American Bangladeshi Technologists

After attending a very uplifting talk by the Bangladeshi ambassador to the US, I have been pondering the topic of the image of Bangladesh - the subject of how do we present our country to our colleagues, friends and neighbors in the US. It’s a more general problem of the ‘Bangladesh’ brand, how do we make Bangladesh stand out among the 192 countries in the world. How do we change the typical image of Bangladesh from a land of devastation, to a land that copes with devastation. From a land of floods, to a land with such expertise in dealing with floods and natural calamities, that post-Katrina, there were US experts studying Bangladeshi flood response strategies.

This issue of image and branding has been around for a while. 3 years ago, in the 2004 convention, there was a session dedicated to this where we methodically analyzed approaches needed here. Marketing Professional Mr. Syed Rahman gave us a thorough theoretical grounding on branding, and suggesting some interesting ideas, around ‘Creativity’, ‘craftsmanship’ and ‘artistry’ as defining brand characteristics of products coming out of Bangladesh.
(http://aabeat.com/old/site2004b/AABEA-Branding_files/frame.htm)
One possible tagline was “Crafted with Pride in Bangladesh”. 24 ringtones theme cell phone ringtones wallpaper free u.s cellular ringtones free cell phone ringtones composer free nokia ringtones ringtones maker alltel ringtones info nokia remember ringtones cingular wireless ringtones 100 free ringtones boost free ringtones motorola tracfone ringtones cell phone ringtones free mobile phone ringtones virgin 24 ctu free ringtones 1600 nokia ringtones free motorola mp3 ringtones verizon lg ringtones cell phone ringtones wallpaper crazy frog listen ringtones Maybe that is what we should add as a product description to products produced in Bangladesh? seven card studapostar dinero paginas internettrucos ganar ruletajuegos apuestas paginas internetsistemas ruletasapuesta dinero portales internetcasino du libanjugar apostar portalruleta sistemas juegolos mejores casinos onlineweb baccaratruleta europea portal internetcasino virtual gratiscasinos netjugar baccarat en lineadescargar juegos de casino gratisayuntamiento madrid casinojuegos flash casinojuego interactivo internetapuesta dinero onlinejugar cartastrucos para casino empirecasino villajoyosajack black en linea gratisjuego tragaperrascasino portales internetruleta internetcasino on net downloadruleta pagina webjugar interactivo portalcasino virtual portal websistemas ganar ruletaganar dinero real portalescomo ganar en la ruletaruleta portal webjugar gratisganar dinero real portales webcasino internacional paginas internetcasino virtual paginas webcasinos internacionales paginas internetmaquinas tragaperras portalvideo poker paginas webapuesta portales internetjuego gratis la ruletaplay free baccaratjuego instantaneo portal internetcasino juegosroulette paginas webjuegos seguros paginas internetjugar cartas linea I am debating whether to put that as a small tag-line in the websites produced by my company. The responsiblity of each product producer then goes up exponentially. But maybe that’s what we need.

The political aspect of branding was also covered, along with what NRBs can do
http://www.aabeat.com/old/site2004a/Bangladesh.Image_files/frame.htm

But I was wondering what published material do we NRBs have to publicize the positives of Bangladesh. I looked through the official Governments sites linked on the AABEA site, the Board of Investment site, the different consulate sites, and the ministry sites, but couldn’t find what I was looking for. I think we need some professionally produced collateral that NRBs can use - material that highlights Bangladesh as a land of resilience, a land where women are leading a revolutionary change in the countryside, a land with an egalitarian social structure which provides peacekeepers to the rest of the world. The question is who will produce this material that we can all use?

Intel Corporation is the world’s largest semiconductor company and the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in many personal computers. Dr. Craig R. Barrett, the chairman of this giant chip maker company, will visit Bangladesh soon. The purpose of his visit is predicted to find out facts for investment opportunity in Bangladesh. This came in newspapers a few days ago like:

“Intel Corporation’s chairman Craig Barrett will visit Bangladesh during first week of September 2007. This could be viewed as an opportunity to develop partnership that brings a win-win platform. Craig made similar visit to Vietnam in 2002 which triggered the staggering investment afterward.”

Bangladesh needs foreign direct investment (FDI) from companies like Intel, but the political and infrastructure constraints are not quite attractive for such investment from big companies. However, we have a huge labor force at a comparatively cheap wage which makes us attractive to them. All we need now is a chance to prove ourselves to the big corporates. If Intel comes and operates a hardware assembly and test facility in Bangladesh successfully, it will be a matter of time for other major global players to have the faith on the business environment and opportunites in Bangladesh.

Our current investment scenario is no less than pathetic due to poor conversion of investment proposals into actual implementation. Intel chairman is visiting us in a time when we are just coming out of a major flood, facing a critical political age. But we hope that none of these will stop us from showing our real potential to this big corporate player. Intel’s investment in Vietnam turned this country from a state where we are today to a state where we want to go.

This could be relevant that Intel has an involvement with Bangladesh already. There are a few hundreds of BUET students working in Intel’s Design/Fabrication labs in CA,WA, VA,OR states in USA. A few years back, they formed a body named ‘IBA’ (Intel Bangladesh Association), which was approved by Intel authorities. And as an acknowledgment of contribution from this university, Intel funded for a simulation lab named ‘Robert Noyce Simulation Lab’ (named after one of the two founders of Intel) in Electrical & Electronic Dept of BUET. You can find details on IBA here: http://www.buet.ac.bd/eee/iba

In our next AABEA event of 4th September with Dr. Ishfaqur Reza in Santa Clara, I would like to know whether IBA is behind this visit of Craig Barrett to Bangladesh. NRBs have been trying to portray Bangladesh in a positive manner throughout the world and I believe this is one of those efforts.

If Intel thinks that the one engineer’s wage in USA can accomodate 10 engineers in Bangladesh, it may be good enough to outweigh the current infrastructure lackings we have. Imagine Intel investing $200 million or $500 million in Bangladesh and the economic picture of the country will change radically as other foreign investors will feel safe to invest here as well.

The caretaker govt should have done their homework to take proper advantage of Dr. Barrett’s visit to Bangladesh and show him our strength and potential. We are looking forward to this visit with lot of hopes, with great expectations. We can do it, we will do it.

Those of you who are not green card holder or US citizen may often have to calculate your visa expiration date. It’s more true now than few years earlier, as people get only one year visa instead of 3 years. Being a job visa holder (H1B), I had to renew my visa when I went back to Bangladesh first time taking leave from my company.

If your visa has expired you have 3 options.

First, don’t go outside USA, so you don’t need to renew visa. Remember that visa is needed only to enter into USA, not to stay in USA (well, there are 6 years maximum stay time issue for job visa holders, but that’s another story).

Second, go to your homeland and apply for visa renewal (sometimes called visa revalidation or visa extension). Well, you are free to not even come back to USA again, your choice. But if you choose to come back, say you took 3 weeks leave from your US employer to attend your brother marriage ceremony, you have to face US consulate in Bangaldesh with good faith. Your visa renewal is not guaranteed, although I got my visa renewal first time very quickly and without facing even much questions. Sometimes people may fall under the background security check (which may span from few weeks to few motnhs) and then he or she has to figure out if his or her job in USA is still waiting or being occupied by another one.

Third, go to a country outside USA and not your homeland (i.e. any country other than Bangaldesh), and apply for USA visa renewal there. When you go to a third country, (in most cases people go to Canada or Mexico as they are nearby and their records of visa renewal are quite good) you have to have a bad luck to get refused of visa. There are cases that people had to wait for a security check of few weeks or months and also some have been refused of visa giving the logic that they should apply US visa from their homeland.

I am thinking now that despite my easy visa renewal first time, should I again go back directly to Bangladesh to see my family and renew visa the same way or should I go to Canada and renew my visa there before going to Bangaledsh? It seems both of these have their pros and cons. In any case, when I go to Bangladesh, I am always mentally prepared that I may not come back to USA again for visa issues.

What is your comment and experience on this matter?

Of many ways we can help technology growth in Bangladesh, sending hardware, which Universities may find difficult to acquire due to exorbitant cost, could be one.  I find it appalling to see companies such as Cisco, Agilent etc. are throwing away millions of dollars worth of equipment which could have helped building labs at educational institutes in Bangladesh. After talking to a few people, I found that several issues are hampering this initiative.

Legal issues:

Prior attempts to send old or unused equipment, such as oscilloscope, network analyzer etc., Cisco routers and switches, from U.S. companies to Bangladesh have proved futile mostly because companies are reluctant to assume liabilities of supporting the hardware. Even after insisting that no technical support for hardware is required, most members of Bangladeshi community received no positive response from their companies. Most companies would rather have millions of dollars worth of equipment destroyed than provide technical support for outdated products.

Logistical issues:

A lot of us want to send our old computers to Bangladesh which can go to any educational institute and promote computer literacy at primary and secondary level. However, in most cases the cost of storing and shipping the computers seems to be more than buying new computers in Bangladesh. One approach to reduce the storage and shipment cost could be to gather all the computers and other usable hardware for two months before the year end - so that people can get tax credit for charitable donations - and ship in bulk quantities.

Meeting supply and demand:

Last but not the least of the challenges is meeting the supply with demand. While a certain Cisco lab may have optical equipment to spare there is no demand for optical equipment at BUET (Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology).  Similarly, supply of excess computers here should meet the demand at some school in Bangladesh. We also need proper distribution channel, a NGO or some other organization, willing to distribute the hardware where needed.

IT professionals from Bangladesh started coming to USA through H1B visa recently and this trend will be more visible in near future. H1B visa is for those kind of jobs that are considered specialty occupation where the candidate works in USA as an alien or nonimmigrant worker. During his stay in USA, he will be considered as a US Resident.

As I have come through this process in 2005 under 2004 H1B quota, I have the knowledge of this process: how it works and when it fails. I would like to share some of those with you here in a series of posts, specially for the audience who are planning to come to USA with a job.

How It Works:

1. A US company will advertise job opening for professionals with specific skill set via newspapers, online job boards or company web site.
2. A candidate should respond to such an opening with his or her interest to work for that company.
3. After an initial screening, the US company will take interview over phone or by other means to select the number of candidates they have opening for.
4. Send your educational and other documents to your company to process INS application on behalf of you. For INS approval, the candidate should have a 16 year graduation or equivalent education with 3 or more years of work experience on a specialized skill. This requirements may varry on occasions and so you should check further online to know if you are a match for this.
5. If INS approves the candidate’s application, he has to face the visa interview in his own country’s US consulate. Sometimes INS may ask for papers before directly approving the applications and if the quota is not yet filled up, INS normally approves the application if all the papers are submitted correctly.
6. The candidate has to go to Simon Centre in Dhaka or other visa scheduling authority to bring the US visa application paper, fill that carefully along with necessary documents and submit it with passport, photos.
7. During visa interview, you are required to convince the US Consulate that you should get visa to work in USA as it has been approved by INS approval department. Despite your all the valid documents, visa officer holds the full right to reject or witheld your application.
8. If you are refused then you may try again sometime later although the probability of getting visa next time is no better than the first time.
9. If you are approved, you are done - just buy air ticket and come to USA after scheduling the joining date with youremployer.
10. If your application is sent for security background check, keep waiting for a response phone until you hear back positive (or in worse case negative). The wait time may vary from 2 weeks to 1 month to 3 months to 6 months to never….

(To be continued)

In Silicon Valley, the local Bangladeshi Engineers are an enterprising lot. Their desire to do something to “help” Bangladesh, when combined with the can-do attitude of Silicon Valley, results in bold projects every now and then. This includes the now-defunct Bangladesh ICT Business Center (BIBC) and the ambitious Silicon Bangla IT conference held in 2000. These were started with good intentions, required a lot of voluntary time from a lot of American-Bangladeshi Technologists, and provided some interesting learning experiences for all concerned.

One of the interesting learning experiences was about “helping” Bangladesh. As accomplished or rising professionals in the US, the Technologists have this pre-conceived notion that we can help Bangladesh. But the question is how exactly can the country benefit from our efforts. And more importantly, do the persons we are trying to help, want to be helped?

The easiest way to help Bangladesh is to send money for some charitable project. But there are lots and lots of NGOs and other charitable projects doing this, and this does not leverage our know-how. There’s nothing tapping our expertise in this method of assistance. So we look for other more fruitful avenues.

The next level is sending technical books and magazines or even computers. This again is very close to charity.

Technology transfer is what excites most Bangladeshi Technologists. Question is how best to do that? Is it education for students in Universities in Bangladesh or is it technology transfer to High Tech businesses in Bangladesh? The SBIT and BIBC efforts focused on the latter. But there were some interesting bridge-building experiences found during these efforts.

The Bangladeshi businessman and students for that matter now have access to all the information in the world, thanks to the world-wide web and also the personal connections of each entrepreneur. So when the American Bangladeshi Technologists start giving patronizing advice and suggestions, it actually turns off the recipient and results in a not-so-great experience for all. What works better is a relationship of mutual respect, where US-based technologists are learning about the business entrepreneurship skills from the BD entrepreneurs while at the same time providing some technology guidance on latest and greatest techniques. The term ‘help’ itself can be interpreted as patronizing by certain individuals. What we need to understand is the enormous amount of constraints that the Bangladeshi entrepreneurs have to work through, and the fact that they thrive despite all of this is a definite cause for admiration.

The flip side of this is that we shouldn’t get frustrated with all the constraints and problems. After all, as technologists we have been trained to solve problems. And what better place than Bangladesh for a problems-solver to practice his or her skills? Plus what Silicon Valley teaches us is perseverance - starts-up die, but from the ashes of those rise new companies. The persistent challenges in Bangladesh require equally perservering efforts to solve them.

So if one approach fails, we try another one. Since BIBC failed, a lot of the Technologists are working directly with Bangladeshi companies. Quite a few have opened up their own companies in Bangladesh. Since these technologists are now finding the dearth of qualified professionals in Bangladesh they are trying to start online education/seminar type activities for technology transfer to the next generation students. There is a lot to do, but what is needed is a positive constructive attitude towards ‘helping’ Bangladesh.

At a certain stage of the career of an Engineer or a technologist, there is an urge to branch out, try something different, check if the grass is greener on the other side. Maybe it’s mid-life crisis, or maybe it’s career stagnation. But to get over the career hump, a big step is needed, an expensive step - which is entry into the life of four quadrants - the illusive world of business management - MBAs.

It has been told, for MBAs to be truly worthwhile, one needs to go to a brand-name school. This means allocating six-figure amounts for tution and other expenses. Sometimes engineers can get lucky and get their company to pay for a major portion of this. But not everyone is that lucky….

The other thing mentioned about MBAs is the networking aspect. A full-time MBA is more fruitful in that respect. With a part-time MBA, one can only build so many contacts, not close to the quantity and the bond developed in a full-time immersion program. But the opportunity cost of giving up a job to pursue a full-time MBA option can be quite expensive. A difficult pros and cons analysis must be undertaken before choosing the option appropriate for a particular candidate’s circumstances.

All in all, it seems MBAs are very worthwhile if the engineering career is getting stagnant and someone wants to make a total career switch into marketing, finance or consulting. But to give a salary bump in the existing engineering career, an engineer should think through about their circumstances. Will the degree and the coursework they are pursuing, help their company evaluate the candidate as a potential manager? Does it show drive, or does it mean for 2-3 years the candidate will be so tired that work gets affected and the career opportunities in the current company will actually suffer?

These are some thoughts on MBAs for engineers. I would urge our wise readers to comment with their guidance for young Bangladeshi Engineers, specially since it becomes very important at a certain stage in their career.

Welcome to the next generation of the AABEA website. We are working on adding exciting and useful content to help the American Bangladeshi Technology Professionals, Engineers and Architects. Please stay tuned.