State Minister for ICT division Junaid Ahmed Palak said the country’s information and communication start-ups received $750 million as foreign direct investment (FDI) to date.
Palak made the remarks while addressing the inaugural ceremony of Sheikh Kamal Business Incubator centre at Chattogram University on Thursday.
“In the country, around 2,500 start-ups are running their operations which has created around 15,000 employments, and some $750 million FDI has been received by those start-ups so far”, Palak said.
“We were not being able to let our private sector start-ups enter into public universities and a huge gap was created. With this incubation centre, the bar has been cleared off,” he added.
Bangladesh has managed to establish nine hi-tech parks, creating 13,000 employments, Palak mentioned.
The state minister hoped that country’s young people will not be looking for jobs anymore, rather they will become their own bosses and employ themselves in the IT ecosystem.
The Sheikh Kamal Business Incubator will create a bridge between the country’s public university and private sector initiatives, he added.
A number of IT start-ups and IT companies have rented two floors in the 50,000-square feet building. One floor will be dedicated to providing training and on the other floor, fresh start-ups will get a chance to open new offices for free.
The start-ups created from this opportunity will get up to Tk5 crores as equity investment from the government, Palak said.
