Job Opportunity at CES!

Job Description for Research Associate at the Center for Enterprise and Society, ULAB. Application Deadline: Aug 31, 2017.

Pictures from the E-Commerce Survey Report Launch by CES

Select pictures from the Report Launch Ceremony from the survey "Shopper Survey on E-commerce in Bangladesh" featuring Professor Imran Rahman, Mr. Fahim Mashroor, Mr. Minhaz Anwar, Mr. Sajid Amit, Mr. Ishtiaque Ahmed, and Mr. Adib Sarwar.

CES Talk Series – “Journey of an Entrepreneur” by Sylvana Sinha, Founder and MD of Praava Health

On Tuesday, April 4, 2017, the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), through its Center for Enterprise and Society (CES), organized a talk titled “The Journey of an Entrepreneur” featuring Ms. Sylvana Quader Sinha, Founder and MD of Pravaa Health. Also in attendance were Professor Imran Rahman, Vice Chancellor, ULAB; Mr. Sajid Amit, Director, CES, ULAB; Ms. Sabrina Imam, IT Director, Praava; Mr. Sanjeev Pubbichetty, COO, Praava; and Mr. Saleh Anand, IT Analyst, Praava.

Ms. Sinha spoke about her journey as a lawyer in the United States, with roots in Bangladesh, and how she came to found Praava. Pravaa is launching a network of urban health centers offering family doctors and a full range of diagnostic services in mid-2017. Ms. Sinha’s vision is to increase the range of quality, reliable, affordable health care options in Bangladesh.

Before founding Praava, Ms. Sinha, as a lawyer, advised governments in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Asia on governance and legal reform. Ms. Sinha also served as a foreign policy advisor to the 2008 Presidential campaign of then-Senator Barack Obama. She later joined The World Bank, where she worked on judicial reform and human rights in Afghanistan and on other issues, including conflict and development and women’s economic rights in Islam. Ms. Sinha is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she earned a certificate from the Parker School of Comparative and International Law.

The talk was delivered to a full-house of undergraduate students interested in entrepreneurship and understanding the challenges and prospects thereof, in Bangladesh.

The event was covered in online newspapers, which you can read in these news links of The Daily Star, The Independent, The New Nation, and e-paper of The Financial Express (April 5, pg 3). The news can also be found in the photos attached.

Follow our Talk Series and other events here: http://ces.ulab.edu.bd/talks-and-seminars/

Uber in Dhaka

Uber to launch taxi service in Dhaka soon
For those who are familiar on what "Uber" is,  they will be excited to know that Uber is coming to Bangladesh. Having planned to launch this transport service for the last eight months, it is reported that Uber will hit Dhaka streets in a matter of weeks.

An American multinational online transportation network company, Uber have revolutionized transport in many cities. Using requests through an app, people can commute more easily to and from their destinations. Costs are based on either distance in a smooth ride, or travel time in typical Dhaka congested roads.

If you want to know more about it, find out in the link.

The advent of E-Koshai

With the rise of E-commerce and the burgeoning of "smart" entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, the type of business is progressively expanding from product to service. When businesses make this transition, it is an indication of a tertiary stage of development, with service-based solutions overlapping commodity-based ones.

Online shopping has been growing popular throughout the years and with innovative packages offered during peak seasons, Eid is a target for most e-commerce businesses. Apart from all the other promotional products offered at discounts or attractive prices, other services have been seen to solve basic problems during Eid. The other biggest Islamic festival in the country, brings with it some regional and traditional issues that many a times entail the sufferings of the citizens.

A e-solution for the Koshai problem?
Discovering new business trends and current opportunities, businessmen have been quick to offer innovative solutions, this Eid in the form of "E-Koshai", a butcher service for all the livestock slaughtered during Eid-ul-Adha. Two such businesses have been identified. They claim in their social media that business this Eid has gone successfully. One of those, Sheba Platform Limited, had a supply of 158 three-member butcher teams covering the city with 17 supervisors throughout the Eid. Rated quite highly, the expert butchers cost Tk250 for every Tk1,000 of the cost of the animal. Medium skilled butchers cost Tk200 for the like. The other business, Quicknok, had 120 butcher team. They have maintained high standard by collecting information on these butchers around the city, including their NID.

A risky country for Business

Bangladesh ranks among riskiest countries for business

To all woe and worry, are times Bangladesh has set its landing page in, in an international business homepage. Recent flout of events striking fear in all respects of the country, not only the restaurant/cafe business, is at the heart of the all the upheaval.

Rated by a London-based risk analysis firm, the Civil Unrest Index lists Bangladesh at No.6 of the top 200 countries, staging public protests, mass demonstrations, ethnic or religious violence, which aggravates Bangladesh's image further. Previously, the World Bank listed Bangladesh the 174th easiest country to do business, revealing the difficulty businessmen face in this economy.

Investing in the Stock Market - Interview with CES Director Sajid Amit

The Director of Center for Enterprise and Society (CES), Sajid Amit, shares some invaluable opinion about the share market of Bangladesh, during the recent CES training on Technical Analysis. 

Part 1:

In Part 1 of the interview, he emphasizes how the risky feature of the sector should not be taken lightly by the middle and the lower-middle class to invest in the stock market, without Investor-Literacy and adequate information. The potential of the Stock Market in the economy is undeniable according to him, since investment in real-estate is not a affordable substitute for the citizens. 

Below is Part 1 of the two-part interview:

Part 2:

In Part 2 of the interview, Sajid Amit talks about the characteristic of the Bangladeshi stock market.

He explains capital market efficiency in Bangladesh and in the US explaining how they fall in the spectrum of weak to strong form.

The Director emphasized the value of financial journalism, which was inaccurate previously. So a multi-faceted awareness training program should be designed, including financial journalists, traders and researchers.

Speaking about IPOs, in-comparison with India, the big companies and locally operating MNCs are not listed in our stock market. Along with introducing their IPOs, big banks should also invest.

With these strategies in place, the development in Bangladesh would be quicker than in other countries and the future of Stock market, according to Sajid Amit, looks promising.

Below is Part 2 of the two-part interview: