Recently, SD ASIA published a list of 20 people, whom Bangladeshis should follow in 2015.
The list was based on the start up-enterprises and entrepreneurship scene in Dhaka, and it highlights individuals who boost attention to the concerned environment.
SD ASIA, an innovative regional online content site for businesses supported by the community and entrepreneurs about startups, entrepreneurs, and business in Bangladesh, has made a list of inspiring individuals to look out in the year of 2015.
Here is SD Asia’s list of inspiring individuals for 2015.
The State Minister of Post, Telecommunications & Information Technology is the youngest in such a post. He has overseen and personally spearheaded several tech and ICT initiatives in a bid to reach the Vision 2021 goals set for Bangladesh. Working in concert with state institutions and programmes such as BASIS and A2i, he is a driving force behind events like Hackathon and the successful Digital World 2014 and 2015.
An ICT entrepreneur and co-founder of Akhoni.com, eGeneration Ltd, and Benchmark e-Generation Ltd. His latest venture, Akhoni.com, is Bangladesh’s first and largest e-commerce platform. Elected as president of BASIS twice, he was honoured as the “Best Young Entrepreneur of Bangladesh” by the prime minister. He has recently become a general partner at Fenox Venture Capital as well.
A Bangladeshi-American entrepreneur and the founder of bKash and Cellbazar. bKash is prominently known for its mobile banking services. bKash’s services are available in the most remote regions of the country. Prior to starting bKash, Quadir also founded the buying and selling platform CellBazar.
Iraj Islam is co-founder and chief technology officer at NewsCred, a content marketing and syndication platform. Iraj had an entrepreneurial spirit from his younger days. While in university, he was the founder and CEO of HalveraAB, a marketplace for books, video games, DVDs, and CDs. HalveraAB won the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship Business Competition.
Shams Jaber and Neloy Anik
Both are the founders of the well known tech school. The Tech School (TTS) provides education to young kids about technology, especially robotics. Neloy and Shams got tired of the theory-oriented approach of teaching engineering to students. After working on a number of failed education ventures, the duo finally founded a sustainable venture in the form of TTS. They are providing tech education to a school in Notun Bazar and another one in Bandarban. These two schools are where Shams and Neloy have also started their initiatives of The Tech School outside Dhaka.
The founder and CEO of bdJobs.com, Bangladesh’s largest online job portal. The internet was booming back in the early 2000’s, but nothing was happening in Bangladesh. Bdjobs has since built up a lot of credibility in the digital space in the country and helped many people. Recently, bdjobs sold 25% of it’s equity to Australia’s number one job-seeking portal, SEEK, for Tk38.5 crore.
The head of strategy at Grameenphone, Erlend Prestgard is on a mission to make 3G internet a driving force of change in Bangladesh. He has been involved in several startup and tech community events, working with organisations such as BRAC as a spokesperson for the propagation of Internet in Bangladesh. Under his direction, Grameenphone is focusing on low-cost internet-enabled handsets to bring internet connectivity to the common man. He has also expressed interest in establishing public Wi-Fi spots in places like educational institutes.
The founder of BYLC, Bangladesh’s first leadership institute. BYLC regularly holds workshops, seminars, and summits to build the next generation of leaders in Bangladesh. Through BYLC, Ejaj has instilled leadership skills in the youth of Bangladesh and enabled them to solve various social problems. The leadership programmes have created many entrepreneurs.
A member of the Prime Minister’s National Digital Task Force, Anir Chowdhury is the project manager of the Access to Information (a2i) programme. With assistance from UNDP and USAID, the project aims to establish e-service delivery centres in all 4,545 unions of Bangladesh. The project has also led to the training of over 50,000 government officials and micro-entrepreneurs on e-service awareness, and they have launched 25,000 government office portals. Under his guidance, a2i has also engaged in partnering with several digital fairs and events.
A role model for contemporary entrepreneurs in the country and current CEO at Microsoft. After being trained and educated in Silicon Valley, she worked for Fortune 100 companies like Oracle and Sun Microsystems. Her expertise resides in sales execution, financial management, team building, and strategic planning and growth. In Bangladesh, she worked at Microsoft and Dell. Currently, she is collaborating with the government to use technology to make education more accessible for the poor.
Anita completed her Bar Vocational Course with “Merit” from The College of Law. Her main expertise resides in company law. Anita is the co-editor and publisher of LCLR (Legal Circle Law Reports), a quarterly law report. She is also the editor of Think Legal Bangladesh – www.thinklegalbangladesh.com, which is one of the first comprehensive free legal resource websites in the country. Using her knowledge and effort, she is trying to make the importance of the law system more exposed to the business world in the country.
She shares a passionate relationship with startup projects such as Loosemonkies and Payza Bangladesh. Strongly aimed with a vision to ensure Bangladeshis are placed on the map for all the right reasons, Faria actively leads the Bangladesh Marketing and Sales team for these two organisations and also Casada Technology.
An engineering student from United International University, Arif Nezami is a multitasking wizard in the Dhaka startup community. An executive member of the United Nations Youth & Student Association of Bangladesh since 2011, he has since gone on to become the organiser of Google Development Group (GDG) Dhaka, hosting key events like DevFest throughout the country and the National Hackathon in association with A2i. Additionally, he is also the founder of Preneur Labs and the chapter director of Startup Grind Bangladesh.
A senior IT executive, Mohammad Zaman is the chief strategy officer for Grameen Solutions. He is also a thought leader in the industry, providing guidance and mentorship to aspiring IT entrepreneurs. To this end, he has co-founded Cloud Camp Bangladesh, which informs and educates university students about the new opportunities in the IT sector, specifically in the cloud, mobile, social media and analytics areas. He has been a speaker at numerous events, such as Digital World, e-Asia, and DevFest.
Korvi Rakshand is the founder and chairman of the JAAGO Foundation, a civil society he founded in 2007. With JAAGO, he works to provide a long-run support infrastructure to several disadvantaged groups in Bangladesh. It began with a free-of-cost school that now runs classes for nearly 600 students. He is also the president of Volunteer for Bangladesh, a nationwide association of youth volunteer groups with over 12,000 volunteers. He is also a co-founder of The Wave, a co-working space for young people to work on their ideas. In 2014, Korvi was ranked 5th in a top 10 list of inspirational Bangladeshis by British Bangladeshi Power & Inspiration 100.
Taslima Miji is the founder and CEO of Techmania. She founded the company in 2008 and has been working alongside as a member of Bangladesh Computer Samity. She was also formerly a journalist.
Nash Islam
Nash is an entrepreneur and tech community organiser who has flown in from America in 2012. He is currently CEO of G&R Ad Network, Bangladesh’s top-notch online ad network, and co-founder at Mangoes Mobile, a US-based mHealth app development team. He is also an investor in US tech companies as a partner at Inflection Ventures. In 2010, Nash began his career at Google, working in both California and Singapore, and also worked at mobile ads start-up AdMob, which was later acquired by Google. He also partakes in Google Business Group meet ups in his spare time.
Sajid Islam is the founder at hubdhaka, organiser of Startup Weekend Dhaka, founder of Shetu and the global support product manager at HP Software. This metapreneur has been in the world of IT for more than 15 years and hopes to make it bigger.
Samira Zuberi Himika
Samira Zuberi Himika is the founder of team engine. She is an entrepreneur, development sector and communications specialist, campaigner, and a vocalist. This revolutionary entrepreneur says the notion behind "team engine" is they have brought forth a platform where they are helping policy makers, individuals, private sectors, and the government as well to interconnect and work with each other to make a better working system.
