Kids, everyday is precious

This week, one of my colleagues is going to sabbatical. We took him to a restaurant of his choice for a sabbatical send away lunch. He chooses a restaurant called “Thailand Restaurant” in Beaverton, a small town near Portland, Oregon. Sabbatical is an 8 weeks paid vacation after seven years of service. The root of the word sabbatical came from Arabic number seven (Sabba); hence sabbatical.

Our team carpools and meets at the restaurant. We are a small team responsible for designing couple of Units of today’s humongous microprocessor “Core”. We ordered our food and chit chatting between Olympic, current events and work. Our small team composed of two Russians, three Indian (One from Bengal, One from Bombay and the other one from North), One Brazilian, One from Taiwan, One from Laos, One from Bangladesh, One from Chicago area and the last one from Utah. Surprisingly, none of the team members are from Portland or even from the state of Oregon.

We are a team of eleven came from seven different country, where only two are from USA, working in a USA company, which has more than 80% market share of the global microprocessor market. How amazing is that? How innovation, competition and globalization shaped the form of a small component design team in a suburb of silicon forest, where none of them came from that state.

Let me back up little bit to set the ground of today’s writing. Last month, July 2008, I was in Dhaka to see family members. During that trip I had an opportunity to hang out with couple of bright musicians at their Gulshan residence cum studio. Although the composure is single; however he brings up an important point regarding raising kid for future. “Shaping the future of our kids in the direction of science and technology”, this is what I would like to bring your attention.

With all due respect to them, I will not reveal the musicians’ identity. My kids along with four other nephews and nice, rampaging the studio. They are strumming their guitars and “DoTara”, not to mention the piano concert of my kids with the mouth piece in their hands. Anyway, we were talking about music. I am out of touch of music for a while, trying to catch up the recent trends. I remember during my University days at Purdue in Indiana. I, with my friends from the Purdue, went to Lollapalooza feasible, where “Sound Garden”, “Metalica” smashing the stage in a hot summer day in Midwest. Sudden rain soaked everybody and justifies one more excuse to have less attire. I not only attended this type of crazy concerts; but also some decent one by Sir Elton John, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan etc.

In the middle of the discussion in their apartment, another prominent musician walked in. This third one has Master’s degree from a prestigious University in Massachusetts. We are in the middle of very talented people who happen to be musicians’. Going back to the “raising kids” discussion. One of them was talking about one of their friend in the west. Her friends are so concern about the kids future education, how to improve their intelligence and so forth. She also indicated that her friends bought all the gadgets’ by “Baby Einstein”, Leapfrog etc to tickle the tender little mind.
I can relate to their thinking. My friends here in USA, I mean, Diasporas’ are also concern about the future of their 3-6 year old kids.
At this point of the discussion, the top music composure made a comment. He said, “look at Sohel Bhai, did he ever play with Baby Einstein; but he is designing the most complicated microprocessor design of the world today.” How cool is that? This is a huge complement. The moment I started writing about it, to me, it sounds like I am bragging; however he has a point and a very good one. You don’t know what future holds; however you aim high enough to get best out of you. This does not mean that you get panic and give up everything. What it means is that you understand what you want, understand the challenges, plan a path to reach their and then start working on it. Be diligent, discipline and committed to the plan of action.

We see kids are deprived of being kids now a day. I must acknowledge that today’s kids are not the same as kids of the 80s. The expectation and demand profiles are not same as before and it should not be in a changing world. Look at Olympics at Beijing, there were accusation of extreme training from very early age. Even in the USA parents are pushing their kids to a limit to excel in Golf (to be Tiger Wood), to excel in Piano lessons (to be Mozart of tomorrow). These are reported in the major TV broadcasting. In Bangladesh, affluent children are being transported from one couching center to another.

The nightmare of parents during the admission season, irrespective of kindergarten, primary school or middle school pass down to the tender kids. Hence these kids are deprived of being a kid. I am not suggesting that you do not push your kid to excel; however you as parents need to get involve and plan ahead. Please take it easy and as smooth as you could be. There should be a balance and kids should be comfortable enough to communicate. They should participate spontaneously and trained to negotiate freely.

I have a wonderful childhood. Although, I went to a good primary school, which was by accident an English medium. However, we did not have tons of homework; most of the tasks were done at school. I had all evening to play and to be kid. I experienced a vacuum during the transition from primary school to middle school. My middle school was an average Bangla medium and enforcement of discipline was poor. Not much education was done in class and children are encouraged to attend the couching class. I did end up attending couching class in my 9th and 10th grade.

After my high school education, I went to Dhaka College for my HSC. Like almost all the students I was receiving stipend for my SSC. During my two years in Dhaka College I paid almost nothing; however I was paying a good amount for my dining hall (no subsidy there). I take no pride; on the contrary, it gives me shame that during those couple of years, like most of the students I did not attend the regular classes, there was no first year exam or second year exam. Attending class was not a cool thing those days.

There were attempts to schedule, conduct exam; but the macho students made every attempts to nullify those. And they were successful. The trend was to go to the batches at the professors’ residence to attend couching class. Students of well-to-do families had no trouble with that culture; however there are few students who had hard time to adopt that culture. They are tutoring high school students on Math and science. The remuneration that they received was directly changing hands form them to the professors.

I entered BUET after Dhaka College, thanks to my friends of Dhaka College and couching centers. I have no clue on how did I made that. I believe most of the credit goes to my friends. Hanging out with them and following the trend put me on the “BUET stream” and I sailed pretty good with the western wind of couching centers. BUET test exam is one of the horrifying life changing experiences for most of the students. For me it was like “whatever”. Because I was fool and did not really realize the true consequence of failing at that stage of life. May be that helped me to go through the process seamlessly without any tension at all. I recall couple of incidents on the day of the admission test. I was excited seeing lots of my friends going to the big exam room which was the second floor of the BUET library. I patted my friend; let’s call him T2, on his shoulder. Out of my surprise he did not return the same enthusiasm in response of my pat on his back. May be a little perturbation could disrupt his concentration of all the trick questions solutions that he piled in his mind. I should mention here that T2 did excellent in the exam and he secured his discipline of studies. Later in his life, he became a successful professor.
The second incident surprised the exam supervisor on my care free stupidity. She showed an outmost expression of irritation when I asked her if I could go to the restroom. Because nobody was wasting a single second in that time packed testing. These two incidents give some sense of seriousness of the test exam and my ignorance of the event.

Anyway, I end up with BUET. I will write about BUET some other time. Stress free environment and good association of friendship was key to my success during those days.
I had the opportunity to kid around as well as stress free guidance.

For the kids growing up today, my suggestion to them is to do what you do best and excel. Today’s children, who are aiming at science and technology, please use internet to dig what interest you. Read more and be discipline about it. More you know more you get interested. And the only way of knowing more is reading. Do not believe in “special talent or gifted child” or “sharp brain”; because they don’t exist. They are Myth. Spending time in a guided, well planned path and dedication to achieve that plan is the ticket to success. Finally the biggest advice that I can give to you is: “make your idle time into productive time”. I know my nice spent all night to study and she is not doing well enough in the study; But if you ask her how many hours she studies during her HSC days, the answer is two or at best three hours. Because her night starts at 1:00 AM and ends at 3:00 AM or may be stretched up to 4:00 AM. She wakes up at noon. You can not achieve a decent education if you don’t utilize your time in a discipline manner. Same goes with your passion or hobby, your sports or music.

So kids, have your parents in your team, get them involve with your web browsing and quest for knowledge. Respect your elder sibling and learn from their success or failure. Utilize every moment for meaningful activity that enrich your life experience. Let’s assume you have 70 years to survive then you only have ~25,000 days. Everyday is precious; do you want to waste a day doing nothing?

Information Communication Technology related Project Ideas and paths to Startup

There has been a lot of talk and enthusiasm going on in Bangladesh now a day with respect to digital divide and technology adoption to uplift the standard of living. During last decade cell phone paved the path of technology adoption. More and more application is landing into the market to increase productivity and way of life.

There were some major direction changes done by BTRC over the past year. Eliminating illegal VOIP, auctioning broadband connectivity and delivering a policy on how to do it. Most recently they deliver the WiMax policy. I am not in a position to criticize if those actions are good or bad. However, I always view technology as a tool to enhance life experience in a positive way.
I have several ICT project ideas which I day dream about. These ideas may not directly fall in to profitable business entity; however they may be categorized as social business. Under the social business umbrella, these projects could be taken as NGO activity; moreover some of these projects may fall in to the development activity of smart nation building.

1. Security monitoring and first response initiation over the internet.

2. Online Math and Science Tutoring for High school students in US.

3. Online trucking/goods shipping reservation facility for nationwide faster goods movement.

4. Micro-credit for laptop purchases for every University admitted student in Bangladesh.

5. RMG intranet for capacity and recourses sharing for maximizing throughput.

6. Online auction of excess or minor rejected RMG products. (Govt. need liberalization)

7. Consumer Pricing Interactive Information broadcasting system.

8. Intranet for Universities and dedicated network for all students.

Security monitoring and fast response initiation:

Bangladesh being one of the top UN peace keeping forces in the world deployed more then 9000 troops in various turbulent countries. They wear UN blue helmets to provide peace and security around the conflicting borders in the world. Bangladesh Military earned the honor outmost respect. One third of those troops are currently in Ivory Coast. Many of them returned home with experience and a solid track record of success.

New business initiative may capitalize these well earned expertises with evolving technology to solve the security surveillance challenge of the mid-east and may thrive to serve the west. Applying technology to the puzzle may deliver a robust and affordable solution of surveillances from a command center far from the object of interest.

Let us take an example of a Mega business center in Dubai. The management has to provide complete security of the facility. Now we have technological capabilities to provide the surveillance part of the solution from Kulna Bangladesh. The Mega business center will have complete wiring of the video monitoring and we will see them live via our submarine cable in the command centre at Kulna. I have chosen Kulna to get out of the big city dram doll and hassles.

To run that business, we need experienced man power, dedicate electricity and dedicated access to the information superhighway. We have ex military service men as expertise, electricity and access to the submarine cable can be managed if there is goodwill. The command centre will run 24/7. Let us assume that there are 100 cameras in that facility sending 3 fps each to 12 monitors each one capturing 9 cameras. We can safely deploy 2 people to visually scan through the screens and report any unusual activity to the direct voice line to the facility guards. The facility guard on site will take over from that point. Moreover, direct live data dispatch can be done to facilitate the guards during the operation from the Kulna command center.

In doing so, the Dubai Mega Business center may reduce 10 more people from surveillance duty and can maintain small secondary surveillance facility in site as a backup.

Now if we can integrate 10-100 more business entity as a customer around the mid-east, then we could replicate the model for any number of businesses or place of interest around the world. We could bring command center of surveillance for Airports, mass transit stations, museums, libraries, schools, major intersections etc.

Once you have one customer happy and satisfied, you will get 20 more customers to be a mega security center and may further reduce the cost and enlighten your customer. In addition, companies that could not afford security center will be able to do it as the cost is down. Hence the market will get bigger. One day the West may come to Bangladesh for their security solution for the affordability and reliability.

Online Math and Science Tutoring for High school students in US:

Dhaka probably one of the few cities in the world where “coaching center” is a necessary and integrated part of the education system. Moreover Dhaka also known for the other short term coaching business, such as TOEFL, SAT, GRE, Various University Admission including BUET, DMC, Cadet core, BMA Marin to name few. The “coaching business” is a matured enough to test for export. We have talented students, panty of medical college and engineering students who are very good in theoretical Math and Science and in “coaching center” business.

The next ingredient that we need is virtual presence; which could be done utilizing our developing broadband access to the internet or world wide web (WWW). Tutor student may meet at chat room or use web cam with audio to consult mathematical problems.

This could be done in a simple “24/7 coaching center” concept to serve a specific class of students with a monthly subscription fee for unlimited consultation. Let us assume for simplicity, a 24/7 coaching center is opened for students of “grade 8”. The coaching center has all the math text material for grade 8 math and offering unlimited tutoring for USD$ 10.00 per month or may be USD$100.00 per year. The center started with one school in the USA and there are 15 students signed up. If all 15 student of that school did pretty well during first month; then the coaching center may sell the success to get 100 more school with 1000 to 2000 students. There is a very good potential for rapid growth and the management should have the dynamics to handle the growth.

Online trucking/goods shipping reservation facility for nationwide faster goods movement:

With the fuel cost sky rocketing, you have to minimize your unnecessary drive and make the delivery quick and cheap. For simplicity let us assume that we have 10,000 trucks in Bangladesh. At any given time, 5000 are on the road making a delivery of goods. The remaining 50% are at some station or truck stand available for rental contract. Unless you have a regular contracted Truck Company to serve your need; than you have to go to that truck stand and make the contact and bring the truck to loading area to load it. Then the truck makes the delivery.

This problem of extra drive and waiting idle time can be solved by a smart locator program and a simplified GPS vs cross street database. First you have to build a database with the entire cross streets and their corresponding GPS entry. This is needed as we do not have a systematic street structure as well as corresponding digital map. However, couples of local tech companies in Dhaka are working on a digital map with every holding number or address entity included in the program.

A truck driver may text his location referring a cross street from his cell phone to a locator server. The servers take the text and translate it to GPS coordinate. A customer send a text of the cross street name of loading area. The servers translate the loading area coordinate and calculate 5 available trucks for hire. The calculation may be done through radial proximity or may be Manhattan length. There is no perfect solution here as because there is no digitized map of Bnagladesh integrated to the GPS servers. Now the customer has 5 potential bidders for the trip and everybody happy as less waiting, less overlap routing, less fuel cost.

Here for this business, the solution provider may charge a subscription fee or could be commission based. The transportation authority may sponsor the business and yearly charge the truck company during renewal of registration. Hence this business could be government, NGO, cooperative or an enterprise itself for profit.

Intranet for Universities and dedicated network for all students:

There are 74 universities in Bangladesh. Out of these, 21 universities are in the public sector, while the other 53 are in the private sector. Out of 21 public sector universities, 19 universities provide regular classroom instruction facilities and services. Each of them may take initiatives to get grant and design their intranet as well as the gateway to internet. BTTB may just drop the extension of submarine cable and fiber to the nearest node. Again, government may impose a mandatory 5% revenue contribution from the entire telecom provider operating in Bangladesh including BTTB to fund such a connectivity project. No University will benefit from the online capability more than the National University of Bangladesh.

The National University caters the general education at graduate and post-graduate level in colleges/institutions which were affiliated to different public universities since independence. About one million students are studying in more than 1600 colleges/institutions affiliated to this university. The National University is expanding in terms of number of students, courses and institutions day by day. To day this university plays the most significant role to provide opportunities for higher education among the students living especially in rural and semi-urban areas. A dedicated connectivity and access to the internet with a computer in students possession may do more then the education. The student will have a tool to shape his/her future.

Micro-credit for laptop purchases for every University admitted student in Bangladesh:

Currently there are approx 200,000 students who are attending any of the Universities in the country.
Let’s say, we need USD$ 40 million for 200,000 laptops (University Grant commission or ministry of education can strike a deal with ASUS Taipei or Lenovo China) which will ensure a piece for every university enrolled student of Bangladesh. Due to the competition price of laptop are going down everyday. A US$199 laptop called “Eee PC” an inexpensive laptop designed to help spread computing to poorer regions. The hardware funding may come from various foundations and NGOs. Universities need to research for that. Again you need a dedicated internet access to even to search the funding. It is feels like the chicken and egg problem. There is a lot of funding available to close the digital divide. BRAC or Grameen could take a lead on working out a micro credit loan with Universities for the funding of these PCs. Moreover, University governing body can work with various bank and financial agencies for a package of installment payable by each student in absence of funding from non profit organizations. A student may pay as low as 500 Taka per month for a laptop during his full length of study. I am sure, these creative students will innovate a lot of usages of these toys at their disposal for generating lot more then 500 Taka to pay for it. For this scheme we do not need any grant, we can work out with a bank for this venture.

Consumer Pricing Interactive Information broadcasting system:

The ultimate goal of this project is to have self sustaining free market price stability for consumer goods. This system will share instantaneous market valuation of major consumer good in major shopping zone throughout the country and thereby adjust the price fluctuation or price hike. This can be modeled after the stock exchange index. In a very high level, the system will be integrated in the following architecture.Each vendor will have a secure ID and product code. At any point of time during the business hour, the vendor will enter his asking price of a specific item. That information will store in a server and broadcasted to multiple billboards throughout the country to major market place like New Market, Sowary Ghat, Moluvi Bazzar, Chalk Bazzar, Kawran Bazzar, Gabtoli and likes. Now the vendor’s security ID may be his personal cell phone. Once he called to that specific server and entered his product code, the program will pick up the bid and broadcast it to the billboard as a “cron job”. Now if you paid careful attention you already figure out that any customer will be able to access that bid through their cell phone from that server. The transaction will happen as usual with the vendor and customer in the respected business site or over cell phone. You have the luxury to scale the system based on your investment or availability of funding. How you make money out of this? That is a trade secret. Be innovative or hire innovator.

RMG intranet for capacity and recourses sharing for maximizing throughput:

The proposal that I am about to unveil here may be analogous to knife. Doctors use them to save life and miscreants use it to harm life. This centralized database will be populated with all the RMG order that has been placed in the nation to various factories.

A standard form need to be developed for the database entry. The sensitive and competitive business information may or may not be required. If that sensitive information needed for statistical purpose to maximize the national RMG production, than proper guideline should be strictly enforced to guard that information. Binary coding may be introduced for that sensitive information.

Once we have such a system, than NBR at any point may estimate net tax earning accurately. BGMEA will be able to know the status of the national production statistics. More service may be customized to member factories to share recourses or sub contract a time sensitive critical order. This will help to reduce if not eliminate the contract cancellation due to “delay”.

Online auction of excess or minor rejected RMG products:

In every RMG factory, there is always some not so perfect left over products. These products usually handled secretly. They often used for appeasing local influential and so called “Mastans”. In some cases they are dumped in the local wholesale markets. In addition to those products there are some products that are abandoned due to delay in shipments and any other minor breach of contract.

If government acknowledges these products as legal merchandisable entity; then there could be a auction house which can handle these products in a market driven manner. This auction house may be modeled after “ebay” to get the global participation. Free market force of globalize flat world will shape the supply and demand to equilibrium. Bangladesh may earn valuable foreign exchange as a result of that.

To design the model, the end customer has to be the top priority. A rigid delivery and shipping procedure have to be ensured. We have a history of export cheating. In the past frog leg or shrimp has been shipped with metal attached to them to get high weight. Once the bid is done, the delivery process should be seamlessly done by one dedicated management. No exception on the method of shipping. To earn the expertise, we may hire UPS or DHL or FedEx.

To enlist your surplus product to the auction database, a standard form should be filled. A standard procedure need to chalk out for the payment methods and release of fund agreement.

Conclusion:

In this article I tried to provoke thoughts to several ICT projects start-up ideas. Any of the above ideas has tremendous potential to transform into a profitable business. Moreover, each of them has inherent nation building ingredients. I hope that visionary entrepreneurs may find these ideas interesting enough to take the challenge.