As many as 200 mentors, trained jointly by the government, academicians and industries, would be assigned to guide budding entrepreneurs and innovators across the country by 2025, said Zunaid Ahmed Palak, the state minister for ICT, on Sunday.
“We have already begun with 20 mentors,” he said at the concluding ceremony of “Innovator Mentor Development Camp”, organised by the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh.
University teachers, industry leaders and experts will get the priority to be mentors.
Additionally, mentor development camps will play an important role in building the future entrepreneurial supply chain and start-up ecosystem, he said.
About 3,000 university students will be trained and groomed to become entrepreneurs under the government's skill development and innovation ecosystem, supervised by 2,000 recruited officials.
“Through government initiatives, educational institutions and industrialists will work together to accelerate the building of a digital Bangladesh.”
The government is hoping for home-grown solutions through such entrepreneurs and innovators, who can use their local experience to create global business opportunities as well.
Innovators and start-ups will get special opportunities such as free-of-cost space at the 39 hi-tech parks across the country, where labs, incubation centres and other programmes will also be conducted.
Palak hopes that the entrepreneurs would be able to supply billions of dollars’ worth of digital products and services to the country's 50 million middle-income citizens.
“We are working so that young people do not have to wait for jobs -- they can become entrepreneurs,” he added.
