There is no alternative to Bangladesh for fostering entrepreneurship with required policy, fund and other support if the country wants to be a developed economy by 2041. In order to reach the desired goal, the country should create new generation of entrepreneurs, giving priority to knowledge and technology,
A two-day entrepreneurs' summit sponsored by the Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) observed this week that though the country's economic development is so far noteworthy, it is not ready yet to tackle the challenges waiting in the coming years.
The country achieved economic growth mostly exploiting cheap labour in the past decades, which will be of no use in near future. In fact, skilled manpower, knowledge and use of technology will be essential for driving the economy to its desired trajectory then.
There is a need to properly ensure intellectual property rights of innovation made by the country's young people as information technology (IT)-based services for new entrepreneurs. The IT-enabled services (ITES) are now making substantial contribution to Bangladesh's economy, which was unimaginable even a decade ago. As such the country must create more skilled and knowledge-based entrepreneurs for ensuring growth in the changing global scenario.
Bangladesh is set to become a developed nation by 2041 from only $300 billion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at present. In order to achieve such goal, over 10 per cent growth per year will be required. It is very difficult to reach the goal without producing new generation entrepreneurs in the next 23 years.
Around 2.3 million young people join the workforce per year, but many of them remain unemployed. Despite huge number of workforce, the country still lacks skilled people.
Bangladesh needs, in fact, a lot of innovative entrepreneurs to create quality jobs, add value to the gross domestic product and help the country become a developed nation by 2041. The country has done a commendable job by meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Now, it needs to go one step further to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In order to attain the SDGs and reduce poverty, experts say there should be a group of inventors who will foster entrepreneurship in the society. In this context, the country's universities can play a vital role in developing entrepreneurs by preparing the younger generation.
Governments around the globe, nurture an innovative society to achieve an inclusive development. To build a just, equal and innovative society, they address the inequality and unemployment and come up with initiatives, efforts and ideas.
Sadly enough, Bangladesh's university education system is lagging in meeting the society's needs because of their irrelevant curriculum. For that reason, they are failing to support employability.
The fact remains, innovative ideas require greater nurturing at various stages in order to be translated into a take-to-market product. All the country needs is to recognise the challenges of the ecosystem and adapt. There has to be an enabling support system and culture for entrepreneurship to flourish.
Women entrepreneurs, on the other hand, should build strong networks among themselves to collectively deal with the various challenges they face and also groom the next generation of entrepreneurs. They face both formal and informal impediments. When they start any business they do not know the rules of the game. Informal barriers are in the form of society's reluctance still in accepting women as businesspersons.
Woman entrepreneurs should not replicate the businesses launched by others in the locality as it would eat into each other's market share. They should go for product diversification. As their empowerment needs economic opportunity, women entrepreneurship and strengthening the rights of women should be a priority for the government. They should act as models for budding entrepreneurs to show that society can change.
In fact, there will be no sustainable development in the country without participation of women in the economy, particularly women entrepreneurs. They should build a strong community, not only within Bangladesh but also outside of it to take their products to new markets.
Toru Institute of Inclusive Innovation, the country's start-up incubator in building new generation entrepreneurs, launched a recent programme to facilitate budding entrepreneurs to realise their innovative ideas, according to reports in the media.
Called the Impactor programme, it is an eight month-long curriculum for 10 select start-ups that want to transform their ideas, early form of a product or business into a successful enterprise with a social impact.
The programme being the first of its kind in Bangladesh, has accelerator programmes or competitions in the country. But the idea of such an endeavour needs extensive and long-term support in order to be impacting on the enterprises. When an entrepreneur has an idea, the road to its execution gets very difficult because of lack of financing.
In the space between aspiring ideas, fast-paced accelerators and demanding funds, is the ecosystem vacuum where most of the ideas die a premature death. It is found that there is a stage between ideas and acceleration where the former fades away due to a lack of infrastructure and support potential.
Ideas or innovations, no matter how well-executed, will always be at the risk of failing in the murky terrains of early-stage growth. Unfortunately, according to analysts, support from the local ecosystem is absent in the space of incubation, where it is mostly needed.
Due to failure of the system, many promising young people are unable to use the existing resources. This gives rise to a sense of insecurity and uncertainty on way to their embracing entrepreneurship. As such, the uphill climb towards social innovation or entrepreneurship in Bangladesh turns out to be risky for the young entrepreneurs.
The question thus remains how we inspire these instrumental, innovative young minds to pursue their dreams and ensure that the flame inside them doesn't die. The answer lies in understanding the ecosystem and identifying why we have not been able to build innovative enterprises.
The grassroots-level entrepreneurs do invariably need market access as the entrepreneurs cannot display their products due to a lack of platform. They sit idle with their products. Why not the government pay due attention to the grassroots entrepreneurs who are suffering most?
