Where’s the ecosystem for our tech sector?

At a time when digital technologies have completely changed how entrepreneurs and enterprises envision doing business, Bangladesh still seems to be stuck in the analogue days. The Asian Development Outlook published a new index – the Global Index of Digital Entrepreneurship Systems (GIDES) – of digital initiatives of 113 countries, including 21 ADB member countries, in which Bangladesh has ranked 96th by scoring 12.5 points. This is unfortunate given the fact that our young population has great entrepreneurial skills and they have shown us what they can do using technology during the pandemic. 

The GIDES has measured the quality of an economy's environment for digital entrepreneurs through some indicators, such as institutional infrastructure; legal framework and taxation; market conditions; physical infrastructure; human capital; knowledge creation and distribution; financial arrangements; and networking and support. While most developing countries that are members of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are lagging far behind the developed countries in all indicators, Bangladesh's performance is particularly weak. It performed extremely poorly in informal institutions and practices (one of the indicators), scoring only 2.1 out of 100. 

The question is: why do we have such bad scores? What is holding back our digital entrepreneurs from doing businesses? Why can't we create a conducive environment for them? Reportedly, Bangladesh's start-up ecosystem is weak compared to those in countries such as India and Singapore, and our entrepreneurs are failing to attract new foreign investment due to myriad challenges, including a lack of proper guidance and training, bureaucratic roadblocks and outdated regulations. The corruption and poor governance that are eating away at all sectors are also slowing us down as a nation and hampering our potential in the digital landscape.

The government needs to provide fiscal incentives to facilitate tech start-ups and urgently revise its laws and regulations to be more forward-looking. We need to re-envision our education system, starting with making technologies more accessible at all levels, and make our universities capable of playing a pioneering role in creating and enabling digital entrepreneurs. Providing entrepreneurs the necessary training on fundraising techniques and running digital businesses successfully is crucial. Also, the government must ensure that they don't have to go through unnecessary hassle at the respective government offices while registering their businesses. 

The Asian Development Outlook report has revealed how innovations centring digital technology have sustained the entrepreneurs in global competitions as well as helped their respective countries to move forward in expanding their enterprises. We must learn from these experiences, so that digital entrepreneurship can play a vital role in the economic growth and development of Bangladesh.