Two years ago, Nahid Islam graduated from Dhaka University with a bachelor thesis that examined why no student movement in Bangladesh had ever managed to reach its goals. Little does it matter that he forgot what his conclusion was. The 26-year-old has now changed history. Islam was one of the most visible faces of a student movement which kickstarted countrywide mass protests in Bangladesh in recent months, resulting in the ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, once considered to be among the most powerful women in the world. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “Hasina is a bloodsucker and a psychopath,” Islam told TIME with a calm voice from an opulent black leather chair in his wood-paneled office at the Ministry for Information Technology in Dhaka, on a Sunday afternoon in September. Not long ago, he was an information technology tutor, forced into hiding in order to avoid being arrested by the government.