Powering Bangladesh's future with young entrepreneurs
The image of a young Bangladeshi sitting behind a laptop running their own startup or toggling between commissions, freelance tasks, and fleeting gig contracts is no longer marginal: it is fast becoming the reflection of the country's youth aspiration.
In a nation where the median age hovers around 27 years, the choice for many young people is shifting: less the long slog of a formal job, more the flexibility of entrepreneurship or gig economy and promise of building something of their own. If this moment is seized, Bangladesh may convert its demographic bulge into a lasting entrepreneurial dividend. However, if it is left unmanaged, a generation could find itself adrift, their potential and ambition undercapitalised.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The appeal of gig‑work in Bangladesh is real. The remote platform economy (cloud‑work) generates $100 million annually, according to a report. Simultaneously, around 20 lakh young Bangladeshis currently face the harsh reality of unemployment. The "not in education, employment or training" (NEET) rate for youth is still high, which is compounded by weak formal job creation and rising expectations.
These trends point to an obvious phenomenon: for Bangladesh's youths, traditional employment is no longer the sole option.
Gig work is not the same as building scalable businesses. The gig economy offers flexibility, immediate earnings, and entry-level autonomy, but many young workers are often trapped in precarity. They lack, as evidence shows, financial protection, such as no insurance, benefits, and income security, while facing remittance restrictions and infrastructural challenges. In short, the state of gig work in Bangladesh can only be a stepping stone for its youth.
What Bangladesh must aim for then is the next step: converting the gig mindset into entrepreneurial momentum. That means enabling youth to move from simply surviving on short-term tasks to launching small businesses, joining outsourcing value chains, building startups with growth potential, or innovating in sectors that are globally connected.
The country is already fertile, as there are 38 lakh young entrepreneurs (aged 18-35) across Bangladesh. With the right policy, education, and bridge‑building, that number can move from running micro‑enterprises to running larger, more impactful, and sustainable businesses.
There are three especially promising domains. One, outsourcing and digital platforms, as Bangladesh sits amongst the top freelancing countries in the world. Young people fluent in English and accustomed to digital communications can plug into global value chains in freelancing, remote software design, content creation, translation, data‑entry, and so on. Two, startups and small business innovation: the startup ecosystem is nascent but accelerating. An increasing number of IT graduates can launch ventures in agritech, edtech, fintech, and other sectors. These ventures have global relevance and scalability if supported properly. And three, enterprise innovation in traditional sectors: youth-led small business innovation, such as combining digital tools with agriculture, logistics, and manufacturing, can unlock new pathways in sectors long considered low‑tech.
For youth entrepreneurship to scale up, one critical bridge remains to be built: between industry and academia. Many young Bangladeshis graduates have theoretical knowledge but lack an entrepreneurial mindset, mentorship, networks, or exposure to business realities. According to labour market data, only 6.4 percent of formal firms in Bangladesh offered structured training programmes in 2022, far below the regional average of 28 percent.
Data suggest that technical and vocational education and training institutions (TVET) enrolments have grown, but the link to actual business creation remains weak.
If universities, polytechnics, research institutes, and training centres can partner with industry, not merely to supply labour, but to launch venture labs, mentorship clinics, internships‑to‑entrepreneurship pathways, a new pipeline of youth entrepreneurs could emerge. Industry can provide real-world exposure, seed‑funding, business links, and regulatory know-how. As we know, academia provides the research, networks, and space for risk-taking. Together, they can close the "valley of death" that so many young ideas hit after launch.
In order to coax Bangladesh's youth entrepreneurial energy into sustainable growth, the following strategic imperatives are required. Skills upgrading and certification for digital economy readiness are a must. Beyond literacy and primary schooling, youth must be equipped with market-relevant skills: coding, digital marketing, remote collaboration, data analytics, and business planning. Access to seed‑capital and risk-tolerant financing for youth enterprises should be widely available. Young startups often fail not for lack of idea but for lack of finance and networks. A targeted youth‑entrepreneur fund, perhaps with government matching or blended public-private financing, would unlock more ventures.
Simplified business registration, mentoring networks, and support hubs also have a crucial role to play. According to the World Bank's Doing Business 2020, Bangladesh was ranked 168th out of 190 countries. Young entrepreneurs are especially hampered by regulatory friction. Support hubs must offer mentorship, legal‑business advisory, and networking opportunities.
If formal recognition and enablement of gig-to-startup transitions are made smooth, many youth who start with gig work would graduate into full business owners. Policy must recognise this pathway: provide tax-friendly regimes for micro‑entrepreneurs, offer business incubators targeted at former gig‑workers, and build a clear and supportive pathway.
In addition, a deeper industry–academia collaboration will expedite innovation and economic growth, and develop a highly skilled workforce. To reap the benefits, universities and technical institutes need to embed entrepreneurship modules, industry internships for business teams, startup incubators on campus, and collaboration with established companies for spin‑outs. Industry must commit to taking on interns as entrepreneurs‑in‑residence, provide business challenges for student teams, and co-invest in youth ventures.
If Bangladesh fails to harness youth entrepreneurship, two risks loom. First, the demographic dividend will slip into a demographic liability: youth labour will swell informal sectors, job frustration will heighten, and the impetus for migration (or worse, societal disaffection) will grow. Second, Bangladesh will lose its chance to climb the value‑chain ladder. Low-cost factory work cannot be the growth story indefinitely. To break into higher-value services, innovation, digital exports, and small business ecosystems, youth entrepreneurship is critical.
Conversely, if Bangladesh amplifies this shift wisely, it could dramatically reshape its economy: a generation of young Bangladeshi business owners, globally connected freelancers, and local innovators, creating jobs for others, exporting services, and reducing dependence on one-dimensional sectors. Time is of the essence because the young workforce is large, mobile, digitally literate, and increasingly impatient for meaningful opportunity.
If Bangladesh is to capitalise on its youthful population, it must not only give them jobs but also give them platforms, networks, and licences to invent. Youth entrepreneurs are not the marginal option: they are the essential route to a more resilient, diversified, and future-proof economy. Let us build the bridges now.
A K M Wahiduzzaman is the information and technology affairs secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). He can be reached at wahiduzaman.net@gmail.com.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries, and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.
Comments