Dhaka’s consumer technology scene has finally arrived somewhere. Everyday fascinating developments are taking place and at FS, we are super excited to see all these development as well as be a part of it.
We published some really in-depth and fascinating stories this week and here is a tally in case you missed.
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Symphony is a brilliant company. I suspect part of it happened beyond conscious decisions. Symphony started with offering low-cost and higher quality feature phones when Nokia was still in the market. And it worked like magic. One reason of course Symphony targeted a group of people who did not have access to phones at the first place and most importantly it offered a phone with much less price than the available alternatives and of higher or at least equal value.
This is the classic example of disruptive innovation, a term first described by Clayton Christensen of Harvard. According to Christensen, a disruptive innovation is not a breakthrough innovation that makes a good product massively better thus change the game.
A disruptive innovation transforms a product that was historically so expensive and complicated that only a few people with a lot of money and a lot of skills had access to it and a disruptive innovation makes it affordable and accessible so that a much larger population have access to it.
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Bangladesh is the ninth most populous country and twelfth most densely populated countries in the world. The urbanization in the country is happening at a rocket speed.
According to 2012 data, Bangladesh generates around 22.4 million tonnes of waste per year. The most dangerous news is that the rate is speeding every day. It is projected to reach 47, 064 tonnes per day by 2025. It is hard to access proper waste disposal system in the most parts of the country. This reality has turned Dhaka into one of the most polluted cities in the world.
As urbanization grows rapidly, this challenge will grow further. The reason why I’m so fascinated with this story is that it also offers an incredible entrepreneurial opportunity for anyone up for the challenge.
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Agriculture is a sector in transition. There is a growing pressure for the productivity growth as well as there is a rapid shift in how agriculture works as a sector in terms of high yield crops to increasing technological interventions.
All these changes and challenges offer immense opportunities for ambitious entrepreneurs to forge new ways and build meaningful companies at the intersection of growing tech dominance and agriculture.
We asked Mr. Hassan for his take on the future of the sector, challenges and major trends and here is his take distilled into a short post form his long-form interview published last month.
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FS Big Interview
Saleh Mujahid is the Chief Executive Officer at Eastern Cement Industries Limited and Doreen Developments Limited, two concerns of Doreen Group.
Mr. Mujahid has an interesting story and a diverse career spanning multiple industries and countries. Prior to joining Doreen, he worked at Bata, Meena Bazar, Otobi, and ACI. He is also an author of multiple popular poetry and short stories books.
Mr. Mujahid was raised mostly in Dhaka. In his youth, he was heavily involved in progressive politics, literature and anti-establishment student movements which contributed to shaping his worldview and informs his way of looking at the world even these days.
He studied at Dhaka University for a brief period before dropping out to pursue student movement full time and then, albeit when reality hit in, attended Dhaka City College to complete his B.Com and went on to do an MBA from IBA.
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A beautiful reading list
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Tips
One of the most powerful tools that technology has brought us for free is email. Here is how you can turn email into your most effective assistant.
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Bangladesh Post Office in collaboration with Fintech company D Money has announced a new digital wallet service called Daak Taka.
The parties plan to launch the product within the next three months and will allow people to open an account for a fee of 2 taka. The product, which is the first such product from Dhaka-based Fintech company D Money, is particularly aimed at improving financial inclusion.
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BDcabs, one of the earliest car-hailing services in Dhaka, has launched a new service called Gari Technology targeted towards enterprise clients with on-demand transportation solutions. The company claims that it has already started working with a small number of corporate clients in Dhaka.
