About one third of the population of Bangladesh belongs to the young generation and there is no doubt about the increasing number. We are also aware of the fact that about 40% of the population is underemployed, many participants in the labor force work only a few hours a week, at low wages. So the growing need at present seems to be finding a solution to fight this and developing the youth entrepreneurship can be one of the best options.
Keeping the idea on focus, BRAC Social Innovation Lab with the assistance of Munir Hasan, General Secretary of Bangladesh Open Source Network, also working as an advocate for the young tech entrepreneurs- arranged a seminar on start up assistance for young entrepreneurs, yesterday, on 25th April, 2012. The seminar included young tech entrepreneurs who shared the difficulties they face while the financial institution representatives discussed existing financial products addressing the youth.
This seminar was an attempt to identify the primary challenges for young entrepreneurs in their business inception to expansion effort and find ways to overcome these challenges. The discussion during the seminar has brighten up reflecting on few basic questions like how to best support young entrepreneurs through financial models? Is there a need for a youth-focused start up finance product? And ended up with brainstorming most appropriate course of action in Bangladesh to invest in youth, not only financially but also through non financial means.
Discussing the assistance to provide youth, It was well appreciated and agreed by the participants that, along with the need of financing their dreams, there are needs of other non financial assistance as well, in order to promote and nurture those dreams. While talking about incubating young entrepreneurs, more focus was put on the advocacy support for entrepreneurship development, to provide assistance which are required to equip youth with the required skills for business. To do that assistance is also needed to the organizations those are considered to be incubators of young entrepreneurs. And when it comes to financing, existing funders need to alter their traditional schemes and risk mitigation practices and make it accessible to youth group. The probable solutions could be Building a business echo system that promotes venture capitalists and creating alternative sources of funding.
Economic empowerment is something that every nation seeks for and the same goes for Bangladesh as well. In this circumstance development of youth entrepreneurship can actually take the lead by empowering this huge fraction of the population. And to do that, it is required to create a better environment to promote young entrepreneurs.