Steps taken to earn $5bn from IT export by 2021: Speaker

[Black_cats]

Steps taken to earn $5bn from export by 2021: Speaker
http://www.bssnews.net/?p=113658


RANGPUR, Nov 01, 2018 (BSS) – Speaker of the Jatiya Saangsad Dr Shirin
Sharmin Chaudhury today said the present government has taken steps to raise
export earnings from the IT industry to 5 billion US$ by 2021 by producing
and utilising skilled manpower.

“The government is establishing Hi-Tech IT Parks across the country,
including Pirganj, aiming at increasing income from the IT sector and
creating employment opportunity of youths in the sector,” she said.

Dr Shirin said this while visiting construction site of the proposed IT
Park at Barobila village and exchanging views with common people at different
places in her constituency of Pirganj upazila in Rangpur as the chief guest.

The Speaker said youths of Pirganj would be involved in development by
engaging themselves with IT and the proposed IT Park at Pirganj would
definitely usher in a new era of prospects for local meritorious students.

“Local and foreign investors will come forward to invest at the IT Park in
Pirganj after completion of its construction works to create new employment
opportunities for the young generations,” she said.

Dr Shirin said the people of Pirganj would not be lagging behind anymore as
they have been already mainstreamed with developments.

“The government will continue to work for creating more opportunities for
the people of Pirganj on way to build a developed society free from hunger,
poverty and discrimination in the future,” she said.

The Speaker said the present government implemented balanced development in
Pirganj like the whole country side by side with continuing many other
development projects to create more employments.

“The present government has developed many infrastructures including roads,
bridges and culverts, schools, colleges, mosques, madrashas, temples and
other institutions in Pirganj upazila,” she said.

Distribution of sewing machines among unemployed women after providing
them with training has improved their socioeconomic conditions enhancing
economic empowerment in Pirganj upazila, she said

“I would like to keep me involved with progress of Pirganj upazila for
continuation of development of Pirganj and improvement of life standard of
local people,” Dr Shirin hoped.

The Speaker said Bangladesh has already achieved the pride of being
graduated from LDC status on way to become a developing country under the
farsighted leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

“With continuous support of people, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is
working persistently to build a middle income nation by 2021, a developing
country by 2024 and a developed Bangladesh by 2041,” Dr Shirin said.

Dr Shirin urged people to extend continuous support to Sheikh Hasina in
building a developed ‘Sonar Bangla’- free from hunger, poverty and
discrimination as dreamt by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman.

With Pirganj Municipal Mayor Tazimul Islam Shamim in the chair, Joint
Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs Jahangir Alam Bulbul, Zila Parishad
Chairman Advocate Chhafia Khanom, Senior Vice- president of district Awami
League (AL) Chhayadat Hossain Bakul and local leaders of AL and its associate
bodies were present.

 

[Bilal9]

A. She is not qualified to speak on IT industry development issues or efforts (She is the speaker of the parliament and can opine jack squat on IT topics). Even the 'IT minister' himself is barely qualified...

B. Where is the proof that these 'steps' have been taken (as they claim)? Just establishing Hi-Tech IT Parks across the country, will not magically increase income from the IT sector. It's not 'build it - and they will flock in'..formula.

I lost respect for this woman. Cheap electioneering tactics and propaganda....

 

[Black_cats]

A. She is not qualified to speak on IT industry development issues or efforts (She is the speaker of the parliament and can opine jack squat on IT topics). Even the 'IT minister' himself is barely qualified...

B. Where is the proof that these 'steps' have been taken (as they claim)? Just establishing Hi-Tech IT Parks across the country, will not magically increase income from the IT sector. It's not 'build it - and they will flock in'..formula.

I lost respect for this woman. Cheap electioneering tactics and propaganda....

Majority of the IT High Tech park buildings are falling apart that is why despite many company leased or bought it did not move their office. Poor materials and design are primary responsible for this.

 

[mb444]

Good initiative. BDs infant IT sector has potential and should be nurtured.
BD should seek to emulate India in the call centre and outsourcing sector in the first phase.

 

[fallstuff]

What is the IT/BPO export now ?

Got the answer,

ICT Export Fetches $800m in 2017

2017-11-17

Bangladesh earned nearly $800 million this year exporting locally made software, and providing ICT-related services like outsourced and freelance work, said State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak.

The government aims to get the earnings up to the $1 billion mark next year and $5 billion by 2021, Palak said quoting data from Bangladesh Bank and the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).


https://basis.org.bd/index.php/site/wNews/112

 

[Bilal9]

What is the IT/BPO export now ?

Got the answer,

ICT Export Fetches $800m in 2017

2017-11-17

Bangladesh earned nearly $800 million this year exporting locally made software, and providing ICT-related services like outsourced and freelance work, said State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak.

The government aims to get the earnings up to the $1 billion mark next year and $5 billion by 2021, Palak said quoting data from Bangladesh Bank and the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).


https://basis.org.bd/index.php/site/wNews/112

State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak made a trip to Silicon Valley sometime ago to meet with Representatives of Google, Amazon and Microsoft to talk about building Bangladeshi IT infrastructure, cloud storage adoption and back office services. It was a trip that failed to produce any business. Palak has zero business skills and even knows less than any IT manager on how to deal with IT behemoths like these.

These companies are also all controlled now by formerly H1B Indian managers who have zero interest in diverting either back-office work of any type, or even low grade call-center work to countries other than India, as they have already converted almost all of Silicon Valley into the typical quid-pro-quo network of favor-based business activity in cahoots with their colleagues back in the old country.

These people (mostly from India) cannot even be bribed into bringing IT business to Bangladesh, although rates in Bangladesh maybe half or even lower than in India. Most Indian managers have no clue that Bangladesh IT talent exists when they are happy to pay even lower grade talent in India double the salary.

IT companies in the US and other markets don't exercise H1B quotas rigorously, much less source IT business from countries other than India.

Palak needs to try a different tack, a path less explored.

He should seek business from either China or Hong Kong (also Korea and Japan), especially from banks and consulting companies like KPMG and Ernst & Young in Asia and Australia. That is a huge pot of gold as far as IT consultancy, which is in dire need of low-cost IT services. The Philippines has done some work in these markets but they are more occupied with call-center work from the US and other Anglo-phone countries.

At the same time, foreign consultants and business match-making services (especially from HK and S'Pore) should be paid extremely handsome commissions to seek and place IT business in Bangladesh, don't know if people like Palak are already doing this.

As a new and relatively unproven destination for call center work, Bangladesh needs to be far more aggressive on rates and establishing/offering quality selection of back-office services (by recognizing higher echelon back-office companies in Dhaka and giving them special tax breaks from the Govt.).

We have to remember the nascent days of the garment revolution where only a few companies struggled so hard, but in the end they did make it happen for the country as a destination (Brand Bangladesh).

 

[Mage]

State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak made a trip to Silicon Valley sometime ago to meet with Representatives of Google, Amazon and Microsoft to talk about building Bangladeshi IT infrastructure, cloud storage adoption and back office services. It was a trip that failed to produce any business. Palak has zero business skills and even knows less than any IT manager on how to deal with IT behemoths like these.

These companies are also all controlled now by formerly H1B Indian managers who have zero interest in diverting either back-office work of any type, or even low grade call-center work to countries other than India, as they have already converted almost all of Silicon Valley into the typical quid-pro-quo network of favor-based business activity in cahoots with their colleagues back in the old country.

These people (mostly from India) cannot even be bribed into bringing IT business to Bangladesh, although rates in Bangladesh maybe half or even lower than in India. Most Indian managers have no clue that Bangladesh IT talent exists when they are happy to pay even lower grade talent in India double the salary.

IT companies in the US and other markets don't exercise H1B quotas rigorously, much less source IT business from countries other than India.

Palak needs to try a different tack, a path less explored.

He should seek business from either China or Hong Kong (also Korea and Japan), especially from banks and consulting companies like KPMG and Ernst & Young in Asia and Australia. That is a huge pot of gold as far as IT consultancy, which is in dire need of low-cost IT services. The Philippines has done some work in these markets but they are more occupied with call-center work from the US and other Anglo-phone countries.

At the same time, foreign consultants and business match-making services (especially from HK and S'Pore) should be paid extremely handsome commissions to seek and place IT business in Bangladesh, don't know if people like Palak are already doing this.

As a new and relatively unproven destination for call center work, Bangladesh needs to be far more aggressive on rates and establishing/offering quality selection of back-office services (by recognizing higher echelon back-office companies in Dhaka and giving them special tax breaks from the Govt.).

We have to remember the nascent days of the garment revolution where only a few companies struggled so hard, but in the end they did make it happen for the country as a destination (Brand Bangladesh).

Palak and Jabber are both incapable.

 

[fallstuff]

State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak made a trip to Silicon Valley sometime ago to meet with Representatives of Google, Amazon and Microsoft to talk about building Bangladeshi IT infrastructure, cloud storage adoption and back office services. It was a trip that failed to produce any business. Palak has zero business skills and even knows less than any IT manager on how to deal with IT behemoths like these.

These companies are also all controlled now by formerly H1B Indian managers who have zero interest in diverting either back-office work of any type, or even low grade call-center work to countries other than India, as they have already converted almost all of Silicon Valley into the typical quid-pro-quo network of favor-based business activity in cahoots with their colleagues back in the old country.

These people (mostly from India) cannot even be bribed into bringing IT business to Bangladesh, although rates in Bangladesh maybe half or even lower than in India. Most Indian managers have no clue that Bangladesh IT talent exists when they are happy to pay even lower grade talent in India double the salary.

IT companies in the US and other markets don't exercise H1B quotas rigorously, much less source IT business from countries other than India.

Palak needs to try a different tack, a path less explored.

He should seek business from either China or Hong Kong (also Korea and Japan), especially from banks and consulting companies like KPMG and Ernst & Young in Asia and Australia. That is a huge pot of gold as far as IT consultancy, which is in dire need of low-cost IT services. The Philippines has done some work in these markets but they are more occupied with call-center work from the US and other Anglo-phone countries.

At the same time, foreign consultants and business match-making services (especially from HK and S'Pore) should be paid extremely handsome commissions to seek and place IT business in Bangladesh, don't know if people like Palak are already doing this.

As a new and relatively unproven destination for call center work, Bangladesh needs to be far more aggressive on rates and establishing/offering quality selection of back-office services (by recognizing higher echelon back-office companies in Dhaka and giving them special tax breaks from the Govt.).

We have to remember the nascent days of the garment revolution where only a few companies struggled so hard, but in the end they did make it happen for the country as a destination (Brand Bangladesh).

Great post.

I would target one or two tech giants to convince them to move a few services at very attractive price points to BD. Once you get a client like that , treat the client as a king ( as it should be ) then you use this client to get more. Its going to be a slow process unless its done seriously. A few road show wont get it anywhere. You just gotta keep trying.

I would definitely hire some professional sales folks with IT sales background offering them hefty commission. Our esteemed Minister has no effing clue about what to do.

 

[gslv mk3]

These companies are also all controlled now by formerly H1B Indian managers who have zero interest in diverting either back-office work of any type, or even low grade call-center work to countries other than India, as they have already converted almost all of Silicon Valley into the typical quid-pro-quo network of favor-based business activity in cahoots with their colleagues back in the old country.

These people (mostly from India) cannot even be bribed into bringing IT business to Bangladesh, although rates in Bangladesh maybe half or even lower than in India.

"Most Indian managers have no clue that Bangladesh IT talent exists when they are happy to pay even lower grade talent in India double the salary."

Gotta love the butt-hurt...

 

[Bilal9]

Great post.

I would target one or two tech giants to convince them to move a few services at very attractive price points to BD. Once you get a client like that , treat the client as a king ( as it should be ) then you use this client to get more. Its going to be a slow process unless its done seriously. A few road show wont get it anywhere. You just gotta keep trying.

I would definitely hire some professional sales folks with IT sales background offering them hefty commission. Our esteemed Minister has no effing clue about what to do.

Good points all.

NASSCOM in India had some great talent who did excellent work in bringing IT business to India back in the day.

Even today their work in exploring new business areas are exemplary.

Two examples where they are exploring business opportunities with the City of Hiroshima here, and with MENA region businesses (Dubai) here.

We can present Bangladeshi Low-end IT Services offerings such as Call center work which is by nature price sensitive - as a much more attractive option compared to those offered from India.

The entire Bangladeshi software development and back-office ecosystem remains almost totally unexplored in the West (except some areas in Western Europe) which is amazing.

There is an unbelievable amount of opportunity to make a fair bit of money from Bangladesh which enjoys,

1. A bright young group of talented English-speaking folks who are well aware about Western culture and business practices.

2. Well equipped office and datacenter facilities with as good or better bandwidth and connectivity than most places in the Subcontinent.

3. A population which is Internet-aware and software-technology-conversant to a high degree.

4. Many AppDev houses which have already taken off in software export (especially to Japanese and Chinese markets in some cases) with local seed money.

5. A country with a more than normal e-commerce penetration compared to the rest of South Asia.

So far - we have done a really bad job of marketing Brand Bangladesh as a software development and call center destination, Thanks in no small part to these govt. idiots.

 

[Narcissist]

Would be great to see IT sector growth. I have tons of ideas, but no capital.

 

[Bilal9]

Some local development examples,

Namira Hossain, CEO & Co-Founder, Cookups

ByICE Business Times
Posted on August 3, 2017

Namira Hossain is the CEO and Co-Founder of Cookups, a platform that markets home cooks as a community. Previously she worked as a journalist for New Age Xtra. She studied Sociology & Anthropology in Denison University, Ohio. She is also a member of Ampersand, a spoken word group and a performer with ‘it’s a SHE thing’. Recently, IBT got in touch with Namira to find out about how Cookups came into being and what it has planned for the future.

What inspired you to come up with Cookups?
The idea was actually our co-founder Misha Ali’s. We would have lots of dinner parties which got tough on our wallets and having the same friends over meant we could not share our food with lots of people. As we started sharing our recipes on a blog, we saw that there was demand for other people to try our food and we figured a platform such as this would prove to be popular, as there are many talented home cooks in Bangladesh who could use the extra income by working from home.

“REGARDING THE FOOD BUSINESS, I BELIEVE WE ARE CREATING A MARKET WHERE THERE WAS NONE BY GIVING OPPORTUNITIES TO A LOT OF HOME-COOKS, ESPECIALLY WOMEN, WHO HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO START THEIR OWN BUSINESSES AND NOW ARE BEING ABLE TO SELL THEIR AMAZING FOOD OUT OF THEIR OWN HOMES.”

Cookups is diverting a section of people who order from traditional food outlets towards home-based chefs. What kind of impact has this had on the overall food business in Dhaka so far?
I don’t know if it is diverting people – restaurants are still popular and will continue to be because of the experience. However, I do think Cookups is shifting the paradigm by offering something different – that is, being able to stay home, in your pajamas and have an array of delicious homemade food at your fingertips. Overall, I think this is giving people more options as it is not always healthy or affordable to eat out. Regarding the food business, I believe we are creating a market where there was none by giving opportunities to a lot of home-cooks, especially women, who have always wanted to start their own businesses and now are being able to sell their amazing food out of their own homes.

THE COOKUPS TEAM ALSO INCLUDES:

MISHA ALI, FOUNDER
Misha started off in digital media & e-commerce with Ogilvy in New York. Most recently he headed marketing at Bikroy. His current and previous projects include Cookups, Oi Khali, the break, and the Farmers Market.

IRFAN AHMED, COO
Irfan previously he worked as a development consultant on energy and infrastucture projects. His selected projects include the Energy Efficiency & Conservation Master Plan for the Government of Bangladesh and Pre-feasibility Study for the New Deep Sea Port in Cox’s Bazar.

During the early stages of your startup, how well did you understand what you were doing? What kind of planning and commercial strategy did you have?
Misha has had a lot of experience, having worked for Bikroy for the last two years. However, I am completely new to this. A lot of the decisions that we made were completely ad hoc and seemed to have worked out quite well. Our primary strategy was Facebook – as we already knew that people spend a lot of their time on it. Seeing the pictures of food on their newsfeeds, meant that people would be talking about it and seeing the food. It was important for us to have that kind of reach and actually utilize this social network to market our business.
How would you describe your mission and company culture?
Our mission is to be the best online platform for buying and selling quality, affordable home-made food. We care about our cooks and our diners, and I think it shows in everything we do. We take hygiene and quality very seriously, and hence we physically check ALL kitchens before they are approved to sell on our platform. Our company is still quite new and hence our culture is still in its germination stage – however, I’d say that everybody works super hard and has fun while they’re at it!

How well did you deal with any failures you faced during the initial phases?
Failures are an opportunity to learn. If we failed in any aspects, then we took feedback from others on board and bounced back. It is all about resilience and acceptance. Failures are okay; repeated failures are not.

Would you say that you’ve reached a point where you’re proud of your endeavor? Or do you still expect further growth before you can make that claim?
I am proud of how far we have come, but in terms of maturity – I think Cookups is still a baby. We have taken baby steps, and we have far to go. We don’t want to stop until we have expanded to all of Bangladesh, and who knows? Even the rest of Asia. I think we have a way to go yet before we start patting ourselves on the back.

How do you see Cookups growing over the next five years? What kind of direction do you foresee it heading into?
As I mentioned in the previous answer, I hope we can first expand to all of Dhaka and then the rest of the country. But why stop there? Pinky and the Brain had the right idea – to take over the world! Good food is not limited by boundaries after all. And technology is the answer.
I would like to add that we have also started another platform called Growups. This platform is similar to Cookups but it is for buying and selling produce as we want to support local growers and farmers and have access to chemical free organic produce.

Cookups Team

What is the biggest risk for your company at this point?
One significant risk that I foresee is migrating people to our app and off Facebook. I really think it is about empowerment, if we can make people understand that our aim is to empower them through the use of technology, then I believe we will be alright.

The Evolution of ICT sector in Bangladesh (Part-1)
Feature SD Asia Desk
Bangladesh, ICT, ICT sector in Bangladesh

This article was originally published on The Daily Star.

Authors

Mustafizur R Khan, CEO of SD ASIA

Fayaz Taher, CFO of SD ASIA



In the last 3 years Bangladesh has seen a tremendous growth in the information technology (ICT) sector. It has a market of 160 million+ people, where consumer spending is around USD 130 billion+ growing at 6% annually. After Teclo’s launched 3G services in 2013, internet penetration in Bangladesh grew by 22% by the end of 2014. Of the 66.8 million active Internet subscribers (BTRC Sept 2016), nearly 96% are on mobile and 10 million use smartphones. With growing Internet connectivity, availability of cheaper smartphones, and rapid rise in social networking (23 million + Facebook users), we have seen increased emergence of digital savvy consumers.

Here are 3 main reasons for growth in ICT sector

1. Gov’t policy and awareness

In last 3 years the Government of Bangladesh has played a major role in promoting the ICT sector as the next growth engine for Bangladesh. Their election manifesto of Digital Bangladesh was championed by Sajib Wazeed Joy, Advisor to Prime Minster for Information and Technology and State Minister of ICT Zunaid AhmedPalak, M.P. A major role was played by A2I, the key driver from the Prime Minister’s Office in deploying the rapid expansion of technologies in delivering public services to citizens. Some of the key milestones of A2i have been the following:

• 8.5 mil students learning from multimedia content developed by 100,000 teachers
• 105 Digital Talking text books for all visually disabled students
• 103 innovations incubated through Service Innovation Fund
• $28.15 mil earnings for Digital Center Entrepreneurs

The ICT ministry played a phenomenal role in creating awareness and programs to transform ideas into reality through programs like Digital World, ICT Expo, National Hackathon, Connecting Startup Bangladesh etc.

Recent policy by the govt. have been very helpful in creating attractiveness of the ICT sector. Here are several key incentives:

1. 100% foreign ownership of companies allowed
2. Small-cap exchange to be implemented to allow easier raising/ listing on capital markets
3. Software park which facilitated high speed Internet connection trade facility similar to Export Processing Zones (EPZ)

After 3 years, we now have a mix of community tech space, co-working space and accelerators. As an emerging economy we have fundamental gaps in infrastructure that impact digital entrepreneurship, connectivity and technology development. These hubs are providing that enabling infrastructure, and providing skills training in the IT sector. As a mandate government will try to bring ICT program throughout the country, but the impact will be less if certain areas of the country does not have surrounding ecosystem mature enough to support viable startup, and accelerator activities. For example, Dhaka has enough critical mass of all the right things – access to funding, universities, international tech companies, media, entrepreneurs, etc., which allows the place to build a successful tech hub.

Building a thriving ecosystem requires close collaboration between the public and private sectors. As we move along this path, we predict that we will develop a closer working relationship between the public and private sector.

1. BASIS policy and advocacy

The software association of Bangladesh, popularly known as BASIS brought focus on startup activities in Bangladesh. Shameem Ashan ex-president of BASIS demonstrated tremendous leadership. They initiated well known program like BASIS Soft Expo, BASIS Student Forum, BASIS e-commerce alliance etc. to create awareness about startups and facility the growth of this sector. BASIS also helped shaped policy frame work for the ICT sector and few of the policies are outlined below:

• 7 year tax holiday for registered IT companies
• Private equity and venture capital policy frame work implemented as of July 2015
• Vat for e-commerce reduced to NIL
• Private sector movement at the heart
• Startups – There has been significant increase of new startup and founders joining the space which was not seen in the past. It is not limited to first time entrepreneur only, but people with professional work experience taking risk to join the startup life. A recent study by Light Castle Partners (LCP) identified top 3 sectors where startups are currently working now: e-commerce, tech and impact businesses.
• Telcos– Have played one of the major stakeholder as they built the Infrastructure investment in 3G that practically jump started the internet enabled businesses in Bangladesh. Local private device suppliers played the second biggest role in bringing the smart phone prices down locally manufacturing them. Last year 3 major telcos either started an accelerator program or sponsored one to promote digital business in Bangladesh such as Grameenphone Accelerator which provided access to deal flow.
• Investment – We have few local angel investors who provides seed funding, however their numbers are very limited with a deal size below US$50,000. However there are larger financial institutions that have invested across various range. Few of the venture capital and private equity companies who are currently working in Bangladesh are : Fenox Ventures, IPE capital, BD Venture Limited, Aviskar, DEFTA Partners, Innotech Corporation, Bangladesh Venture Capital, Razor Capital, 500 startups, Segnel Ventures, IMJ Ventures, Mind Initiative, Brummer & Partners, Princestreet, Osiris Group VIPB, IFC etc.

A recent study by Light Castle Partners (LCP) identified preferred sectors by investors are MFS (83%), Health Tech (67%) and C2C Commerce (50%).

Few of the local startup that recently got fund are listed below to our best knowledge- , GObd, PayWell, Priyo.com, Solaric, SureCash, Styleline, Direct Fresh, AjkerDeal, Eshosikhi, Pathao, Bagdoom, Sheba, BPCL, Brian Station, Studio 71, Smart Compare, Light Castle Partners, Magnito Digital, Doctorola .

1. Ecosystem Builders – The startup ecosystem originally started in 2013 with main advocates being Startup Dhaka also know as SD Asia, Team Engine, Hub Dhaka, EMK Center, Better Stories, Preneur Lab etc. Most these companies are involved in mentoring, coaching and accelerator program which help startup develop their business to next stage.

Authors
Mustafizur R Khan, CEO of SD ASIA
Fayaz Taher, CFO of SD ASIA

• MUSTAFIZUR R KHAN
  Mustafiz is an entrepreneur, angel investor, startup community organiser and a marketer with over 17 years of experience of heading teams across diverse industries in Asia. He started his career as an entrepreneur managing an engineering SBU and later managed brand like HSBC in several countries. He co founded coolest co-working space in Dhaka, crowd funded and directed a documentary on tech startups in Dhaka which later pivoted to local a business news site called Startup Dhaka. He is passionate about technology and studies film in his spare time. He holds a double major in business and fine arts from COE College USA and an MBA from Nanyang Business School in Singapore
  
  
• FAYAZ TAHER
  Fayaz is a serial entrepreneur, investor, mentor and a startup community advocate from Bangladesh and the current CEO of Fortuna, an innovative group of companies invested across various industries. Fayaz was one of the youngest Vice-Chairman of the Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather Goods Manufactures and Exporters Association.
  
  Fayaz is also passionate about community building. Fayaz started his first venture at the age of 13 starting in retail and later went on to found Fortuna Fried Chicken while he was in High School. Fayaz was also a Director of Union Capital Leasing Ltd, and also helps set strategy with Peoples Life Insurance Company and Popular Life Insurance Company ltd. Fayaz is also an integral member & co-founder of Infrablue technology which as was announced as one of the winners of the Facebook Fund for their technology skills back in 2008, the only company from Bangladesh. Fayaz completed his undergraduate degree at Babson College in Entrepreneurship in ‘03 and completed his masters in International Development and Social Change at Clark University in Massachusetts, USA in ‘09. He is also a research fellow at Bangladesh Enterprise Institute and a fellow at Jaago Foundation.