As a world renowned entrepreneurship coach and motivational speaker, Gary Whitehill advises presidents, prime ministers and Fortune 100 CEOs on both art and science of entrepreneurship, innovation and economic development. Yet when you meet him, he will make you feel important.
“You are the boss, you decide,” he told me when I met him at American Centre in Baridhara and asked him whether we could go somewhere else for the interview as it was too noisy.
The usual serene and soundless ambience of American Centre was noisy for him since a lot of young enthusiastic entrepreneurs and “want-to-be” entrepreneurs thronged there to attend his lectures.
EMK Centre brought this US based entrepreneurship coach to Dhaka and he spent most of his time of his short visit talking to these young guns.
We sat in the lawn outside of American Centre and that set the mood for an interview.
Gary Whitehill is the founder of The Relentless Foundation and New York Entrepreneur Week (NYEW), both of which reflect his entrepreneurial drive and relentless energy.
In 2009, The Relentless Foundation inspired the creation of New York Entrepreneur Week, an unprecedented gathering of entrepreneurs, from innovation-minded start-ups to multi-million dollar revenue generators who are given the chance to learn, connect and leverage opportunities to help drive economic change. The Entrepreneur Week movement continues to grow, with events planned in more US cities and around the world.
Additionally, Gary Whitehill believes kids should have the ability to create the world they want, and that those who are driven to achieve must also be given tools such as entrepreneurship to learn, grow and express themselves. He supports people and companies invested in driving social and economic change.
The bright prospect
Gary Whitehall is excited about Bangladesh and he expressed his excitement right away. “60 percent of the population here is under 35 and when you look at that fact you will realise that they are an amazing prospect for Bangladesh,” he said.
“It’s only going to be one of two ways when you have 160 million people in a space specified by boundary. Either it’s going to skyrocket or it’s going downward. Bangladeshi youths will make it skyrocket.”
He said that Bangladesh is the next smaller version of India. “I hate to make such a comparison. But if you look at the progress of India and Bangladesh over the last one decade, you will see that Bangladesh is heading towards where India has already gone. And there is no turnaround for Bangladesh.”
“The workshops that I conducted here were full of bright young minds and they had lots of ideas. There was one entrepreneur in the workshop who came up with an idea of on-demand shopping delivery services. That was not his first venture. He provided another idea of cost minimisation on demand shopping delivery model and that was very impressive.”
Whitehill said that we are in a place in this world where everybody is working harder than ever for less and less. “An idea which will be able to facilitate our cost saving measures is always a great and praiseworthy one. And the best thing is it came from a millennial.”
The need for proper policy
Whitehall said that the “millennial” generation is the first generation in the history of humanity to build value by changing things. So the opportunity here in Bangladesh for the youth is huge. He believes that they have the platforms, tools and resources to take what’s in their mind and heart and bring them out to materialise things.
“All you need is a National Innovation policy,” he said.
Such policy brings together public and private partnership, non-profit, profit, NGOs. Start-ups and innovation community. That also brings together universities and local governments. “You have to bring all these stakeholders together under an umbrella and work with each of those stakeholders in a way to make all understand about the priority.”
Giving examples, he said that the secondary education curriculum of Bangladesh doesn’t yet have a course that teaches entrepreneurship and innovation. “If you have a national innovation policy, then you can set the innovation agenda right from there by convincing right people and right places as all of them would be under the same umbrella.”
Investment is not a problem
Whitehill acknowledged the problem with the investment scenario in Bangladesh stating that a very few banks and venture capitalists are actually interested in investing into start-ups. But then again, he said that there is a principle of building a healthy sustainable investment environment.
“It does not just rely on angel investors or the venture capital. All stakeholders in the country need to understand there is a principal way to do this. It’s not just building tech parks ort having research and development institutes and universities.”
There is a great principal and strategic way to take all these stakeholders and engage our youth. And right now that’s why I am here in your country to spend time with some of the stakeholders like the Prime Minister and the Minister of ICT to discuss how it can be more effective if they reach out to the youth and the greater population of Bangladesh.”
He said that a lot of the challenges in general in a country like Bangladesh are the abundance and management of operating fund and having a pro-active operating environment where entrepreneurs and risk-takers can take a risk without feeling like the rug will be pulled out from under their feet.
“Again, a national policy could act as a safeguard and young investors will feel more safe,” he said.
