International Women Entrepreneur’s Summit 2022 was organized by Bangladesh India Business Council (BIBC), Women's Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (WICCI), and Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) on the 23rd and 24th of November. 

The main aim of the summit was to increase the bilateral ties between India and Bangladesh, especially in the commerce and business sector. WICCI has partnered with BIBC to particularly facilitate the female into entrepreneurship and provide overarching support through shared ties.

Through its Excellence awards, the collaboration hails the outstanding achievements of women in various fields including social, civic, and business. The theme of this year’s summit was fashion and arts, young innovators, businesses and SMEs, health, education and skill development, public service, and ICT.

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This year, the excellence award honored 7 international female entrepreneurs along with 14 Bangladeshi companies and female leaders in their respective streams. The 2022 Exceptional Women of Excellence award in ICT was awarded to Ms. Shomi Kaiser, President of E-CAB.

One of the main sessions of this year’s summit was titled, “ICT: Smart Bangladesh: The Next Frontier”. The session explored the current state of ICT in Bangladesh and the prospect of “Digital Bangladesh” in several facets of life.

The keynote speaker of the event was Rubaba Dowla, Country Managing Director of Oracle Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan. The Chief guest for the event was Zunaid Ahmed Palak MP, Honorable State Minister for ICT Division. The panel discussants were Russel T Ahmed, President of BASIS, Shomi Kaiser, President of E-CAB, and Tanvir A Mishuk, Managing Director of Nagad. Other guest speakers included Towhid Hossain, Secretary General of BACCO, Waseem Alim, Co-founder and CEO of Chaldal, and Anina Ho, COO of QonBay Central Hong Kong. The session was moderated by Zara Mahbub, CEO of Dun and Bradstreet.

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Ms. Dowla in her keynote speech pointed out the high consumer market prospects and the performance of Bangladesh in the GotTech maturity index of 2022. Bangladesh has a unique value proposition with 4.5 digital transactions a day, a $5 billion e-commerce market by 2025, and over 123 million internet users. However, female leadership in the ICT revolution also lacking with just 16% ICT workforce being women and 2-3% are being in ICT leadership roles. This created a digital gender divide. On the other hand, F-commerce has been dominated by women with 70% being at the helm of digital businesses.

Ms. Dowla resounded the impact of the startup ecosystem to reduce the economic and gender gap in ICT. Considering there are over 1000 active startups in Bangladesh which raked in more than $200 million in VC funds in the last decade.  She explored several frontier technologies that will shape the ICT of the future. Though some of these are still at a nascent stage, the exponential growth will pave the way for mainstream adoption of these technologies in near future.

Ms. Dowla also talked about the policy constraints with the Digital Commerce policy 2018, reduction of taxes on DFS Products, IPR upgradation, development of digital literacy, national policy support for startups, and revision of taxes in ICT. From the perspective of Bangladesh, the startups and frontier techs can be utilized in FinTech, EduTech, Health Tech, AgriTech, and e-Commerce. As Ms. Dowla pointed out, these are the key areas where the Bangladeshi startup ecosystem has thrived.

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After the Keynote speech, the first guest speaker Ms. Ho shared her idea of utilizing the blockchain and Metaverse technology to bring a revolution in connecting the local supply chain to the global market. She shared her experience of working with a Bangladeshi company in digitizing their products and cataloging them for international clients.

Mr. Tanvir A Mishuk chimed in on the established base on which it was possible to grow the MFS sector with policy support from the government. He especially mentioned the Covid-stricken situation which further enabled the adoption of MFS.

The same was accredited by the President of E-CAB, Ms. Shomi Kaiser. She explained that even with a 70 – 80% growth during Covid, there are still untapped opportunities, especially for women in the e-Commerce and F-Commerce sectors.

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The president of BASIS, Mr. Ahmed pointed out that the ICT sector can be a true facet where women shouldn’t have to lag behind men because of the nature of equality this sector brings. But he also shared concern about the lack of awareness in streamlining women in the ICT sector.

The honorable State Minister for ICT Mr. Zunaid Ahmed Palak shared the initiatives of the government in creating a startup base for the up-and-coming startups in Bangladesh. The core focus of the base would be to provide support to startups in various capacities. He also voiced his wish to create a separate structure within the base just for female tech entrepreneurs.

The guest speakers discussed e-commerce, F-commerce, the cashless approach, software development, and BPO in Bangladesh.

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The session concluded with questions and answers from the participants where they explored various opportunities available in different ICT sectors and the possible way forward to bridge the existing gender gap.