Reza Ul Kabir, founder, and CEO of Dhaka-based ambitious consumer electronics products company Jolpi Electronics passed away on February 19th, according to a statement from the company.
Reza Ul Kabir founded JolPi JolPi in 2015 as a part-time electronic R&D. He eventually started to pursue it full time from August 2016. The company was formally incorporated as ‘JolPi Electronics Ltd’ in 2017. JolPi designs and develops electronic devices focusing on household IoT products i.e. gas leakage alarms, home appliance control, access control and security devices, health-care devices, etc.
Mr. Kabir was a highly ambitious and deeply passionate entrepreneur who wanted to build truly unique and innovative products and solutions to address critical problems of Bangladeshi society. He was well-known for his creative edge and dedication to pursuing moonshot ideas.
Among his close circle, Mr. Kabir was known as a deeply religious and spiritually conscious, and kind and gentle soul.
JolPi is a testament to his passion for innovation and ingenuity. The company spent almost two years of its initial journey in building its capacity and search for the product-market fit and decided to work on IoT based Smart Home Safety Security and Healthcare Device. JolPi eventually launched a product called Sniffer, a gas leakage alarm for the kitchen. The product was released quickly and received an incredible amount of attention from the market from day one.
Building an innovative hardware company in Bangladesh is a truly ambitious dream. The odds are too high. The challenges are almost insurmountable. The number of hardware successes in Dhaka’s startup scene is at best thin. Building innovative hardware companies are expensive and investment heavy. At the same time, world-class hardware tech talent remains a far cry in Dhaka. Of the ones that are available, everyone can’t afford them. Aiming to build an innovation homegrown hardware products company given the competition from Chinese and other products in the market is a genuinely ambitious call. Mr. Kabir took on that call and could see beyond what many of us struggle to see.
Mr. Kabir wanted to build a truly innovative hardware tech company solving critical problems for Bangladeshi society. He was a visionary and had the courage to take on the vision regardless of the limitations put on him by his circumstances.
