R10 Support Funded Program “Ladypreneurs, Let’s Make an Entrepreneurial Leap” organized by IEEE WIE
Organizer: IEEE Women in Engineering, Bangladesh Section and IEEE Bangladesh Section
Venue: White Board, Level-3, GP House
Date: 13 October, 2017
IEEE Women in Engineering, Bangladesh Section and IEEE Bangladesh Section jointly organized “Ladypreneurs, Let’s Make an Entrepreneurial Leap” funded by IEEE Region 10 on 13 October, 2017, Friday at White Board, Level-3, GP House. Zaved Parvez from “Dreams for Tomorrow” and Rini Eshan Khushboo from “Planeter Ltd.” were present as key speakers in the event.
At first, Samantha Lubaba Noor, Chair, WIE AG, IEEE BDS and Senior Lecturer, East West University, gave her welcome speech. She talked about the purpose of WIE AG, IEEE BDS and the benefits of its membership. She also shared the joyous news of receiving “2017 Women in Engineering Affinity Group of the Year Award” which is the highest honorary award from IEEE WIE Global.
In the first session of the event, two entrepreneurs shared their entrepreneurial experiences with the participants. The first speaker was ZavedParvez, writer, speaker, corporate trainer, certified professional, life coach and founder of “Dreams for Tomorrow,” a non-profit organization with the target of building 2000 D4T centers around the whole country, a place of gathering and sharing knowledge, so that every student gets its facilities within 2 kilometers of his home. Before talking about his organization, he mentioned some of the common social factors that are constantly pulling down the quality of education and hindering the virtues of dreams, values and humanities which are necessary for the development of truly educated and responsible citizens of our country. Then he shared his stories about how he started “Dreams for Tomorrow”, the challenges he faced and the strategies he followed and also told that funding or investment is not an important factor if one has a true purpose behind his action.
The second speaker was RiniEshanKhushboo, CTO, Planeter Ltd., ex-LICT trainer on Internet of Things (IoT), ICT division, Bangladesh and certified image processing and robotic vision specialist, Technophillia Ltd., Mumbai, India. She started her talk by suggesting the future entrepreneurs “Look before you leap.” She shared about how she got the idea and started her entrepreneurial journey along with her co-founder from student life and then expanding her business and services through proper sales planning, prototyping, team building and publicity. She also told that the requirement of venture capitalist is a minor factor for a startup business and an entrepreneur can start with small amount of money to avoid the risk of loss. She also quoted ‘entrepreneurship’ as a symbol of freedom and expression of creativity. She further added, “People change the rules and entrepreneurs change the game.”
The second segment of the event was debate on “Investing in Women is Smart.” The participants were divided into two groups. Two participants from each group took part in the debate. After an open discussion and debate between two groups, the judges announced the winner of the debate. RiniEshanKhushboo also shared her opinion in support of the title at the end of the debate session. She told that multi-tasking is a wonderful characteristic of a woman which makes her more efficient worker at her workplace. It is also scientifically proven that the women are kinder and more intuitive than men. After the debate, the judges gave prizes to both teams.
The whole event was conducted by IrtizaHaque, Professional Activities Coordinator, WIE AG, IEEE BDS and System Engineer, Service Operation Center, Grameenphone Ltd. The event was closed by refreshment and a group photo. About 30 students and professionals including both IEEE and non-IEEE members participated in the event.
