy waves his diploma, a psychologist passes by who is interested in the case and convinces the Headmaster.
“Admir starts from Monday – he said to me. What do you want to do: chemical expert or communication and transport?”. In my country there was a diesel refinery, one day I would come home and work there. I chose a chemical expert. I never went back to Bosnia and my house was destroyed by the war“. In those slums, like a little Forrest Gump, he studies chemistry. And he discovers his talent.
“My career started from a mix of luck and despair. I felt like I lived in a parallel world. Fact of discrimination. Of suffering. Without rights, without money, without prospects. But I was hoping for education “.
In the second semester, the principal (who is also his chemistry professor) takes him to a competition. A kind of Croatian chemistry Olympics. Admir wins first place. Since that year, every year, he has participated in national competitions. He wins. “I became a little star. The papers were talking about me. And I went back to the store to show that trader who was making fun of me about my results. Which are hanging here today in my studio in Boston.”
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In 1994, the family moves to Germany. Admir asks to stay to finish school. It is at this moment that the Italian volunteers enter his life. One of the organizations is called Collective Action Peace of Turin. “Every two weeks they brought us food and joy. I fell in love with Italy. With them. I learned the language and what it means to be generous. What humanity is”. In these two years, Admir becomes a little boy loved by the Collective. He travels with them throughout Croatia to bring aid. After high school, they invite him to Italy. They help him enroll in university, find him accommodation, give him money from benefactors.
In 2001 Admir graduated in chemistry at the University of Turin. 110 and praise. Then he does a doctorate in Physical Chemistry, has a job for the Piedmont Region on the restoration of the Reggia di Venaria. And with a university friend he creates what today we would call startup: Adamantio srl.
“I was 28 years old. I felt Italian, I thought I had built my life in Italy. I was an entrepreneur, I was a research fellow at the University. I was living with a girl I was supposed to marry. But for you I was a non-EU citizen. The war. had uprooted me. I was looking for myself in everything I did. So, without a subordinate job, Italy denied me a residence permit. I was forced to leave“.
Admir closes with our country. He goes to Sarajevo to a conference for young scientists. He knows a Bosnian woman, a surgeon who lives in Berlin. He moves to Germany. He finds work in a very well-known German research center. They give him his passport. Offers begin to arrive. Singapore, Israel, the MIT. “I had always had a dream: to become a professor”. And here it is. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Materials scientist, professor of ancient materials and technologies.
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“The United States welcomed me and gave me the feeling of being welcome. I was successful, I started living a life full of well-being and happiness. I remarried an extraordinary woman, an American of Bosnian descent, who shares my And yet every time I saw a scene of those refugees on TV, my heart would cry.
I started from a theory: “Whoever puts a line linked to MIT in his CV is treated differently”. I decided to do an experiment. I went to the colleague who set up digital learning at the University and asked for certificates for refugees around the world. I did foundraising and raised 500 thousand dollars in two days. And we left.
Thus was born Mit Refugee Action Hub.
We receive thousands of requests every year, we select 150 students from more than 20 countries around the world. People who then get very high marks in online courses. We operate in 10 countries locally, opening a small center in each country. And we are working to open one in Italy in September.
Most of those who exit this program have prestigious jobs. Log in to Google, Meta, Microsoft. Opens companies. Become a role model. Refugees are a special group, the most difficult to help but this is the great beauty of education. That changes people’s lives.
“We live in a world that has a tendency to discriminate. But I am convinced that there is a universal value that creates respect. And this universal value is knowledge, education, intelligence. Being smart people.
When I put around a table people who come from the suburbs of Kenya with Venezuelans, Colombians, Russians, Ukrainians, Syrians, I see different people becoming friends. Because I’m good. This is a space of peace-building. Education is a vehicle for a better life. And thanks to technology and digital learning we can bring ‘water’ to those who thirst for education. “
The name Action included in the program is a thank you to the Action Collective of the Italian volunteers who helped Masic. Admir bought a house in Terracina. His startup Dmat, which creates a concrete inspired by the ancient Romans, that repairs itself, absorbs CO2 and it lasts much longer, she was born in Udine. “You are a beautiful country. I understand the difficulties in managing immigration. You just have to learn to organize yourself better“.
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