December 12 is Fahim’s birthday, his first birthday without him being with us. He was born and brought up outside Bangladesh, but Fahim always felt a special bond with Bangladesh, the birthplace of his parents.
In 2007, Fahim was a student at Bentley University. His business in making children’s and entertainment websites and icons under the hood of Wizteen was going in full swing and expanding. Most of his programmers were in India and Ukraine.
In the first week of October, Fahim came home for the winter break. One evening, he stopped by me. Fahim told, he would go to Dhaka next week to recruit programmers and I would have to go with him. I was very surprised.
He hardly knew anything about Bangladesh's IT industry. What kind of programmers were available? And how good they were and how much they would cost? I did not have any updated knowledge either.
I just knew that computer education in Dhaka was just picking up and the IT industry was not ready for the prime time yet.
I explained to Fahim that he should wait a few more years before recruiting from Bangladesh. But Fahim was insistent and said he was going to Dhaka next week --with or without me.
Letting Fahim go to Dhaka alone was the last thing I would do, as he did not know how to communicate in Bengali then. He was just familiar with a few words he would have exchanged with his mother.
Fahim Saleh with family
I relented but asked for some more time as I wanted to get some understanding of Bangladesh's programming environment before we got on the flight.
I remember contacting Dr Kaikobad, a BUET professor, and Mustafa Jabbar, who is currently the post and telecommunication minister.
Mr Jabbar at that time was a technology entrepreneur and a friend when we were both at Dhaka University.
We had a number of common interests like politics and journalism. He gave me a clear picture of what to expect, how much is the salary range in each category.
He even graciously agreed to host Fahim's programmers in his Annanda Computers premise. He was very kind to extend helping hands for the son of an old friend.
We went to Dhaka in the middle of October 2007. Before leaving, I arranged recruitment postings at bdjobs.com and probably to a couple of newspapers. There was a tremendous response. That was expected -- US company recruiting in Bangladesh!
The actual interview was probably on October 23. Fahim shortlisted 30 candidates but after the interview, he selected only two of them: a female web programmer and the other was a graphics designer.
Fahim Saleh in 2007, when he was the CEO of Wizteen
There was another notable incident from that trip. After the interview, we went to the Banani supermarket for photocopying some papers. On our way back, I saw Fahim was missing.
He was following me closely, so I assumed he was behind me. But when I turned around and saw Fahim missing I got worried. It took me a while to find him. He was conversing with two rickshaw pullers when I found him and they were very amazed by Fahim's Bengali words.
Fahim was also enjoying their company and was trying to communicate with whatever few Bengali words he knew at that time.
I was so relieved. My Fahim is now lost forever, will never come back, will never say, “Dad, I'm here!” -- like he did at that time. It is now such a different world for us.