State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said 'If you are not aware of the story of our startup journey, then you cannot take it forward. He said only 10 percent of startups get successful business ventures, and the rest of the 90 percent of startups are failing. But the return from those 10 percent of startups is overcoming the loss of 90 percent of startups.

The state minister said this at the Asian University for Women's “Startup campus university activation program” while addressing as chief guest at Chittagong today.

The program was organized by the Innovation Design and Entrepreneurship Academy (IDEA) Project of the ICT Division. 

Among others, Vice-Chancellor of Asian University for Women, Dr. Rubana Haque, IDEA Project, Project Director Dr Md Minazur Rahman spoke on the occasion.

He said that We pitched the IDEA project at the ECNEC meeting. After receiving the presentation, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave us the courage and approval to dare to fail. Since then, we have allocated hundreds of crores of taka to 300 different startups. From these, 30% of our startups are doing really fantastic over the next five to seven years. We hope that by 2025, at least five of our startups will be billion-dollar companies from Bangladesh and will create thousands of new jobs and employment opportunities for our youth.

Palak said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina always encouraged our youth to be entrepreneurs, to be job creators, rather than job seekers. Because one single entrepreneur can create thousands of jobs, but one single employee could fulfill the demands of one single family. That's why we encourage our young students to be entrepreneurs, to start their own businesses, and to resolve existing problems. For that, we have set up the Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship Academy. Also, he said, we have started establishing university incubation centers at the university campuses at Chittagong University of Engineering Technology. Now, we are establishing seven different incubators at seven different universities.

The State Minister said that to make a startup successful, there are some requirements. First, funding; second, training; third, incubation; and fourth, networking. These are really basic requirements, needs, or preconditions for being successful. Startup or entrepreneur. In the IDEA project, we are providing all these facilities to our young entrepreneurs.'


Total views: 1203