An NRB who did the impossible

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There has been a lot of talk about reversing the “brain drain” out of Bangladesh at the ongoing conference of non-resident Bangladeshis. There has also been a lot of talk about why this is not only unlikely to happen but also almost impossible to make it happen due to a lack of infrastructure and security. But, no one has shattered this myth more spectacularly in the last decade than Iqbal Z Quadir, founder of Grameenphone who brought the mobile phone to the masses.

Quadir, founder and executive director of Legatum Centre for development and entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), believes that this has been possible because he invested in what he calls “sweat equity”. An idea that he says enshrines twin values of hard work and a fierce belief in one’s goals that allowed him to turn a seemingly impossible idea into the living, breathing success of the mobile phone industry in Bangladesh.

But Quadir is not naïve. He recognises that there are barriers here–not only administrative and regulatory constraints but also a reluctance to believe in the possibility of change. So powerful were these barriers that he was ready to give up in another year.

Yet, he feels this is no excuse. “You have to design your project according to the atmosphere…You don’t complain about the atmosphere saying that nothing is possible here,” he said. Quadir explained that project designers from overseas need to be tuned to the ground realities of Bangladesh and design their projects accordingly. But, first, they need to come back to Bangladesh.

“I had to struggle to make Grameenphone happen,” Quadir told The Daily Star in an interview. He recalled how he gave up a well-paid Wall Street job to follow his “radical” idea of setting up a mobile phone network that would dramatically cut down the huge communication gap in Bangladesh by taking mobile phones to the masses.

“I spent three or four years chasing people around Dhaka and overseas trying to convince them that this idea would really work,” he said, talking of his time as a stakeholder in Gonophone in the mid-1990s, which started with the idea of providing phones to the masses.

He said it was equally difficult to convince local and overseas investors about the viability of the Grameenphone project. “It was hard to convince them that there was a serious business here,” Quadir recalled, adding that he was rejected by investors from around the world.

“Bangladesh has 30 million mobile phones now, it has made a lot of progress so it’s easy to forget how hard it was to tell people that cell phones would be so prevalent,” he said.

Quadir explained that by gaining a greater understanding of the dynamics of Bangladesh allowed him to tap the resources of Grameen Bank, opening up its vast and dense network in the rural areas to the possibilities of mobile phone technology.

Quadir personifies the new globalised entrepreneur: a mobile, highly skilled worker who is willing to venture into uncharted territories with a new idea.

Born in Jessore in 1958, he studied at Jhenidah Cadet College and moved to the US in 1976 attending Swarthmore College and Wharton Institute. Later, he worked for the World Bank and private companies in Wall Street.

He is investing in Bangladesh again with a new project through the Anwarul Quadir Foundation (named after his father) and Harvard University.

The project, called “Innovations in Bangladesh”, assists people in pursuing innovative projects by giving scholarships worth $25,000 every year to the best idea that empowers Bangladeshis.

Again, Quadir is putting his money in the audacity of hope and tenacity of action–the sweat equity.

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