The Bangladeshi Perspective

What do talented Bangladeshis have in common and how can we have more of them? Seeam Shahid Noor, currently pursuing Bachelor's in Applied Mathematics and Biology at Harvard University with a secondary in Computer Science, set out on his pursuit to find the answer to this question and started The Bangladeshi Perspective. While talking about the inception of this project, Seeam mentioned the book "Tribe of Mentors" by Tim Feriss, where the author interviews some amazing people across the world to know what makes them successful. Being able to relate to the advice in the book, Seeam started his endeavour to tell the stories of Bangladeshis who were leaving their mark in their respective professional lives at home and abroad.

Seeam started the project with his friend Farhan Rahman around November 2019. Although Farhan left the journey after a while due to his busy schedule with his job at Tesla, Seeam continued the project at Harvard.  Initially, he reached out to some successful Bangladeshis at Harvard, MIT and Oxford. The interviews were all Facebook Live interviews and can be found on the Facebook page. Seeing impressive viewer growth, Seeam later decided to expand the scope and outreach. The website for The Bangladeshi Perspective was created when he came to Bangladesh for a month during his winter break. He created the website with help from a friend and expanded presence from Facebook to YouTube and LinkedIn as well. The platform so far has 54 interviews and has reached over 100,000 people. The team is growing with rising interest among the youth of Bangladesh to be a part of  The Bangladeshi Perspective. Few talented students have applied to be bloggers, video editors, and contributors for this initiative seeking an avenue for learning and growth.

When asked about the most unexpected and key revelations in his journey with The Bangladeshi Perspective, Seeam mentioned the following facts:

· Most of the successful people achieved confidence from accomplishments in the early stages of their lives (High-school or Bachelor's) mostly through extra-curricular activities and sometimes academics. That initial confidence gave them a compounding advantage as they moved on to the next steps of their lives.

· Contrary to popular belief, most of them have at least a double-digit number of failures that changed their trajectories in life.

· Most of them do not have any idea as to where they want to be 5/10 years from now and that has always been the case. They make the most out of whatever circumstances are put in front of them.

· In terms of communication, WhatsApp is the best way to reach these people although email/LinkedIn outreach is getting more popular day by day.

Going forward, The Bangladeshi Perspective aims to make sure that the knowledge base reaches as many young aspiring Bangladeshis as possible. For now, the target is a few million Bangladeshis annually. Through a book or a better promoted social media video channel, the platform aims to reach more Bangladeshis every day. "I had a great journey interviewing Bangladeshis from different fields and cannot wait to see what the future holds for the Bangladeshi Perspective!", a hopeful Seeam replied while talking about his journey so far and the road ahead.