Prominent economist Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad said youth have to lead the fourth industrial revolution in the country, through creating entrepreneurship and employment. The youths have the ability of taking risk for investment as well as entrepreneurship creation, they will be job providers rather than job seekers in the next decade, he said. Kholiquzzaman said this while speaking as the chief guest at prize awarding ceremony of indoor games competition among Dhaka University affiliated colleges on Saturday. The entrepreneurship economics club of Dhaka School of Economics organized the event. Sports editor of news24 television Dilu Khondkar, former national football team player Abdul Gaffar, former cricketer of national cricket team Sanowar Hossain were joined the function as guest of honors. Khalikuzzaman said that the activities of the Entrepreneurial Economics Department will play a major role in the country's economy in the coming days. Read: 44th BCS preliminary test results published He also expressed hope that the Department of Entrepreneurial Economy will play an effective role in eliminating the disparity between the rich and the poor. Professor Dr Mohammad Mahboob Ali, coordinator of entrepreneurship economics of Dhaka School of economics, presided over the function. He said the department of entrepreneurial economics is working to create an entrepreneurship movement among the youth population of the country. Rehana Parvin and Sara Tasneem, assistant professor of Dhaka School of Economics among others, were present at the prize awarding ceremony of the winner of indoor game.  

Entrepreneurship is a key ingredient for economic growth and development. However, it is often difficult to start and grow a new business in developing countries like Bangladesh due to several factors, including the lack of capital, access to resources, and poor infrastructure. These challenges often lead to low rates of entrepreneurship and slow economic growth. To overcome these barriers and promote entrepreneurship Bangladesh Youth Enterprise Advice & Help Centre (B'Yeah) has been working with the young generation of Bangladesh. However, the entrepreneurship scene in Bangladesh has grown significantly over the last decade. Stimulated by a growing generation of young entrepreneurs, the concept of entrepreneurship has become more popular in recent decades. Further, the startup culture has boosted in Bangladesh, with many new ventures seeking to take advantage of the emerging technologies. Government involvement also accelerated this trend. Further, many non-government organizations are also helping startups. Additionally, Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are also getting a boost from various organizations such as B'Yeah. This article will go through the details of Bangladesh Youth Enterprise Advice & Help Centre and how they are helping the youth. Read How to Become an Entrepreneur without Money or Skills? What is B'Yeah? Bangladesh Youth Enterprise Advice and Help Center (B'Yeah) is a non-profit organization that aims to convert job seekers into an entrepreneur and create more jobs in the job market. B'YEAHhelps entrepreneurs' ideas into a reality through a one-stop supporting platform. B’Yeah was founded in 2007. It is one of the most prominent organizations supporting young entrepreneurs through training, access to capital and mentorship, and more. B’Yeah works with teenagers and young adults aged 18 to 35 who wish to establish or expand their business but lack the education and necessary training. The organization has developed a plan of holistic support to help young people start businesses by providing them with education, mentorship, financing solutions, business development support, and many others. Read Entrepreneur Vs Wantrepreneur: 8 Ways to Tell Them Apart Background, History, and Purpose of B'YEAH In spite of the apparent improvements, running a business is not easy in Bangladesh. Many individuals face numerous challenges. Further, the global economic situation is not favorable toward aspiring young business people. Access to knowledge and other resources is often a challenge. This is where B'YEAHcomes in. A number of prominent organizations have been working in Bangladeshi entrepreneurial development in the past several years. In the last several years, some of the organizations have helped accelerate the Bangladeshi economic system as a whole. Unlike other organizations, B’Yeah doesn't focus on all types of entrepreneurships. Instead, they focus on youth entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. The history behind the B'YEAHwas simple. Bangladesh doesn't have a great ecosystem to start any business. Hence, newcomers don't find enough confidence to deploy their ideas and don't want to start a business. As a result, the young generation tends to seek employment in a saturated job market. As a consequence, the number of unemployed young adults increased over time. B’Yeah just wanted to help those people who have impressive ideas to start a business. Read The SWAP story of Bangladesh's first reCommerce startup How is B’Yeah Helping Boost Youth Entrepreneurship Scene in Bangladesh? B’Yeah continues to develop methods and solutions by taking into account the obstacles and complexities that young business people face. Keeping those in mind, they systemize the efforts at empowering young businesspeople. While the majority of entrepreneurship programs and initiatives work with urban entrepreneurs, B’Yeah works with the marginalized and opportunity-deprived young people. The first step in the intervention is reaching out to potential people who are engaged in either improving their own business or wish to start their new business with an eye to reaching disadvantaged populations. B'YEAHemploys strategic alliances with organizations like UCEP, The Hunger Project, BEST, and others to support its outreach campaign. Hence, the reach out allows B'YEAHto talk to young entrepreneurs and successfully empower them to turn into successful entrepreneurs. Read Mushroom farming: The story of a jobless youth becoming an entrepreneur in Jashore Through B’Yeah outreach, young people can participate in workshops that teach the basics of business planning, give them a basic understanding of business plan preparations, and more. The aspiring young entrepreneurs can fill out the free workshop forms to enlighten themselves. B’Yeah has put together in-person workshops and a series of hands-on training courses that explore the many facets of entrepreneurship. In addition to its initial workshops, the training programs teach the core knowledge required to start and implement a business. The training programs are most in business development, business plan, growth, marketing, finance, management, networking, legal aspects, and more. Moreover, to educate the entrepreneurs on the acquisition of knowledge and access to guidance, the B’Yeah has created an industry-specific mentorship program, where mentors work directly with young entrepreneurs. The program has quite strongly supported young entrepreneurs. Read ShopUp Raised $75 million, Largest Series B Funding for a B2B E-Commerce Platform in South Asia Over time, B’Yeah has developed several determined trainers, advisors, stakeholders, founders, business professionals, and mentors. B’Yeah has also been working to develop programs and interventions to help young aspiring entrepreneurs gain knowledge and the capacity to access markets, finance, and funding. Over the years, they have helped around 4200 young people, trained more than 2000 potential entrepreneurs, helped create more than 300 business plans, created a work environment for 250 businesses, and created more than 1500 new employment opportunities. Moreover, the network has built more than 100 volunteers and created over 1400 market linkage opportunities for different businesses.  What are the Future Plans of B’Yeah ? The B’Yeah states that while it scales its ongoing training and mentorship programs, it goes deeper into offering more comprehensive support to startup founders at all levels, including the leaders of social enterprises and environmentally friendly enterprises. Read Common Challenges faced by Startups in 2022 In order to encourage young entrepreneurs in Bangladesh to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), B’Yeah has introduced a business competition called Bangladesh Youth Enterprise Competition and an impact incubator program, the B’Yeah Impact Incubator and Accelerator. The organization aims to offer such training frequently for betterment of the entrepreneurs’ future. Final Words Despite the positive contributions that the B’Yeah has made over recent years, they have a long way to go as they need to focus on building a sustainable action plan.

The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) will support a budget of $7.5 million from 2020-2024 for infrastructure, developing entrepreneurship education module and building capacity, research and advocacy in Bangladesh. It will help strengthen the network and relationship among stakeholders of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Bangladesh. KOICA Bangladesh organised a meeting for the project entitled “Capacity Building of Universities in Bangladesh to Promote Youth Entrepreneurship” held virtually on Wednesday (March 31, 2021) due to Covid-19 current condition. Also read: KOICA holds de-briefing seminar on capacity building for OSH This project is expected to improve the environment for potential youth entrepreneurs through the capacity building of Bangladeshi universities on entrepreneurship education. Doh Young-Ah, Country Director of KOICA Bangladesh, mentioned the importance of an effective entrepreneurial ecosystem for Bangladesh’s development journey. The project will combine the best practices and experiences of South Korea and Bangladesh to address socio-economic challenges and opportunities through entrepreneurial initiatives. Also read: KOICA supports Mugda Hospital with ICU, medical supplies in COVID-19 response Professor Dr. Md. Akhtaruzzaman, Vice-Chancellor, University of Dhaka, welcomed the initiative and expressed his cooperation to implement the project successfully to improve the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Bangladesh. Derik Kim, project manager, and chief consultant, Korea Productivity Center, on behalf of the Korean Project Management Consulting (PMC) consortium comprising of Korea Productivity Center (KPC) & Korea Polytechnic University (KPU) team, made a presentation on the project scope, timeline, and deliverables, and highlighted the future implementation plans with the University of Dhaka. Derik Kim shared some of the components of the project, including space design and construction, curriculum development and entrepreneurship education, overseas training on entrepreneurship for faculty members and relevant government officials, seminars, hackathon, thematic session, Bootcamp, entrepreneurship contest winner’s capacity building, and community mapping, etc. Also read: KOICA to help strengthen Bangladesh's road maintenance, management system Faculties, students, employees, relevant officials from different government organizations, policymakers, regulators, startup community, and others will be the beneficiaries of this unique University-led project. The meeting's objective was to share the overall project aim like improve the overall ecosystem of entrepreneurship in Bangladesh through universities' capacity building to nurture the youth's potential minds, and discuss the statement of work, project scope, timeline, deliverables in the project and future implementation plans with the University of Dhaka.